Nope, never, us Brits just ain't as into games as the Japanese...

I think there's some east-west confusion in your posting...

Also, while the reunification certainly was expensive, i don't think that the British generally have more money to spend - correct me if I'm wrong, but afaik the living expenses in the UK are ridiculously high.

North America is already considerably more important than Japan. Sales are multiple times larger and close to half the games sold originate out of the US or Canada. EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Take Two, Activision, etc. are all NA companies.

Japan has two of the hardware companies but that still doesn't compare to what North America has done in the games industry over the past decade. In the software world, the Japanese monolithic game companies are seeing their power slowly dwindle while NA, and to a lesser extent Europe, pick up the slack. Even MS is making headway in the hardware department.

Oh, interesting view, that east germany is more rich than the west. I think you mixed up the both. Also that the west has to pay for the buildup of the east ... the 'Solidaritätszuschlag' is a tax, that is payed by east-germans the same as west-germans. Anyways, you may be right, that the reunification had some negative impact on the wealth. But as far as I know germans are wealthier as most europeans, and may on the same level as for people in the UK. I think poverty is more commonin the UK actually. Scandinavian countries seem to be very wealthy, but the population is much smaller. After all, germany has a abnormally small vg-market. I dont understand it really, but I hope that the german market will grow in the future, that's why I posted as I did. As I can see in my surrounding the Wii changed for many people the view on videoconsoles here in germany. Before most people don't even considered videogames, now that perception is a little bit changed.

The UK will only become more important than Japan to the 360 since Japan is evidently an uncrackable Market for Bill Gates.

John Lucas. You truely require a lession in British gaming history.

The games created in Britian are among the most famous games in the world.

I shall list  just a few.

GTA 1,2,3:SA,  Yes it was developed by DMA later known as RockStar North, a British developer.

Lemmings, Populous, wipeout, worms, black & white, Dungeon Keeper - each of these games brought something new to Gaming and there are hundreds more,  The british Game development is one of the most interesting and diverse in the world. Admittly there are some that are not so ground breaking like Heavenly sword, but you greatly under value the effect that British development has had on the industry

This Game developer you might of heard of: (copied from wiki as I'm lazy)

Rare is located in Twycross, Leicestershire, England and is the company behind many of the most famous games for Nintendo's various gaming systems: Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country (and its sequels), Killer Instinct, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Blast Corps, GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Diddy Kong Racing, Donkey Kong 64, Jet Force Gemini, Star Fox Adventures, Diddy Kong Racing DS and, most recently, Viva Pinata DS.

Yeap not as good today as they were, but still I think they left a small mark on the history of gaming, and I bet you thought some of these games were from the US. 

John Do your research, you'll find many more.

As for Sales we can already see that the UK is starting to challange Japan, it's only a matter of time.

Vengi. 

*Sniff* Waves Union Jack around.

God save... our.. Queen... *Cries*

Wasn't talking about the games. Many nations make games and most certainly UK games have been wonderful & influential. I love Rare. The original Rare especially. And I've played many of those other games you mentioned in the past & loved it.

But I'm talking about being able to self-support an industry. That means making machines not just publishing and developing games. Doing both. Most American companies don't even try to do this anymore. It took super-rich Microsoft to even try to resurrect American presence in the videogame industry as a platform.

Japan is the Center. It's just as simple as that. USA/Canada/Mexico are where the people are so sales are bigger here overall than in Japan. But pound for pound Japan buys heavily into gaming. Europe is growing salewise too. But that doesn't make Japan any less important anymore than population-rich North America does.

Europe deals with annoying game delays from other companies after they debut elsewhere & sometimes don't even get games released in their region due to the language complexity there and other reasons. Plus VAT makes everything a little more expensive there than elsewhere.

So you would think that someone in Europe would get a little tired of that & make their own system so they can have it homegrown and shipped within the Union. No more delays and games that cater more to European tastes first much like Japanese games made to cater to Japanese tastes.

But why hasn't this happened? All these companies you've named & all of these quality European titles here, you would think they can go into business for themselves and start becoming consolers selling internationally with Europe as the homebase. Why haven't we seen this?

Sales mean that markets may get more attention faster from a maker, yes. If the sales are there things will be done to cater to the market in regards of release preferences & content. But all the sales in the world won't diminish the home factory nation's importance. North America has big EA which could sell on Madden & friends alone with Epic & some other U.S. squads to set up their own console. Why haven't they gone into business for themselves? It's easier to make games and only make games than to prop up an entire industry and move it forward in all fashions. Creating the new interfaces and having business models that ensure the best ability to profit from your hard work. The R & D involved. The marketing. The chance-taking.

