| stealth20k said: |
Japanese culture really hates laying people off, traditionally you get a job at a company and you stay there for life. That is why you don't see many Japanese companies laying off staff. And when they do you know the company is in serious trouble like Sony for example.
In the west company culture is to hire and fire staff as needed so you often see news stories of tens or even hundreds of people being let go when a project is done or even just at the end of a financial quarter. Western developers will often hire a lot of temporary staff for one project and then lay them off when the project is done, which just doesn't happen in Japan.
Also the reason that most Japanese game companies bring in more revenue is because they are all heavily diversified. SEGA Sammy for example makes most of it's money from Pachinko and arcade machines, it's home videogame devision is actually lossing money, $65 million last quarter ($54 of that was earmarked for restructuring). Which is why they are currently restructuring. But their UK opperations is setting up a new studio as they are profitable.
Namco Bandai make half their money on toys and then they also make Anime games are about a 3rd of their business.
Even Konami and CAPCOM have planty of other businesses on top of videogames, Konami makes a lot of TCG etc, gyms and fitness spas toys etc, CAPCOM has a healthy arcade business but they are probably the closest to a full pure videogame publisher among the big Japanese publishers.
Also there are lots of western companies that are growing right now Zinga, Ubisoft, Take 2, Paradox and Bethesda are all growing. Activision-Blizzard is still doing well but that may change as WoW fades and CoD seems to have stopped growing.
Not saying that Japanese companies are doing bad or that western companies are all doing great or anything, just pointing out some stuff.
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