| Esa-Petteri said: Japanese devs suck, it is just that simple. They can't make good games. I would not care if they developed only for DS/PSP. Well... RE5 looks great and some rpg:s too, so maybe there is a little hope for japanese devs after all. They might 'get it'. |
Because Gears of War is so much better than their games, right? Japanese games have ALWAYS been better than western ones... until gen 7.
There are two problems that hurt Japan and are the reason for this:
1) It's not an inabilty to evolve, it's more of an inability to put out quality games like before. Infinite Undiscovery should have had more work on many of its aspects, especially optimization and writing. The Last Remnant is a great game buried beneath technical flaws because it was rushed. DMC 4 is not up to par with DMC 3, for example. The method is the same - the execution is worse. Why would anyone have any interest in your product if it's bad?
2) A shift in the tastes of today's (western) gamers: like the article said, they (the gamers) prefer to be bald marines instead of frail emotional dudes. Nothing can be done about it... it's a lot like the shift from simple games that you play for fun, not for storyline (the NES and to a lesser degree SNES method) to cinematic-experience games, The PS1 way and on. This shift, however, is to cinematic HD experiences. Gamers want explosions, blood, gore, cursing, strong focus on realism and graphics, action... more than ever before - because you couldn't do it on earlier technology... and now you can, and it just hooks gamers up, changing their tastes. All of those aspects are not the strong point of Japanese developers... so naturally interest is lost. Many Japanese devs are moving to the Wii and the handhelds - the desires of that audience are much more varied and there is room for more types of games. Development costs are also far lower, allowing them to do what they always do best - gameplay above graphics.
IMO, those are the reasons. No "inability to evolve" bullcrap.
P.S: The article talks about WPRG's being the best games in the RPG genre this gen. Obviously, the guy hasn't played VC, ToV and isn't anticipating SO 4 :)
