His father, who had to enter the workforce early and drop out of high school to support his family, beat him almost daily.

[6] After failing entrance exams two years straight, Mikami enrolled into and graduated from Doshisha University,[4] where he majored in the study of merchandise.

I went mainly because I wanted to eat at the Hilton for free, but once I started talking to Capcom people, really getting in depth about the work they do, I thought it sounded pretty neat.

[6] His three subsequent releases were all based on Disney-licensed properties:[6] Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the Game Boy, and Aladdin and Goof Troop for the Super NES.

[citation needed] Mikami learned by observing his seniors; whenever he showed them his game design documents, they called his work "uninteresting" without giving any advice.

[7] After the release of Goof Troop, Mikami began development in 1993 of a horror-themed adventure game for the PlayStation set in a haunted mansion, called Resident Evil,[10] originally conceived as a remake of Sweet Home (an earlier Famicom game by Capcom based on the Japanese horror film of the same name).

[11] Sweet Home director Fujiwara entrusted Mikami, who was initially reluctant because he hated "being scared", with the project, because he "understood what's frightening.

[13] The game was retitled Resident Evil during its English localization under Capcom USA's suggestion and was released in Japan and North America on March 22, 1996, and became one of the PlayStation's first successful titles.

[15] Resident Evil was considered the defining title for survival horror games and was responsible for popularizing the genre.

Its control scheme becoming a staple of the genre, and future titles would imitate its challenge of rationing highly limited resources and items.

The staff behind Resident Evil became Capcom Production Studio 4, with Mikami appointed as its general manager, changing his focus towards being a producer.

He considers the eight years spent in this position as the nadir of his career: he could not spend all his time on creative aspects and felt that he missed out on the best phase of his life.

[7] In his new role, he oversaw the development of Resident Evil's sequel, Resident Evil 2, which he intended to tap into the classic notion of horror as "the ordinary made strange," thus rather than setting the game in a creepy mansion no one would visit, he wanted to use familiar urban settings transformed by the chaos of a viral outbreak.

Being a much more powerful console than the PlayStation, the Dreamcast allowed the team behind the game to add for the first time, 3D environments instead of the usual pre-rendered backgrounds.

[23] In 2001, in what was to be one of his most controversial business decisions, Mikami formed an exclusivity agreement with Nintendo in which the main Resident Evil games would be sold only for the GameCube.

[39] It helped redefine the third-person shooter genre by introducing a "reliance on offset camera angles that fail to obscure the action.

"[40] The "over the shoulder" viewpoint introduced in Resident Evil 4 has now become standard in third-person shooters, including titles ranging from Gears of War to Batman: Arkham Asylum.

[37] It has also become a standard “precision aim” feature for action games in general, with examples ranging from Dead Space and Grand Theft Auto to the Ratchet & Clank Future series, Uncharted, The Last of Us, and God of War.

[43] After the success of Resident Evil 4, Mikami left Studio 4 and was transferred over to and originally established Clover Studio in July 2004, which employed an all-star lineup of Capcom development talent, including Atsushi Inaba (Steel Battalion and Viewtiful Joe producer), and Hideki Kamiya (Devil May Cry director).

At Clover, Mikami directed God Hand, a beat 'em up comedy game that parodies American and Japanese pop culture.

He also collaborated with Grasshopper Manufacture's Goichi Suda on Shadows of the Damned using the Unreal Engine 3 and published by EA.

He considers his final year at the company as the second worst nadir of his career: Once Vanquish was done, his team was disbanded, and he was not given any work besides attending meetings three times a week, effectively stuck in a madogiwa zoku [ja] position.

[59] Mikami commented he planned to leave Tango Gameworks 8 years prior, deciding to stay at the company due to commitments with ongoing projects.

As for personal reasons to leave, he comments a desire to create an environment for young developers to gain experience, and to distance himself from the survivor horror genre, which he is frequently associated with.