Poor Jay520 is mad at me. oh no how could i offend him :( i feel so bad. how dare i point out these facts.,...

Thing is, you haven't answered to counter points yet ;)

There are a few good points made in this thread about the apparent paradigm shift.

I'd just like to add that there are also real problems in Japan's gaming industry, but they are related to management and corporate structure, not to creativity or innovation.

In terms of blockbuster franchises and huge projects, it's not like EA or other Western giants are necessarily more efficient, it's that they can afford to be less efficient simply because there are WAY more people in the west working as game developers than in Japan - makes sense, given the vast differences in population size. Look at a game like Epic Mickey 2 - 700 developers working on that! Franchises like CoD have also swallowed up whole companies (anybody remember Raven? they used to make some cool games.. or Pandemic, or Free Radical..) not to mention the 50 yearly releases of Madden, NBA, Fifa etc, on every platform under the sun.

The other side of this is that Japanese game companies have a lot of room to improve in terms of how they use their available talent and resources. If you consider that a *big* team in Japan is probably equivalent to a medium-sized team in the west, then I still wouldn't be surprised if western medium-sized teams are more efficient.

Much has been said by leading devs in Japan about this issue, and it has been made apparent in recent years with the massive exodus of leading developers from the companies they used to be synonymous with.
But here also is proof that this is merely a superficial issue, and not a fundamental problem with talent or vision. Developers like Platinum have been pumping out international hits at a furious pace, and with quite a remarkable learning curve if you consider their humble beginnings as Clover (humble in sales, not quality).

Yuji Naka's small independent company Prope has also developed no less than 5 releases across consoles and handhelds in a very short amount of time (Let's Tap/Catch, Ivy the Kiwi Wii/DS, Fishing Resort for Namco, and Rodea which has been finished since last summer!). Like Platinum, Prope didn't even exist when this generation started! And say what you want about Mistwalker, but they have also delivered quite a few large and diverse experiences in a short time-span, even if they have yet to find their golden goose.
I expect to see similar trends in Japan in the coming years from people like Inafune, Itagaki, and hopefully others like Takahashi (father of Katamari Damacy) and (if w'ere lucky) Yu Suzuki.

Japan seems to be going through a 'generational shift' with its developers, and those type of changes are much slower than they are in the west due to different corporate culture in the east. But there is plenty of evidence that if Japanese devs can restructure successfully, a "mean and lean" Japanese game industry can more than hold its own against the world. Personally I look forward to seeing just that happening.

What are you talking about.. of course Japanese gaming is relevant... just look at all the endless Dynasty Warriors and DDR games!

Is Nintendo Japanese? Yes, yes they are. The single most influential company in gaming is Japanese. They sell a ton of hardware, and a ton of software.

End of story.

Uhh no not irrelevant as LOTS of people still enjoy Japanese games. Recently Demon's Souls (A super duper Japanese game) was released in '09 and plenty of people like it and due to demand it got released in America and Europe so there you go.

More games include; Xenoblade, The Last Story, Tales of Graces F, and any bet soon to follow Pandora's Tower

This gen its been very bad but its not irrelvant.

In its basis i find japanese gaming design more stimulating than the Western gaming design. In great part due to its simplicity. Western games always tendedto be more complex not only in scope, wich is good but in complexity to control, wich isnt so good. The gamer community as learned to accept these shortcomings in the latest gen, because the scope and graphical details have become more compelling and convincing than ever.

Japanese still make the most fun games though.

I know many others must have talked about JPRGs and Nintendo published game.

But does no one here play fighting games? Heck, pretty much ALL fighting games are produced in Japan except for Mortal Kombat. We have seen great franchises bring even better games like Street Fighter 4, Tekken 6, Marvel VS Capcom 3, Street Fighter VS Tekken, King Of Fighters 13. These are just games that you know. We have had amazing new IPs such as Blazblue enter the scene.

And this is just one genre, there are many more genres out there that the Japanese industry contributes to. Yes games like Call of Duty have become increasingly popular, but Japanese gaming hasn't become obsolete, its still very much relevant, its just that Western games have also become relevant. And I don't think its a bad thing either, why can't we have Japanese games and Western games be popular and co-exist together?

to answer the question. when it actually becomes irrelevant.