| WagnerPaiva said: They are probably in dire straits if such a drastic change is needed, so, we are to blame. We send the wrong answer somehow and they lost their way, sad to see such a cool company go under, and taking eidos and Enix along... |
A lot of Japanese developers are in trouble today, rising development costs and unfavorable exchange rates plus a wracked economy paired with very few having a footing in the mobile industry which is mostly dominated by Europe and the US is causing major problems.
Another issue is the decline of Western interest in traditional Japanese games, the concepts are simply too far out or the mechanics are too complex to appeal to the new, more casual Western gamer, dumbing down existing franchises doesn't work either. In addition, the interest for home consoles, where big profits are to be made, is dwindling in Japan and the PC market was never huge there compared to Europe or Korea and China.
To top if off, dedicated handhelds might be going away fairly shortly, leaving a massive vaccuum in the Japanese gaming tradition and making them almost wholly dependent on imported efforts, or, at the very least, dependent on outside talents, different developer paradigms and near-monopolized hardware manufacturer networks with great Western influence. Nintendo's downturn and Sony's money-bleed does nothing to alleviate the problems either.
Japan is a country in a crisis, in more ways than one and since the consumer electronics and gaming industry is so comparatively big over there, the ramifications are very visible and noticeable for everyone.
