German news site on the importance of japanese influences on gaming

[JEMC]

Any thoughts? Several.

1-Google translator sucks.

2-Saying that Metal Gear have been influenced by Splinter Cell is, at least, odd.

3-The shift from home consoles to handhelds/smartphones in Japan is nothing new, it's been happening since many years ago. The fact that the PS4 launches there last is not a sign of that rather than a consequence. There is a reason why Nintendo is merging its handheld and home console studios.

4-One of the problems of Japanese studios (Capcom, S-E, Namco, etc.) is that they lost their place, and still haven't found it. They heavily relied on their own market to make most of their money, with the western markets being sometimes an after thought, a "why don't we launch it there to make extra money?" kind of release. But with the decline of the home console market they have lost that advantage and must rely on those western markets to make money.

And that brings one of their other problems: their games were played not only for the graphics, but also for their stories and because more often than not, they had little differences that compared to similar western developed games gave them an unique appeal. And they have forgotten that. This past gen they have lost that mentality/approach and tried to out do western studios copying their games. And that haven't worked.

And to make things even worse, that failed approach also hurts them because it gives no incentives to the Japanese to buy home consoles as their interest for those kind of games is small, so their market decline even faster.

Just some of my thoughts.