Whats wrong with japanese game development? answered

[Riachu]

mrstickball said:

Bodhesatva said:

Riachu said:

Bodhesatva said:
It was actually last generation when Western Publishers were shining. This generation, Western publishers are struggling mightily, and Japanese publishers are still making a great deal of money. This article is 5 years out of date.

Japanese developers are losing money actually. Especially Square Enix who are trying to appeal to Western gamers.

 

This is factually incorrect. Have you actually checked their FRs? SE has made money 14 quarters in a row. Not oodles of money, but they're making it.

Capcom is making money
Square Enix is making a little bit of money
Namco Bandai is making money
Konami is making money
Nintendo is making ridiculous amounts of money

vs.

Sega is losing a little bit of money

In the West:

Activision is making money
Ubisoft is making money

vs.

Midway is losing money
SCi/Eidos is losing money
THQ is losing money
EA is losing a ton of money
Take 2 is losing money

This isn't some hard and fast rule, where Japan = moneymakes West = fail, but the trend is obvious. Western publishers are struggling, while Japan is doing quite well.

Thing is, there's a pretty obvious reason as to why the Japanese developers are making more money: They aren't really pushing out a lot of effort on the HD consoles, but are focusing more on the DS, which is doing far better in their homeland than abroad (in terms of top-tier titles). That can certainly play into who is making money, and who isn't.

Also, you forgot to add Tecmo to the losers list - they just got bought out :-p

The market is in transition, but I think that if you compare unit shipments, Western developers are fairing pretty well thus far, but they've pushed a lot harder on developing titles. Fallout 3 shipped 4.7 million units its first week - How many Final Fantasies or Dragon Quests have done that in the West?

I should have noted - when I was talking about Halo 3, I was talking about console games only. MK Wii has sold better, but I highly doubt it has half of the online userbase.

And after playing a few hours of The Last Remnant, I think I'm realizing what's going on here: Square needs more experimental JRPGs like this one. The reason that JRPGs (imo) have gone stale is that Square, and other developers are doing what EA is with certain series (like Madden): They are whoring out specific franchises to earn cash, rather than begin to do what made them great - new IPs. Many people (even such as myself) look back on games like Chrono Trigger and SMRPG as being awesome because........Guess what? They were very innovative for the time. As of late, the only 2 JRPGs that have come out that are truely unique in a good way (for consoles, mind you) would be The Last Remnant and Kingdom Hearts - both are totally outside of what the normal JRPG is. And I think that if Square, Atlus, and Namco tried to make more unique titles, they'd begin to hit good chords with the Western audience.

And think about what some of Square's West-looking games: Secret of Evermore (one of the few Square games ever to be made outside of Japan), Kingdom Hearts (Disney licenses)...Both, especially KH, were well recieved in the West. Japan didn't mind KH either, from my knowledge.

Of course, outside of the 'big' companies, there are plenty of smaller J-devs churning out quality IPs. The Katamari series is a fresh, new IP from the East that's quite an innovative title that Westerns are pretty happy with. I think that the big developers are a few years behind EA, when all they were noted for was churning out crappy sequels and cash-ins.

The Last Remnant is a unique game and could have been something truly amazing if it weren't for technical issues.  Hopefully if there is a TLR2, they S-E should try to do what Killzone 2 is doing:being the high quality game the previous game was suppose to be in the first place.