Since the transition of gaming industry from SD to HD (Sony and MS) I noticed that the presence of Japanese devs/pubs have been dwindling steadily.
I never was a fan of JRPG or anime type of games (Manga etc...), anything that fell into the archetype of anime I swayed from it. But, I like games like Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Ace Combat, Pro Evo, Street Fighter pre-cartoonization, Pokémon etc... besides Pokémon every one of the aforementioned franchises have been in a slump which characterizes the state of Japanese gaming state.
I tried to come up with answers to the cause of their exclusion from the gaming boom after 2005, I came up with: Bad Marketing, Lack of communication with the fan base and shortage of ideas to create games outside of the Japanese spectrum.
Bad marketing in my opinion is one of the biggest of their issues. Games land in US without the fanfares of their Western counterparts. There are no posters at retail stores or TV ads to alert gamers of the game existence. Take for example Vanquish that I knew about it only after I watched a Gamespot episode of best games you never played.
Lack of communication is absurd between Japanese devs/publishers and gamers, especially Western gamers. Xenoblade sequel or remake has been requested by gamers for ages but no one ever stood up take care of gamers but Gamestop, out of everybody. Now Gamestop is showing them how’s done. Xenoblade is not the only game, some of Nintendo games, Capcom games, Namco, Konami, Square Enix, etc… they’re lost. Not even a poor localization is attempted.
Lastly, there is shortage of ideas… nowadays if a Japanese game is not a date sim or JRPG is not even relevant in the market. There is no big hits in the horror genre (not even West), not in sports, not in FPS/TPS, Platformer, not in Open World games, not in Racing/Flying etc… what happened to the geniuses of last 2 decades? Why do they ditch Xbox if they need to make money and exposure in the West? Why don’t they experiment with Arcade games (low risk investment) on XBLA where there’s constant hit gems season in and out with million sellers?
This is just a piece of my mind and the picture that I have about Japanese game developers and publishers.I’d like to know what you guys think and in your perspective how does it look like for you?
