"Japan used to rule video games, so what happened?"

[Infinitron]

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/20/5522320/final-fight-can-japans-gaming-industry-be-saved

Excerpt:

What happened to Japan?

James Mielke, a game developer and former video game journalist who started BitSummit after working in Japan, puts the decline down to a number of reasons, including the shift from arcade hardware to more powerful consoles like the Xbox. "Sega was able to make their games on the most powerful graphics hardware available, but then arcades started dying down and people started playing less in arcades and started playing at home because the consoles were getting stronger," he says. "So when the Xbox came out with distinctly PC architecture, all these Western developers who were used to developing for PC suddenly had this uniform platform."

As Western studios like Halo creator Bungie grew more adept at producing high-budget games on high-powered console hardware, Japanese developers struggled to adapt to the last generation; the Xbox 360 failed to make a dent in the country and the PlayStation 3’s inscrutable Cell processor proved difficult to unlock. "Japanese game development is not especially optimal," says Mielke. "They’re lacking certain disciplines and they’re just not super efficient. Western developers were just very comfortable in the environment."

Meanwhile, Japanese consumers remained reluctant to buy into new consoles altogether, with the notable exception of Nintendo’s inexpensive, accessible DS and Wii. The software libraries for both Nintendo systems were far more expansive in Japan than in the West, with developers eager to capitalize on Nintendo’s unique hardware and broader demographic. But while this led to a wealth of innovative Japanese software, few titles were big hits and fewer still made it out of the country. The PSP was another success story in Japan, cementing the country’s preference for portable games, but that was driven by the huge popularity of Capcom’s Monster Hunter franchise, which never caught on in the West. "On the portable side, Japan is the healthiest market in the world, and there are lots of consumers playing games on portable devices because they use it on the train," says Shu Yoshida, president of Sony Worldwide Studios. "So the divided attention from publishers delayed the ramp-up of the PS3 generation compared to the US and Europe."

Tastes changed, too. Mark MacDonald, executive director at Tokyo localization company 8-4, says the industry’s prevailing shift in tone from fantasy worlds to gritty warfare has seen the rest of the world leave Japan behind. "First-person shooters rely on realism, but a lot of Japanese game design comes from a imaginative aesthetic where it’s not just going for straight realism. But that [realism] was kind of what people started to want."

Western games have never been popular in Japan, and as the rise of the console FPS further alienated Japanese consumers, local developers prioritized their home market even more than in the past. "I think most Japanese publishers and developers have realized that, instead of trying to mimic what's popular outside Japan, they should make what they understand culturally and what they can do best," says Yoshida. This is sensible, of course, and can even lead to unpredictable Western successes like From Software’s unforgiving action RPGs Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls. But it’s a vicious circle — Western games grow more and more removed from Japanese consumer tastes, so Japanese companies serve their home market by stopping any attempt to appeal to the rest of the world, and Japan’s global influence continues to decline.

As the spiritual home of video games, Japan was once the biggest source of the industry’s more far-out concepts, from the pill-popping Pac-Man to the hip-hop dog Parappa the Rapper. The PlayStation 2 in particular played host to a treasure trove of innovative Japanese games, many of which became breakout hits like Shadow of the Colossus and Katamari Damacy. But it’s hard to imagine those on store shelves today. With the cost of development rising and Japan’s triple-A studios unwilling to take major risks, the unbridled diversity of the country’s output isn’t what it once was. That’s not a problem unique to Japan; EA, Ubisoft, and Activision’s relentless drive to make their franchises an annual event is one of the less positive trends of recent years. The West has a secret weapon, though — indie games.

Indie games are one of the best reasons to buy a game console these days. As the first generation of consoles with built-in internet connectivity and storage across the board, the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii offered a unique opportunity for developers. For the first time, independent creators had a path to get their games published on consoles for a low price without overheads or retail distribution. And it worked — games like Braid and Journey became not only some of the most innovative titles on their platforms, but some of the most popular.

But Japan hasn’t kept up. Although Sony and Microsoft are courting indie games as major selling points for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, there’s almost no Japanese presence so far. It might mystify the many people who count Daisuke Amaya’s seminal Cave Story among the first indie games they ever played, but Japan’s independent scene is nowhere near as advanced as that of the West.

One reason is the relative lack of adoption of digital downloads and other online services in Japan. "Online multiplayer games are way more popular outside Japan, so that doesn't help," says Yoshida. "And the lack of smaller Japanese-developed games doesn’t create the habit in people to visit the PSN store every Tuesday, for example." And, as anyone who’s been to electronics meccas like Akihabara knows, there’s still a strong tradition of building up a physical games collection, and used games in particular remain popular in a country where rentals are banned.

