According to Gamesotp that a former Capcom employee told GameSpot today that the publisher has closed its US development house Capcom Studio 8, laying off around 20 people in the process.

The studio had recently finished work on Final Fight: Streetwise and "was trying to figure out what to work on next" when the news came, according to GameSpot¡®s source. While Streetwise was critically lambasted upon release, the source said there were no overt indications that the employees¡® jobs and the studio itself were in jeopardy, "aside from a general, vague feeling of ¡®things are going poorly.¡®"

Prior to taking on Streetwise, the studio handled the development of two better-reviewed efforts, the 2002 PlayStation 2 action title Maximo: Ghosts to Glory and its 2004 sequel, Maximo vs. Army of Zin. It seems gamers holding out hope for a third entry in that series can stop carrying the torch. When asked if the layoffs meant the Maximo series was dead and gone, the source said, "Seems like that was already true and is just true moreso now."