Later; at Nintendo, he was a leading force while the firm conceived and marketed its very successful VS System. And, he says today, the VS experience demonstrated some important truths for the industry.

"People made money on VS," Bill recalled. "With 65,000 units sold, they had to. But the technology only lasts so long. And you have to make a major investment of money, time and energy to bring that successful concept to the next level."

Obviously, the folks at Capcom feel they've made that investment. "It's taken Capcom a year and a half to get where we are today with CPS, pushing and pushing and pushing," Cravens said. "Mr. Tsujimoto is not taking any money out, he just plows it back in. What we've committed to R & D is absolutely incredible. But our commitment has paid

off. The people who were the biggest critics at first, now are starting to see that it makes sense."

The economics of a good system, Cravens says, are irresistible. "In Japan today, operators are only running system games, because it makes sense in terms of ROI," he asserted. "Taito, SNK, all of them have their own systems. Well, the case for a good system is equally compelling here in the U.S."

Capcom's latest CPS title is Mercs. A three-player, wide-bib game, it's being sold in dedicated format "and we'll have a couple of others in that format, only because the game requires a unique cabinet that doesn't go well into kits," Cravens stated. "People still get $500 off, even if they're trading in Forgotten World."

Once the boards are traded in,

Above: the October 1989 addition to the growing Capcom plant in Osaka. Below: Capcom USA's headquarters on Scott Road in Santa Clara, Calif.

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the bottom boards go back to Japan, are run through the shop and then brought out again with new games on them. The "shop" is a state-of-the art facility in Osaka. How high is the quality? Let's just say that Capcom also does work for IBM and Panasonic.

"Our Osaka plant is a manufacturing Never-Never Land," Bill smiled. "It's so clean they won't even let you walk in there with your shoes on. They have a 3D microscope so they can check for solder. They have gadgets most people wouldn't even have names for. It's like they were building heart and lung machines."

While Capcom enjoys their sweet success of early 1990, they're already planning for additional triumphs in the months and years to come. Future CPS games are already in development or on test. One, called Magic Sword, will offer 50 levels of gameplay. It's testing extremely well in Japan. Another forthcoming CPS title, called MegoTwins, is also expected to rise on the U.S. charts.

And this fall, Capcom hopes to pull the curtains off a video game