"It’s not like Japanese users can’t get used to downloading games," says Inafune. "It’s sort of a chicken-and-egg problem — will people get used to downloading games because there are good indie games, or will indie-game developers make more games because people are downloading? So I think that if you put the effort in and if you make good indie games, then the users will follow." Yoshida says that Sony is doing its part to support the take-up of digital downloads in Japan by offering three free months of PlayStation Plus with each PS4, as well as a promotion where users can get ¥1000 (about $10) of free store credit by trialling various services.

But another big reason the games aren’t there yet is the country’s notorious work culture. There’s a lot of pressure in Japan to find a long-term job straight out of college, as many companies tend to pick new graduates for the vast majority of their hires; it’s a problem that’s affected Japan’s startup scene as well. "People in Japan are very conservative in choosing where to work," says Yoshida. "So, even if you are young and talented and have some great ideas to make games, when you say, ‘I'm going to start up my own company,’ your parents will say, ‘Why are you doing this? Work for a great company!’"

 

[Excidium]

raw news

 

[Athelas]

"So when the Xbox came out with distinctly PC architecture, all these Western developers who were used to developing for PC suddenly had this uniform platform."

Yeah, thanks for reminding us.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Japan's indie scene is nowhere near advanced as the west?



Also, japan's influence in the industry hasn't shrunk at all, it just hasn't ballooned to encompass all the people that don't actually like video games the way it has in the west. It's still serving the same collection of niche groups it was 25 years ago, which is why they still have fucking turn based games and games with palettes other than brown and blurry brown.

 

[DalekFlay]

Xbox done fucked it up for everybody!

 

[DeepOcean]

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/20/5522320/final-fight-can-japans-gaming-industry-be-saved

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/20/5522320/final-fight-can-japans-gaming-industry-be-saved

So many excuses for the lack of japanese dudebros.

 

[Hellraiser]

"Japan used to rule video games"

 

[Dexter]

"On the portable side, Japan is the healthiest market in the world, and there are lots of consumers playing games on portable devices because they use it on the train," says Shu Yoshida, president of Sony Worldwide Studios. "So the divided attention from publishers delayed the ramp-up of the PS3 generation compared to the US and Europe."

http://live.wsj.com/video/on-vacation-with-a-virtual-girlfriend/77E0EACD-0B57-49DD-876A-5FF74EFF0781.html

 

[Erzherzog]

Japan xenophobic about foreign anything, news at 11.

 

[Gozma]

Well the point where Japan took the lead on videogames was the point where US finance obliterated its industry with a catastrophic bubble.

 

[Martius]

Capcom is good example. Some companies just stopped sticking to their guns.

 

[DeepOcean]

There were always a huge gap between the japanese market and the western market, it was that way until Microsoft came with its huge coffers, it knew that it couldn't be more animu than Sony so they decided to buttrape the PC market with the Xbox and used the old PC developers to bring the dudebros along.

When Microsoft came to the console market, any PC developer that didn't get along with it would be marginalized. No publisher wanted to fund a project that wouldn't be able to have access to the sweet Microsoft money. Halo (Bungie, ex PC developer) introduced the regenerative health on a large scale, Gears of war (Epic, ex PC developer) introduced cover shooting , Kotor (Bioware, ex PC developer) and Oblivion (Bethesda, ex PC developers) determined how RPGs would be in the future, whole genres were left without funding because they didn't worked on the xbox. Troika, Looking Glass and others failed to do the Microsoft transition and died.

What happened was that the japanese companies didn't moved fast enough to get the "I wanna larp playing a movie." crowd, mainly because they didn't had a huge company showering them with free money to get that. Microsoft bet on graphics and shallow spectacle to ge the TV and beer crowd while the japanese tried to please people that liked video games. Sony understood what Mircrosoft was trying to do and invested on graphics and shallow spectacle as well, it then told the japanese developers to adapt or commit seppuku because it wasn't interested on the old games anymore as it wanted to compete for the market Microsoft created as it appeared to be way bigger. The japanese developers are just experimenting now what the PC did years back, death by cinematic gamming.

 

[Infinitron]

"Japan used to rule video games"

Don't laugh: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_gaming_in_Japan

In 2002, the Japanese video game industry made up about 50% of the global market; that share has since shrunk to around 10% by 2010.

Even in the "Golden Age of PC Gaming", Nintendo and the Playstation were king. Of course, Europeans (especially Eastern Europeans) didn't really feel this.

(Back then many people didn't even call PC games "video games". They were called "computer games", and the word "video games" was reserved for consoles.)

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Japan's indie scene is nowhere near advanced as the west?



Also, japan's influence in the industry hasn't shrunk at all, it just hasn't ballooned to encompass all the people that don't actually like video games the way it has in the west. It's still serving the same collection of niche groups it was 25 years ago, which is why they still have fucking turn based games and games with palettes other than brown and blurry brown.

