The state of Japanese gaming

[evil_ash_xero]

I've been reading a lot about how Japanese companies are being outsold, by a large degree, by their Western competitors. I know that the Japanese are well aware of it and have been trying to work their way back in, by appealing to the Western mass.

Resonance Of Fate certainly had much more Western designs than usual. I've read that the latest FF did as well. Demon's Souls could have very well been a U.S. game(I don't think this was intentional though). Dead Rising was obviously Capcom going for American audiences(and got them).

Some stuff at the E3 was obviously trying to tap into what Western gamers want(Vanquish).

I don't really want to talk about "creativity" here, i'm just curious as to how this is helping or hurting their sales. Any other games coming up that are really Western influenced? It seems like Capcom is doing the best so far at reaching Western audiences.

Funny how Nintendo, with their Universal cartoon style are completely unaffected by the changing of trends.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Demon's Souls could have very well been a U.S. game(I don't think this was intentional though).

Oh, yeah? Which one? I haven't played it, but what I saw gives away rather continental European vibe. In fact, reminds me of Gothic (although Gothic wasn't a dungeon crawler at all).

[evil_ash_xero]

Demon's Souls could have very well been a U.S. game(I don't think this was intentional though).

Oh, yeah? Which one? I haven't played it, but what I saw gives away rather continental European vibe. In fact, reminds me of Gothic (although Gothic wasn't a dungeon crawler at all).

Well, it looks European, in setting yeah. But there's a lot of U.S. RPGs that use that setting. We love our knights here.

[Rob]

It seems like Capcom is doing the best so far at reaching Western audiences.

So far, you mean, as they've done since the 1980s?

[Obiwanshinobi]

Japanese like knights too (at least since Dragon Quest). I just can't think of a US game with similar, um, atmosphere (although I haven't played that many ancient cRPGs). By the way, From Software have been making dungeon crawlers with such "western" feel for quite a while. Namely King's Field and Shadow Tower.

[GaijinPunch]

The problems is the Japanese economy in general (not just games) is in complete and utter shambles. I was talking to someone recently about how impotent they are to change just about anything... business, law, you name it. The only major laws I've witnessed change in 10 years are the prohibition of magic mushrooms (yes, they were legal) and telephone clubs since they were a front to prostitution and I'm pretty sure the government wants their cut of all dick sucking funds. It really is laughable, but sucks if you live here b/c it's such a disaster. Long story short the games business is just as exposed as any other business. And right now, that's bad for the little guy.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Feel free to prove me wrong, but didn't the golden age of j-videogaming fall on the most economically fucked up period since the world war II? Early nineties weren't exactly better than the eighties over there from what I know.
And yet it's now when they don't seem to know what to do with those high-tech consoles.

[GaijinPunch]

Feel free to prove me wrong, but didn't the golden age of j-videogaming fall on the most economically fucked up period since the world war II? Early nineties weren't exactly better than the eighties over there from what I know.
And yet it's now when they don't seem to know what to do with those high-tech consoles.

Hard to say. The golden age of J-Video gaming is considered the late 80's by some and is definitely the most astronomically crazy economical time of almost any recent economy. Economically, any Japanese would take the late 80's over the early 90's... by 93 or so, I think they figured out it was the beginning of the end.

But there's a lot of other factors. For starters, the games business wasn't some collosal fist fuck of synergy and lameness. Well through the 90s I believe those old game companies (Sega, Capcom, Konami) still had the mentality of "let the developers make whatever they want". Plenty of developers have gone on record saying that. I'd still say the industry as a whole was far from a nitche, but I imagine most game companies back then operated on much less expense than they do today, making them a bit more recession-proof. Tatsuya Uemura from Toaplan gives his thoughts on the bubble, as Toaplan rose to fame during the height of the Japanese economy. He basically states the games industry is slightly skewed from the rest, which is why it took a few years for Toaplan to bite the dust. Maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong.

So on that note, there's a lot of companies that changed form in the mid-90's (Data East) or just flat out went titsup (Toaplan, amongst countless others).

Games are now mainstream. Big money. There's no if's, and's, or but's about it.

Now, all that set aside: I don't think the lack of stellar stuff coming out of Japan is necessarily b/c the market sucks. I was, in not so many words, trying to illustrate that Japanese "industry" (or should I say organizations) are all in the shitter b/c they all operate more or less the same. Rarely welcoming change, often living in their old world, etc... not necessarily b/c the economy is dragging them down (although that certainly doesn't help).

[neorichieb1971]

I'm not sure about them not "welcoming change". Diversity seemed to be in Japans blood. Would Sony make Jumping Flash today? I don't think so.

As for gaming costs for development. I would work on the basis that if you make a simple game, it might make simple sales.. But still the ratio of profit would be the same. It is those companies who want "God of War" "Gears of War" success that are fucking themselves by trying to pour $30m into a game and then watch it flop.

