'Japan can't keep up with US tech' says Cliff Bleszinski

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

SaviorX said:

Kenryoku_Maxis said:

SaviorX said:

I'll just post what I did in the VGC article:

He says it like a blowhard without manners but he is right. There is a shift towards portables, and on the console side of things, a large majority of Japanese devs are idiots.

There, stone me.

 

What you call 'idiots', others would call being smart and not taking unnecessary risks.  Why should a Japanese company make a 200 million dollar game based on the 360 pr PS3 when the Japanese market is focused on portables and the American market is so iffy.  Is sure didn't work well for companies like Square Enix, Level 5 and Namco.  Likewise, countless other western based companies have had low selling games after trying to make high budget HD games.  But no one ever looks at those.  You only pat attention to the big sellers like Modern Warfare 2, Grand Theft Auto 4, and Halo 3.

As I've already said, the handheld market is easier to develop for simply because you can make a game for 1/10th the cost and the Japanese market is already jumping on it.  Just because some of you think consoles are the end all of gaming doesn't mean handhelds are inferior.

Let me start by saying some made stupid decisions and supported the 360 with exclusives. That was dumb. Second was developing for PS3/360 multiplatform games and having the 360 as the lead dev console. As a result, PS3 got quasi-ports that suffered in sales due to lower quality. Third, using foreign engines they can't manage (Square Enix and the Unreal Engine= disaster).

For JP companies that complain that the console market in Japan is dying, they fueled that themselves by not actually supporting it enough, and not even making games for the market leader (Wii). The Prime example is NIS America, who refuses to make much besides PS3/PSP games that more often than not, bomb.

"You only pa[y] attention to the big sellers like Modern Warfare 2, Grand Theft Auto 4, and Halo 3."

I don't know what this has to do with me, so I can't really comment.

I never said the shift to portables was wrong, I just acknowledged there was a shift. I said on the console side of things, they are idiots. Whether it is still shlepping by on that old PS2 or making 360 games like masochists, they reap what they sow. And the worst part is, the majority of them cannot understand the concept of 'polish'.

I will agree that Japanese companies didn't support the console market initially and what little support they did throw out there, it was for the one system the Japanese public didn't want (the 360).  However, the shoe is on the same foot about how all developers (western and eastern) put the 'console' industry into the state its in now.  Causing this 'divide' between HD and Wii.  Theyt spent a good 3 years ignoring the Wii and when they finally got around to trying to make games for it, they only put what could be considered less than second class games on it and whined when they didn't sell 2 million like Nintendo's.

Its all developers fault, not just 'Japanese', that the current Console industry is stuck to only making games for the 'HD' consoles.  And unfortunately that leaves Japanese developers with few options.  As Japan hates the 360 and is less than lukewarm on the PS3.

It still doesn't change that fact however that, even after the DS and XBOX360 came out (at the same time), the DS became the most popular system in Japan well before the Wii and PS3 even came out.  And even before then, Japan was shifting to handhelds.  They ALWAYS had a major love for handhelds.  If anything, the PS2 was just a fluke in console sales compared to previous gens. 

So no one, from game developers to game fans, should be complaining that Japan focuses on handhelds too much.  And this guy trying to say that Japan is 'not keeping up with the US in tech' just reeks of superiority complex.  No matter how he wants to spin it afterwards.  As its been said many times, graphics do not make games.  They're just one part of it.