Err, but the PS2 era, which still had heavy Japanese presence in the console space, had seen more console sales than the following generation (if you disregard the Wii, which for the purposes of this discussion is a reasonable thing to do). So if anything, the marked had contracted, not balooned, as Japanese video game industry fell from grace.

 

[Kz3r0]

A M$ shill tell us that Japan failed because shunned the Xbawks, meanwhile Nintendo pockets billions a day.

 

[Haba]

A M$ shill tell us that Japan failed because shunned the Xbawks, meanwhile Nintendo pockets billions a day.

 

[felipepepe]

Japan: Sony and Nintendo with their consoles and handhelds, in a self-sufficient market full of exclusive titles and no sign of Microsoft.

US: Microsoft is thinking about closing the Xbox division, AAA companies are stuck doing boring sequels, and console gaming is losing ground to tablets & cellphones, while PC core is now made of $10-20 indie titles on Steam.

WHAT HAPPENED TO JAPAN?!!!!

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Japan: Sony and Nintendo with their consoles and handhelds, in a self-sufficient market full of exclusive titles and no sign of Microsoft.

Say what? The only self-sufficient part of the Japanese gaming industry is their f2p mobile sector.

 

[felipepepe]

Say what? The only self-sufficient part of the Japanese gaming industry is their f2p mobile sector.

Bro, Japan is at its worst when trying to reach western audiences with Square-Enix doing stuff like Tomb Raider... their stuff focused on the local market usually pays itself with japanese sales alone.

If anything, "what happened to Japan" is that western markets are so fucked that they now profit more from focusing on the local market than wasting resources from trying to sell to every other country int he world, with tons of localization, marketing, ports, etc... so they stay in Japan. Simple as that.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Say what? The only self-sufficient part of the Japanese gaming industry is their f2p mobile sector.

Bro, Japan is at its worst when trying to reach western audiences with Square-Enix doing stuff like Tomb Raider... their stuff focused on the local market usually pays itself with japanese sales alone.

If anything, "what happened to Japan" is that western markets are so fucked that they now profit more from focusing on the local market than wasting resources from trying to sell to every other country int he world, with tons of localization, marketing, ports, etc... so they stay in Japan. Simple as that.

That's not what you said though, you said the market was self-sufficient, which in this context would mean that publishers, developers and platform holders can survive by only producing for the Japanese audience. This is, in general, not true. Sure, there are some franchises that do well over there (Monster Hunter, Yakuza, Dragon's Dogma sold very well, etc.), but each of these comes from a publisher with a major western presence.

Like I said, the only self-sufficient part of that industry is the mobile stuff, and by mobile I primarily mean smartphone games. Maybe handhelds, not positive on that.

 

[DeepOcean]

Japan: Sony and Nintendo with their consoles and handhelds, in a self-sufficient market full of exclusive titles and no sign of Microsoft.

US: Microsoft is thinking about closing the Xbox division, AAA companies are stuck doing boring sequels, and console gaming is losing ground to tablets & cellphones, while PC core is now made of $10-20 indie titles on Steam.

WHAT HAPPENED TO JAPAN?!!!!

Konami, Capcom and Square Enix followed the song sing by Microsoft. "Make your games cinematic and they will sell like hotcakes and you all are going to get filthy rich." Microsoft just forgot to tell them that Xbox was a financial failure on kept alive by the hubris of the Microsoft leadership. The japanese tought: Hey, this cinematic gamming Microsoft is talking about must be really something, let's waste millions doing this shit instead of continuing doing the shit we did when we had half the market.

Unfortunately all those millions wasted on Tomb Raider, Thi4f, Resident Evil 6 won't be used in making decent games. It is funny that those western cinematic games were responsible for bankrupting the japanese companies and somehow the responsible are traditional japanese games. Many japanese people may use handhelds because it is the only place where you can get decent games with some frequency as they can't support cinematic gamming bullshit.

 

[Metro]

Their games got too g00ky.

 

[Tehdagah]

Konami and Square (Capcom too, but in a lesser degree) are into 'cinematic gaming' since the PS1.

 

[DeepOcean]

Konami and Square (Capcom too, but in a lesser degree) are into 'cinematic gaming' since the PS1.

Nope, they made games with cinematics not whole games made by cinematics.

 

[felipepepe]

That's not what you said though, you said the market was self-sufficient, which in this context would mean that publishers, developers and platform holders can survive by only producing for the Japanese audience. This is, in general, not true. Sure, there are some franchises that do well over there (Monster Hunter, Yakuza, Dragon's Dogma sold very well, etc.), but each of these comes from a publisher with a major western presence.

Like I said, the only self-sufficient part of that industry is the mobile stuff, and by mobile I primarily mean smartphone games. Maybe handhelds, not positive on that.

I would say that mobile, handhelds, MMOs and a big part of the consoles release are self-sufficient and make a profit on Japan alone. Just think on how many games are never translated, or only released years later. And they clearly payed themselves, as the continue to get sequels.