Japanese Gaming Companies Struggling

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

crumas2 said:

Kenryoku_Maxis said:

Dinomax said:

spdk1 said:
^ you cant really compare a big budget anime film and a cheap TV anime, thats like comparing Wall-E and an episode of scooby doo based on the art style and animation prowess.

I do however agree, the anime bust in recent years is partly due to an oversatuation of cheaply made stuff that many will not buy.

Well I would of used Hajime No Ippo to defend TV anime, but surprise surprise it got canned because more people were watching exactly what I posted.

Just because you got a smaller budget doesnt exclude effort, I mean One Piece is in the same boat (quick to animate) Yet it still pulls through. 

They didn't can Hajime no Ippo.  It got a second season and they're preparing more currently to be aired in the future (as stated by Takamura's seiyuu).  The very reason Hajime no Ippo isn't airing continuously is because its such high quality and they need to do it in spurts.

And 'cutting Anime influences' is not the problem.  But since no one read my post about improving marketing and localizations, you don't know what the real problem is.  If you don't like Anime influences, then you don't like Japanese games, period.  The vast majority of Japanese games have some kind of Anime influence, either a soft reference such as a nod to a popular show or an in-joke to something like crayon Shin-chan or a direct reference such as using the same character designer or even director as a popular Anime series.  The Anime and Gaming series are very closely tied together in Japan and to say 'take anime crap out' is like saying take Samurai and buck rodger influences out of Star Wars.

That's an interesting analogy.  I agree that Lucas may have been influenced by Samurai and Buck Rogers, but the difference is American audiences didn't flock to Star Wars in 1977 because there were Samurai and Buck Rogers references in the movie.  I know... I was 17 and went to see the original Star Wars 6 times at the theater because it represented every teenage boy's dream of going on a high adventure, rescuing the princess, etc.  I'm starting to wonder if the Japanese aren't getting burned out on Anime and having every game tightly tied into it, hence the softer gaming market in Japan for Japanese-oriented titles.

Lucas not only may have been influenced by Japanese culture and Buck Rodgers, he was quite directly.  Just listen to him talk about Star Wars for 5 minutes and you can't go without him mentioning his influences from Akira Kurosawa or trying to 'recreate old 1940s SciFi Cereals like Buck Rodgers', etc.

But more to the point, Anime influences in games shouldn't be a negative.  I mean, we had that 10 year explosion in the Anime industry in America and in Japan, Anime is on an upswing after about 10 years of bad sales.  If anything, Anime themed games and more cooperation between the Anime and gaming industry is a positive thing from now on.  The problem for why Anime has lost interest in America is the same reason why many people have lost their interest in Japanese games, bad marketing and localizations and heavy competition from western based game studios.  Japanese gaming companies were basically getting a free ride for the last 10-15 years with little competition from Western game developers, and produced inferior versions of games for international release.  That's no longer cutting it.