Where did modern day gaming really come from?

[pokoko]

JazzB1987 said:

Japan with its mentality wanted to make good products not like the US with its E.T shit etc.   thats why I feel like todays gaming is shit again. Its way to westernized and completely forgetable (with some random coincidental sparks of creativity)  and the biggest disaster here is that japan tries to mimic the western style because they think its the right thing to do (thank god sometimes stuff like BravelyDefault shows up and reminds japanese developers that being japanese is great)

This made me laugh, as it's utterly and completely fictitious.  The sheer amount of bad games Japan makes is astounding.  They create an absolute ton of niche, throwaway products of low quality that are designed to appeal to a very narrow audience who will buy them no matter what.  This is a Japanese thing, not a western thing, and it's also true of media outside of games.  True, some Japanese publishers tried to make "western" styled games which felt flat and devoid of personality because they could not accurately capture the feel, but that hardly precludes the fact that they make plenty of bad games on their own.

As for modern gaming, I think the Japanese arcade situation needs to be given a lot of credit.  Fighting games in the 80s and early 90s were absolutely on fire.  Gaming companies were fighting hard with one another and, as a result, were innovating at a substantial pace.  Remember, the PC Engine was more popular in Japan than the Famicom, as it had many arcade titles Nintendo did not.  Had Nintendo's cut-throat business practices not killed it, who knows what would have happened.  Gaming crashed in the US, sure, but it was still moving forward in Japan at a rapid pace.