Ōkamiden was initially a fan-made project

It has come to light that a group of fans within Capcom were responsible for the Ōkami sequel

The birth of Ōkamiden may not be quite what you expect. It was intially a fan project, developed by several Capcom employees. The group, keen fans of the original Ōkami, independently developed a basic demo of the game that would become Ōkamiden in their free time. Once at a satisfactory stage, the demo was shown to Motohide Eshiro, producer of the Phoenix Wright spin off, Ace Attorney Investigations.

"What in the?" said Eshiro in much surprise upon playing the demo. "Isnt that white dog, no, white wolf, Ōkami, running around?" With the help of Mr. Eshiro, the project became an official Capcom development for the DS.

Source: Siliconera