[9] The first two titles Inafune worked on at Capcom was Mega Man (known in Japan as "Rockman") for the Famicom and the original Street Fighter for arcades, both of which were released in 1987.

After that, the pixel art was handed over to artist Inafune, who created a refined illustration of the character.

[9][3][2] Inafune refers to this process as "like a reverse character design" as it is the opposite of what typically occurs, where artists create concept art which is then translated into game's graphics.

"[3]The first Mega Man game was released in December 1987, after which sales in both countries were decent, but as Inafune later notes, "While it did sell more than we had expected, [Rockman 1] wasn't a huge success as far as the numbers go.

"[citation needed] Akira Kitamura suggested to create a contest to solicit designs from fans for Robot Masters for Mega Man games.

Inafune concluded, "I knew that if we had more time to polish it, we could do a lot of things better, make it a better game, but the company (Capcom) said that we needed to release it.

"[16] Inafune also designed the original boss characters for the Mega Man titles on the Game Boy.

Back when the SNES was coming out, I was asked to give Mega Man a redesign, so I created this character.

[citation needed] Although he envisioned high sales and was an ambitious supporter to the development of the game, it was not a massive success and Inafune likens it to a "clumsy son".

[3] Inafune says it was quite difficult to promote the game, as there was little media interest in yet another Mega Man title.

[21] Inafune was a promotion producer for Resident Evil 2, which in contrast to Mega Man Legends, had huge interest and was an easy game to sell.

"[22] Instead, he became co-producer for the new Mega Man game that Inti Creates had been commissioned to develop, and requested that they make Zero the main character.

Dead Rising, initially started as a sequel to Shadow of Rome, with the same team members, before changing story, setting, and time period.

The game was developed by Inti-Creates along with Capcom, and Inafune contributed two designs for the project: Splash Woman and Plug Man.

In addition, he made his director debut in the short film series Zombrex: Dead Rising Sun.

[32] Producer Yoshinori Ono pitched Street Fighter IV to Inafune, who was head of R&D at the time.

[32][33] Inafune approved the project, due to the positive reception to Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting on Xbox Live Arcade and fans interest.

Unless Japanese people feel embarrassed from the experience of getting harsh comments, saying [new games] could have been better is not an opinion they would take seriously.

Set for a release on the 3DS console, it was a pirate themed game starring loosely based on Journey to the West.

In the 2011 game Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2, a scanned image of Inafune himself makes an appearance as a summon for the main character Nepgear during a special attack.

Comcept was a co-developer along with Idea Factory on the otome game Sweet Fuse: At Your Side.

Inafune appears in the game with his likeness and name, with his kidnapping serving as a plot device.

[46] Inafune says poor timing is to blame for the sales, as players were transitioning to the PlayStation 4 console, and defends the title saying it had good gameplay.

[46] On August 31, 2013, Inafune started a Kickstarter project for a game Comcept and Inti-Creates were working on that is a spiritual successor to Mega Man series, known as Mighty No.

Speaking through his agent and translator Judd, Inafune said: "You know, I want to word this in a way to explain some of the issues that come with trying to make a game of this size on multiple platforms."

[52][54] Inafune is an advisor for Inflexion Point Capital, who announced in 2014 that they would be giving out seed investments of 100 to 500 thousand to Japanese mobile developers.

[55][56] At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2015 it was announced the Inafune was working with Armature Studio to make a new video game for the Xbox One called ReCore.

[57] In May 2022, Inafune started an NFT project called Beastroid inspired by the Mega Man series.