Simple games = Simple sales = Great diversity and freedom of choice.

Shall we just blame share holders? I blame them for virtually everything.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

The state of Japanese gaming in one sentence: "let's do the same shit the gaijin are doing."

[Jockel]

The state of Japanese gaming in one sentence: "let's do the same shit the gaijin are doing."

[Skykid]

The state of Japanese gaming in one sentence: "let's do the same shit the gaijin are doing."

It's absolutely true but we're talking about business here. If the industry is running away with itself and western developers are swimming in gold and taking home a million bucks in bonuses, there's no sense in not imitating what they do.

In fact, Japan has always been about imitation for as long as I can remember, especially in Anime through the 80's and 90's - but because they were selling primarily to domestic audiences, the commercial output was still incredibly creative and culturally Japanese.

Resonance of Fate turned me off about three minutes in when I realised all the character designs were the same ugly, andrgynous, white people with asian hair that seem to crop up in most of the attempts to cross the border with new IP's.

It's a sorry state of affairs, but with the western market a raging money behemoth, one that's going to persist for a long while.

My answer to the problem? Play retro.

EDIT: Once in a while though:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32026

[Obiwanshinobi]

You can't blame those recent ham-handed efforts alone for the crisis of the Japanese "big" games development. As for jRPGs, they peaked on the SNES, then started to suck on the PlayStation. The PS2 era brought along major flogging of the dying jRPG horse. Now the genre is pretty much dead in the water. There's still demand, so they try to milk it a bit more every now and then, but don't seem to have faith in the genre anymore. Just look at most PS2 jRPGs - creepy.
Every new gen should be about making games that wouldn't be possible with the last gen technology. At least to an extent. If you don't have ANY fresh ideas, recycling of the old ones won't get you very far. You can try to escape into another generation of hardware, but what you really need is the ideas how to use it.

[GaijinPunch]

I'm not sure about them not "welcoming change". Diversity seemed to be in Japans blood. Would Sony make Jumping Flash today? I don't think so.

Japan has a saying. "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down". They are so not about diversity and all about conformity it will make you shit yourself. The non-Japanese population is about 1.5%. Not sure if they count descendants of sex slaves as Japanese or not. CIT might now.

Simple games = Simple sales = Great diversity and freedom of choice.

Yes, but it would be nice to have the fresh ideas not just be 900 yen download games that someone made in a week. I don't mind cheap small games, but I feel my personal unit is a waste of resources.

[ryu]

Definitely a tough subject to have an insightful opinion on. Who really hasn't thought there was something wrong with modern gaming, but actually understood why?

I'd like to say 'Maybe we're just a bunch of ungrateful bitches, bawing at everything that isn't like we had it when we were kids', but I can't help to think the market having gotten bigger and more open to the mainstream does have something to do with it.

Just think about all the big franchises from the past having spawned (partly bad or awful) sequels with obvious flaws (Rockman X7, X8, Zelda TP+DS games, Silent Hill 4,5, Resident Evil 5, Smash bros. Brawl, Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 2&3). Also lolis everywhere.

Why did this never happen in the ninetees or earlier, because hardware didn't allow developers to make any significant changes to their franchises that could have fucked it all up? Who knows, I don't.

[Lordstar]

I had a friend of mine who worked at capcom JP who would agree with Gaijin punch. They do fins change dificult maybe more of a case is they are scared to change too much or they just dont know how to rather than out and out refusing to change.

Why did this never happen in the ninetees or earlier, because hardware didn't allow developers to make any significant changes to their franchises that could have fucked it all up? Who knows, I don't.

I dont think it has anything to do with hardware. hardware is the platform or base to place what you have made, a tool to exicute your ideas. If anything newer more up to date hardware would give you more freedom. This does not proove anything either way though I just think new hardware (your PSX and your saturn and then later the PS2 to the DC and now the PS3 360)

[Blade]

As an Otaku, myself, I think so long as sites like this exist, there will come a reckoning where Japanese games make a comeback. Even if they aren't as great as the originals were, that can change in time.

[ROBOTRON]

The videogame industry in my opinion is self destructive...Japan or otherwise.

Having lived through the devastating videogame crash in the 80's one would think they learned a lesson. With the new technology in hardware and software inventive minds came out with so much great stuff it was crazy...now the industry has gotten lazy again. You go out to Gamestop or any other game outlet and what do you see?

27,852,736,864,018,634 kinds of first person shooters, 238,796,958,312 RPG/action games, 120 sports titles, 40 racing games 9 fighting games and 1 shmup.

Thats it.

