Cal wrote:I do think thematically as well as in terms of gameplay, Western Developers, led by the likes of Bungie, Epic and Valve, have simply matured the videogames market into a much more 'relevant' entertainment sector for Western audiences - hence the year-on-year growth of our gaming sectors against the relative decline of the once mighty Japanese developers.
Yeah, I agree. I think over the past five years, perhaps even further back than that, western developers have stopped taking cues from their Japanese counterparts and have retuned their games to a more appropriate mentality - attracting more consumers to western games in the process. It's telling that western-centric games are actually one of the fastest-growing areas of the Japanese market currently. It's little wonder eastern developers are so worried.
And yes: Nintendo are untouchable. That's a given.
It's bizarre. I can't think of another developer that's been so successful appealing to both eastern and western gamers - though admittedly its core output in recent years hasn't quite had the impact its titles in this area used to. And perhaps that's partly down to the rise of the western developer. For some, Nintendo's games aren't mature enough any more. Part of it is undoubtedly down to the core gamer demographic changing - those who loved SNES and N64 games back in the day are now looking for something a little different, something which skews a little older, and that's part of why the western industry is thriving at the moment. That said, the increase of development costs is likely to affect the west more than the east in the current climate...it's interesting times for the medium at the moment.