http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/04/keiji-inafune-qa/

I think I agree with Inafune on this one, despite the fact that I pretty much consider the X360 a peice of crap. The facts are Japan's gaming industry has hit a major slump both in terms of internal sales and in terms of external sales. Nintendo bucks the trend in some areas, but that is still not enough. 

Discuss.

Lol, why you hate 360???



BTW, I just hate the fact that japanese gamers are so... biased in terms of gaming consoles. I mean, wii sells, ps3 flipping sells there, Xbox 360 gets 1000 units a week, are you kidding me?

Good article.

Wh1pL4shL1ve_007 said: Lol, why you hate 360??? BTW, I just hate the fact that japanese gamers are so... biased in terms of gaming consoles. I mean, wii sells, ps3 flipping sells there, Xbox 360 gets 1000 units a week, are you kidding me?

There is no reason why 360 should sell in Japan. It has no brand recognition there.

I dont agree in terms of sales, Japan is still the 2nd biggest market. But in terms of games Japan failed this gen. You can see SE, Crapcom, Scamco all struggling to provide good games.

Wh1pL4shL1ve_007 said: Lol, why you hate 360??? BTW, I just hate the fact that japanese gamers are so... biased in terms of gaming consoles. I mean, wii sells, ps3 flipping sells there, Xbox 360 gets 1000 units a week, are you kidding me?

First half of X360s life was pretty bad with the whole RROD thing. That's was strike one.

Strike two came with the, imo, extreme focus on the FPS genre.

Strike three came with the Kinnect,

Wh1pL4shL1ve_007 said: Lol, why you hate 360??? BTW, I just hate the fact that japanese gamers are so... biased in terms of gaming consoles. I mean, wii sells, ps3 flipping sells there, Xbox 360 gets 1000 units a week, are you kidding me?

Now see, here's the problem.

Japanese gamers like their Japanese games. American gamers have a completely different taste.

360 is a platform for American games. Its biggest games are FPS games. Look at Nintendo. Nintendo sells amazingly well in Japan because it has a style of games that Japanese people like.

What inafune hits right here is that not all but a lot of japanese games are stuck in the 90s. We're talking about games like dead or alive, tekken, megaman, ninja gaiden....stuff like that. It's too old. Those games are failing. However, Japanese games aren't failing, Japanese games are fine, it's just a specific portion of Japanese games aren't able to do well out here...those 90s era type games.

360 has a lot of new games, but doesn't really have much else. All those jrpgs they bought, JRPGs don't really push consoles so much, unless you're talking something really huge like FF or dragon quest etc etc...

I mean, it's pretty straight forward. the highest selling games in the west are FPS games. The highest selling games in Japan are Nintendo and RPGs. You have a console that is 75% FPS and obviously it's not going to fly in Nintendo/RPG land. It's simple.

dharh said: Wh1pL4shL1ve_007 said: Lol, why you hate 360??? BTW, I just hate the fact that japanese gamers are so... biased in terms of gaming consoles. I mean, wii sells, ps3 flipping sells there, Xbox 360 gets 1000 units a week, are you kidding me? First half of X360s life was pretty bad with the whole RROD thing. That's was strike one. Strike two came with the, imo, extreme focus on the FPS genre. Strike three came with the Kinnect,

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND YOURE OUT!!!!!!

dharh said: Wh1pL4shL1ve_007 said: Lol, why you hate 360??? BTW, I just hate the fact that japanese gamers are so... biased in terms of gaming consoles. I mean, wii sells, ps3 flipping sells there, Xbox 360 gets 1000 units a week, are you kidding me? First half of X360s life was pretty bad with the whole RROD thing. That's was strike one. Strike two came with the, imo, extreme focus on the FPS genre. Strike three came with the Kinnect,

PS3 are more focus on shooters genre then the 360. KillZone, Resistance, MAG, Socom are all 1st party games. Halo and Perfect Dark is the only Xbox 1st party franchise.

OT. I agree that beside Nintendo, Japanese games are pretty horrible. When did a movie like MGS4 consider a video game? FF XIII and FF XIII-2 were alright but not great. Street Fighter 4 was great but Crapcom milked it.

I think you forgot Gears of War. Anyway, first party games don't really matter to me in that case. Really it was the glut of that genre in the beginning. It's changed overtime, but my original bias is still there. Since I bought all the non-FPS  multiplat games on my PS3 in the beginning I still do now. Im 'invested' in the PS3 in terms of games and trophies, the only thing I would use my X360 for would be exclusive shooters.

So mabye I should remove strike two.

Meh.

Japanese games sell in Japan, and Western games sell in the West. Difference is in some instances Japanese games sell well in the West too but Western games never sell well in Japan. There is also a hell of a lot of bias from Western critics. Japanese review outlets at least have the common decency to score both Japanese and Western games well if they're deserving of it. I've read some Western critics on certain JRPGs that actually mock anime aesthetics and personally that's just pathetic, especially coming from individuals who should be deemed as professionals.

The slump is all in developers' heads and the consumers' wallets that have been hit hard lately for obvious reasons. It's hard to take people claiming Japanese games have gone to shit when you see CoD and Fifa sell more and more each year despite literally adding the most miniscule of new features. If anything "gamer's" tastes have gone to shit.

This isn't a JAPAN MAKES BEST GAMES GRORIOUS NIPPON argument, it's just fact. The way in which we Westerners buy CoD and other million sellers, Japan buys MH and DQ. Last thing I want to see is Japanese devs try to appeal to the West, and vice versa. That's when the real bad games will start flooding the shelves. We've already got some fine examples of this this gen.

Japanese gamers don't care much for Western games yet we Westerners still look forward to countless Japanese games. Nintendo, Sony, Square, Capcom and many others are a testament to this. Not to mention smaller companies that localize and develop niche Japanese games such as XSEED, NIS , From Software and Atlus are only growing in popularity in the west. If I'm not mistaken Catherine is Atlus' best selling game to date in the West and yet their most recent.

Also going off tangent, but it's hard to take Inafune seriously after Neptunia MkII. Perhaps it's a metaphor for the Japanese game industry, a complete joke, nice one Inafune.

Just venting my spleen as usual.