North America makes much of the Japanese companies money but even North America, the USA & friends themselves, aren't as important as Japan for the videogames industry. Before XBox 360 came along no American company for about a decade tried to enter this business from the hardware end. The sales power of the other regions ensures a mice mix of games for platforms. We have this "East-West" representation on consoles because of this. But without Japan none of this exists. And until some other nation can keep this engine moving forward like Japan does, like Nintendo does to be specific, Japan will remain the centerpiece of this industry.

That's not saying the others don't belong. They enrichen the business and the Japanese wouldn't want them to fade away for obvious reasons. But no matter HOW big in sales you get, that's not what makes you all important. It's your ability to hold the industry together that determines your irreplacability.

If Japan breaks China into console buying, then all countries will be dwarfed. The biggest populated country in the world who makes most of the world's goods and has a growing "middle class" who could afford cheap luxuries like videogames. 1 Billion people? 60 Million? 300 Million? Ha. And even still Japan would be most important simply because this is where all the gaming infrastructure emanates.

John Lucas

 You hit the nail on the head. Combine that with sales form Europe which buys simular titles and you see how important Western influnce has become to alll developers no matter their county of origin. Simular demographics in both regions and together they dwarf Japan.

@ Mrstickball "I'd love to see Eastern Europe grow, prosper and sell more consoles. It'd be neat to see what the Polish and Russians could do for gaming."

I'm excited about this as well. CDProdjecktRed is now one of my favorite studios after The Witcher. Timeshift while I have not given it a play still looks appealing to me despite the lackluster reviews. I belive Eastern Europe has a lot to offer the Gaming world.

@John Lucas Software is the driving force in this industry. Software trumps hardware hands down. The size of the westen market makes it much more important to gaming than Japan. The publics desire for games ensures that there will be some form of game system be it consoles, handhelds, or on pc. Country of a consoles origin matters little what matters is the Demographic they have to cater to to be succesful in the industry. 

 @JohnLucas,

Hardware & Software

 I think it's interesting to see if it is hardware or software that has a greater effect on gaming trends, what nintendo did with the Wii was to try and make software (games) easier to use by giving the user a natural interface to work with, this is highly interesting as  Software developers must now try to adapt and create games that use it in a interesting or at least simple way. 

Sony and Microsoft have made HD standard and this also makes Software developers adapt and increase texture sizes and add other graphical improvements

Here are cases of Hardware controlling/ influencing software.

And yet the heart of the game market are the games, the developers write the games, the successful games get copied and therefore they change the industry, even now you see Japanese companies making more and more Western style games as Japanese are no longer buying the same kind of games as they used to.

The Japanese developers/publishers are going far more international as they see the profits that can be made from these kind of games in the US and Europe and so the Japanese market is less important. 

The Question of Europe

You claim that Europe suffers from Game delays and yet many games from European and US developers are released far later in Japan then even in Europe.

I do agree that VAT plays a role in the extra costs and this effects sales, but the "language complexity" you speak of is due either to see how well the game sells in one region before selling in another or simply bad company management as you can do translations in parallel to game development , why is it that some games have World wide releases and others do not?

Why are all PC games created in the US released here almost without delay?  As Europe becomes a larger market we will see games being released  in Europe and the US concurrently

At the moment there is no room in the business for a European gaming console and until eastern Europe user base is of a decent size there won't be, but in the future as gaming grows, as it will do, and if  the economic situation keeps on improving (which hope!), there is still a possiblity that it might happen, but I think it would be an international venture as the costs are sky high, but so are the gains.   

Per Person the UK buys more consoles

The combined Total of all Next Gen consoles (Wii, PS3 and Xbox360):

Japan: 5.6 Million, population  is 127 Million - 0.044 consoles per person

UK : 3.4 Million, population is 61 Million - 0.05 consoles per person.

Now take into account that the PS3 was released 4 months later in the UK and that for a long time it had less shipments of the Wii then japan did.

The China syndrome

I agree that China will have a massive effect on gaming, but instead of it being driven by Japan, I can imagine in 10, maybe 20 years time China would of created it's own gaming console, they will have the money and an untapped market that is asking for games that cater to it's tastes. 

I think it might even be supported by the Chinese Goverment because they don't want Japan having so much power in a single market, think about the fact that the chinese don't use windows. They want home grown games and a home grown console that they can control also add in the fact they can produce it cheaper then in Japan. The only question is, will they go international.

The Blue Ocean

What you have said makes a lot of sense but I think your too focused on the past, Nintendo can loose it's control as quickly as sony has, it only takes a blue ocean idea (and loads of cash) and that might just come from Europe or china in a future you haven't imagined.