GRcade

After reading this month's Japan column in Edge which attempted to rebut the notion that Japanese gamers only buy (or are interested in) Japanese games. I thought it was interesting and what GR thought of it, it's linked here:

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/2871/japan1m.jpg

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/9875/japan2x.jpg

I think Japanese companies are feeling threatened by Microsoft and the sudden dominance of Western games in the console space outside of Japan, but are reacting to this in the wrong way. I did think Capcom was one of the better companies in that sense, but even they disappointed me recently regarding the withdrawal of development of new IP from their Western partners. They were however polite enough to put it down to "cultural differences".

Back to the article in question, do you agree that the (small) success of Modern Warfare 2 proves that Japanese gamers are less insular than they are accused of? I think that the Square-Enix endorsement is a great factor in the success, and would argue that their name is synonymous with quality in Japan and their backing was bigger than alluded to in the article.

Also this post I made in the Sony Liverpool restructuring thread feels relevant:

Winckle wrote:

suzzopher wrote:

Winckle wrote:Japanese business protects Japanese studios over foreign ones.

strawberry floating disgusting is what it is. I bet if Phil were still in charge of Worldwide studios, Liverpool would have been left alone.

You're absolutely right. Is it just me or is there a sentiment amongst Japanese companies right now to pull back from Western involvement. Take Nintendo giving Metroid to Japanese teams over letting Retro continue.

Or Capcom's statement about incompatible ideals between Eastern and Western development, and thus keeping all IP development to "home studios".

And now Sony closing the (relatively) successful Liverpool studio and letting the GT team have 3D Realms-esque freedom.

I've yet to see any evidence that Retro WANTED to continue making Metroid Prime games.

On the Capcom point, is it not more likely that the choice to pull out of their western development strategy is actually down to the fact the games they've had developed in the West have been absolutely dire and bombed at retail. I'm sure if they'd all done well they wouldn't have gone this route.

It seems that Japanese project management and western development always ends in tears.

Pretty much all of Capcom's western-led projects up to this point have been disastrous, but Dead Rising 2 might be the standard-bearer for their new strategy of launching an IP in-house and only allowing western teams anywhere near their doors once it is established.

At the start of the previous generation Nintendo either owned or had strong working relationships with Rare, Retro, Left Field, Factor 5, NST, and Silicon Knights. And now look where they are.

Polyphony Digital are a bunch of wankers.



And that's all I gotsta say about that.

Can you imagine if a British studio said they'd protect British interests over foreign ones? They'd get crucified.

Agent47 wrote:Can you imagine if a British studio said they'd protect British interests over foreign ones? They'd get crucified.

If the studio they closed produced well liked successful games and they studio they didn't close hadn't released a game in years then they would be rightly criticised.

Also the term you want is publisher, not studio. And the only British publisher that owned overseas assets I can remember is Eidos, before they got bought out by SE. And they had a presence in Montreal.

Geez, pedantic much?

Agent47 wrote:Geez, pedantic much?

What? Sorry to try and discuss something with you.

Just don't see the need to correct a mistake that made no difference to anything, but apologies if I came off a bit confrontational.

Anyway, my point was more that if a British publisher said what Sony said (it was Sony, right?) it'd be lynched for being racist, what with the PC nature of this country.

I play mostly western games, but from the few games from Japan I have played I must say that whole more linear but higher quality games thing doesn't stand up to muster.

I know this may not be a great comparison due to the power of the systems but Jeanne D'Arc on the PSP was a great JRPG but it was just so slow and boring, and there was so much grinding in it I never bothered to finish it. On the other hand a game like Morrowind kept me playing for hundreds of hours, sure there were parts where the monsters were far to hard for me at my level but there was always a potion, or a spell or something that you could do to get around it. The JRPG's are just so linear, I really don't agree with the statement that Japanese games are better the the Western ones just because they're more bug free. It's like comparing a skateboard and a car, they both can move you from one place to the other, but the skateboard is only less likely to break down because it's so simple.

I think the move of porting big franchises that were PC centric to console has had an impact too, I think Robert Ashley's piece "How PC Gaming Ended Up on Your Couch" is a good read for that. Though I don't agree with everything he says.

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3172741

Those are some pretty good points, about the more linear design being a relic of working with limited hardware, and it makes sense as Japan has always seemed more console oriented. Just look at strategy games, there's not a single really deep strategy game that I can think of that's come out of Japan that's on par with something like Civilization, Galactic Civilizations, or the Total War series.

Koei used to do some good ones (romance of the three kingdoms, Nobunaga's Ambition et al) and I suppose someone will argue for Idea Factory's games at a push.

PCCD wrote:Koei used to do some good ones (romance of the three kingdoms, Nobunaga's Ambition et al) and I suppose someone will argue for Idea Factory's games at a push.

Indeed, it is an interesting point that these games did NOT, by and large, make it out of Japan.

I remember a while back being surprised by the amount of small, relatively new, Japanese studios that had appeared to get decent contracts from the big Japanese publishers when it came to DS games. It seems that your distance from the HQ of a big Japanese publisher has more to do with it than your talent. It appears to be a cultural thing, but I reckon it'll just hurt them all in the long run.

I don't think Other M is an example of this, as I was always under the impression Retro wanted to do something new after Corruption. It's being made by the original creator of Metroid, Team Ninja are just hired to do the grunt work.

I've lost count of all the smaller Japanese developers that are 'made up of ex-Square Enix employees'. It's not too surprising that they end up as devs for hire considering their contacts.

It was interesting to read of Nippon Ichi saying they are focusing on the PS3. They don't seem to have heard of the 360.

It's as if many Japanese companies are happy to be big players in Japan but totally ignore the Western market and thus ignore some great revenue opportunities at the same time.

Trebell wrote:It was interesting to read of Nippon Ichi saying they are focusing on the PS3. They don't seem to have heard of the 360.

It's as if many Japanese companies are happy to be big players in Japan but totally ignore the Western market and thus ignore some great revenue opportunities at the same time.

I don't know about that.

A lot of Japanese publishers are depending on western sales to make make their money back. Even something as explicitly Japanese as Tatsunoko vs Capcom has done better in the US than Japan.

I wouldn't be surprised if western sales of FFXIII eclipse the Japanese numbers.

Capcom saw the writing on the wall and now they seem to make nothing but big, ballsy action games with western protagonists.

Oxx wrote:

Trebell wrote:It was interesting to read of Nippon Ichi saying they are focusing on the PS3. They don't seem to have heard of the 360.

It's as if many Japanese companies are happy to be big players in Japan but totally ignore the Western market and thus ignore some great revenue opportunities at the same time.

I don't know about that.

A lot of Japanese publishers are depending on western sales to make make their money back. Even something as explicitly Japanese as Tatsunoko vs Capcom has done better in the US than Japan.

I wouldn't be surprised if western sales of FFXIII eclipse the Japanese numbers.

Capcom saw the writing on the wall and now they seem to make nothing but big, ballsy action games with western protagonists.

True that some have but seems lots haven't.

having said that, plenty of Western devs seem to focus on their own market too. Maybe it's a case of sticking to what they know.