They haven't really done anything like that this gen yet, though. If anything, their biggest franchise in the West, RE, has just undergone a major shift away from Western AAA design.
Again, I can't completely rule it out, but the 4chan rumor would have been a lot more plausible 3-5 years ago.
What? First-person horror games have become mainstream in the west with the boom of Let's plays on Youtube and Twitch. This is maybe a major shift away from standard Western AAA design, but not from potential western audience appeal itself.
Capcom is always after the huge western mainstream audience and nothing has changed. Just because they take years to get games out now doesn't mean that still isn't their main goal.
Monster Hunter is a known quantty in the West. 4U shipped a million. Tri did 800k. Pretty sure Generations is on its way to a million. People know what MH is. If they call the PS4 game MHGen2, you think thay would be some huge issues?
That said if they make it mainline it wouldnt matter because spinoff MH doesnt mean low effort. Generations is a spinoff.
Shipping 1 million copies is a known quantity? Dude, they want it at least sell triple that amount here in the west. It's not mainstream at all.