With all the f*cking new hardware and motion controlled environmental terra byte hardrive bullsh*t...thats all the industry can come up with. They are stuck on stupid. I'm about ready for them to dig a hole in the desert and bury the whole sha-bang like they did with the atari 2600 ET cartridges.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Ah yes, it's been said that Atari Corp. made more copies of the 2600 game of E.T. than said number of 2600 consoles sold. So somewhere out there in the Arizona desert, is a smashed-up pile of them E.T. games. Atari had so much $$$ to burn and they did so back in the early 1980s. It was cool to go on a treasure hunt to scoop out some cheap-ass gaming deals during the "Great Video Game Crash of 1983-1984" meltdown. One toy retailer was selling brand new Vectrex gaming consoles for a mere $49.99 USD back in September of 1984 (the usual MSRP was at $199.99 USD for a new Vectrex back in 1982). Took advantage of it and walked away with a new Vectrex. Brand new Vectrex games were selling for five bucks a pop during that era.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[louisg]

27,852,736,864,018,634 kinds of first person shooters, 238,796,958,312 RPG/action games, 120 sports titles, 40 racing games 9 fighting games and 1 shmup.

Thats it.

This was also true in the late 80s with the NES: there were other genres if you dug for them, but most peoples' collections were 99% action/adventure platformers (like Castlevania, Mega-Man, Ninja Gaiden, Blaster Master, etc etc). It's amazing that Nintendo didn't make Tetris into a platformer. All the diversity was on home computers at that time, or in niche games, IMO.

[E. Randy Dupre]

27,852,736,864,018,634 kinds of first person shooters,

Key phrase in that comment? "Kinds of". In other words, they're not all the same thing.

238,796,958,312 RPG/action games

Enlighten me. What exactly is an "action game"? Is it a game that includes action? Could your daft generalisation encompass every single game ever made? Does it not, therefore, completely invalidate your entire point?

[Rob]

As for jRPGs, they peaked on the SNES, then started to suck on the PlayStation.

How is that - in uniformity of battle systems and squat little sprites or just soundtracks? I can't imagine trying to play another one of those games after thread favorite Resonance of Fate. There's more to that game, more originality, than any 16-bit RPG I've played. It could use some improvements, but it's still better than that sacred ancient crap.

[Obiwanshinobi]

As for jRPGs, they peaked on the SNES, then started to suck on the PlayStation.

How is that - in uniformity of battle systems and squat little sprites or just soundtracks? I can't imagine trying to play another one of those games after thread favorite Resonance of Fate. There's more to that game, more originality, than any 16-bit RPG I've played. It could use some improvements, but it's still better than that sacred ancient crap.

Different people seek different things in their jRPGs. I've yet to finish Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, which was a good game, but for some reason I lost the interest somewhere on my way through it. At this point it's hard for me to muster any enthusiasm towards more recent tri-Ace's offerings (I'd rather replay the original Valkyrie Profile). As a matter of fact my favourite last gen jRPGs - Digital Devil Saga 1&2 - are pretty ancient at heart even without sprites and chiptunes. They are ancient jRPGs done RIGHT, though.
Having said that, I still can play through a fairly mediocre one if I find it charming in a way, like Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure recently.
As long as developers had faith in the medium (that you can tell grand fairly tales with those chiptunes, sprites and backgrounds), there was some kind of "sparkle" (for the lack of less hackneyed word) to be found in jRPGs which you can't just replace with inflated character models and voice acting and get away with it. Even utterly horrible Xenogears had this factor (it's an awful game, make no mistake, but not a soulless one).

[ROBOTRON]

Enlighten me. What exactly is an "action game"? Is it a game that includes action? Could your daft generalisation encompass every single game ever made? Does it not, therefore, completely invalidate your entire point?

generalisation???

i don't know what that word means so i'm afraid your entire post is invalid.

[Ruldra]

I've yet to finish Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, which was a good game, but for some reason I lost the interest somewhere on my way through it.

The first 3 chapters are a bit slow but the game gets way better afterwards...just a FYI. If you're past that then nevermind.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Oh, I do intend to finish VP2 at some point.

[E. Randy Dupre]

Enlighten me. What exactly is an "action game"? Is it a game that includes action? Could your daft generalisation encompass every single game ever made? Does it not, therefore, completely invalidate your entire point?

generalisation???

i don't know what that word means so i'm afraid your entire post is invalid.

Wait, so because you don't understand the meaning of a certain word and are apparently incapable of using Google, you believe my post is void?

Wow. Those are some awesome debating skills you've got right there.

[Elixir]

Even utterly horrible Xenogears had this factor (it's an awful game, make no mistake, but not a soulless one).

Why troll.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Do you have the courage to play right throuh Xenogears and face the truth about this game?

[Skykid]

Do you have the courage to play right throuh Xenogears and face the truth about this game?

Man, you're a serious game hater.