http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9159905.stm

""From Sonic to Solid Snake, Mario to Mega Man, the Japanese love video games.

While it's taken years for games to become mainstream in the West, videogames are now as much a part of Japanese popular culture as the Walkman and Anime.

Their influence can be felt all over popular Japanese culture but, as Western developers are enjoying unparalleled global success with huge open world games and first person shooters, is the Japanese gaming engine about to come off the tracks?

Speaking during the Tokyo Games Show, Keiji Inafune, head of global research and development and global head of production at Capcom, made some startling observations about the Japanese gaming industry:

"Everyone's making awful games - Japan is at least five years behind," he said.

"I don't think that Japanese games can't ever be popular overseas again. But they won't be popular any more in their pure state. It's like sushi. Everyone loves sushi in the West, but you can't just serve sushi over there like it is in Japan.

"Japan is isolated in the gaming world. If something doesn't change, we're doomed."

And he is not the only one who thinks this.

In 2002, it is estimated that Japan accounted for nearly 50% of the world's gaming market. That has now fallen to around 10% and without Nintendo, with the success of the Wii console, the figure would be even lower - around 8%.""

The article goes on after this, but I'm really wondering where the hell they pulled that figure from. After reading the Top 30 publisher article VGChartz posted yesterday, there's no way Japanese firms can only account for 10% of the games market, and there's no way Nintendo could only account for 2% of the games market. If they control 47% of the tradition home console market, and 69% of the traditional portable market, where the hell have the BBC got that figure from? 

Anybody got any ideas?

Not realy :/ shore the japanese game industy isnt as big as it was but its a looong way of being in a crisis lol.

IIIIINAAAAAFUUUUNEEEEE!!!

Yakuza 3 is not awful.

Statement of Inafune disabled.

Japanese market rescued.

- Mission accomplished -

I'm gonna say no.

One day Japan will realize the West wants fun games. Nintendo seems to know that. Sega forgot.

well the third party has gone down as 360 is bringing in Western devs and Ninty consoles don't support other japanese devs just first party.Plsaystation was a platofrm for third party japanese devs

well we know the japanese market is shrinking but not to 10%,thats bullhshit

next gen,all this needs to happen:

PS4 to be succesfull

Wii 2 to support more devs than first party

720 needs to have japanese support from the start

Just look at finanfial reports from puplishers. It's the west that is in crisis. Those figures are also bs. Just look at vghartz recent article.

I think the two countries have very different business models that both have their own strenths and weaknesses.

Japan is a small market that seems to be driven by low to medium budget games, and the market is very fan driven which leads to many of the high selling games featuring idols/anime series tie-ins/fanservice, with the exception of a couple of a few very well known franchises that buck the trend (Final fantasy, Dragon Quest) This model makes it hard for anything outside things like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest getting good penetration outside of the internal market but it makes for a very stable internal market in the long run.

The West has a much larger market that is driven by high budget games that have frequent updates (yearly sequels/high levels of DLC) and very high marketing budgets. This model makes it hard for outside markets to penetrate it but it will create a lot of instability in the internal market until only a few companies are left in the market. This is because it follows the Hollywood model where production and advertising costs get so high that companies eliminate each other until only a handful are left that advertise and control the market to such a high degree that smaller companies within that market really have no chance of growing. Similar to how the top 6 film studios in America have roughly 90% of the market.

That's my take on it anyway.

Why? So they can sell more consoles in Japan. It ain't worth much in regards to software sales.

People boast about PS3 doing great in Japan but they've only sold 25 million games there. In NA the PS3 sold 145 million games.

"720" does not need japanese support at all, it will do just fine with only western support.