I'm sick of hearing people say that Japanese games are lower quality than Western games.  The people that are saying this I can guarantee are basing the arguement based soley on graphics.  The only thing that western games tend to be better than Japanese games is for graphics and online, almost everything else tends to be better on Japanese games.  Story in Japanese games is leaps and bounds ahead of Western games and anyone that disagrees obviously has not played enough Japanese games.  You also get way more bang for your buck with Japanese games with most being around 20 hours and most Western games being around 8 hours.  

I also hear a lot that Japanese games are not as good as they used to be...what?  The number of Japanese games has gone down, but the games are just as good as they have ever been or even better.  Games like Ni No Kuni, X, MGS 4 or 5, Super Mario Galaxy, Batonetta 2, Ys: Memories of Celceta, Tales of Vesperia, Tales of Xillia, Valkyria Chronicles, Disgaea 4 or D2, Last Guardian (if it ever comes out), FF15, Lost Odyssey and Fire Emblem Awakening, just off the top of my head.  People that are saying this are either stuck in the past or they are simply not playing any of these games and think they are in any position to talk about the state of Japanese games.

I'm not saying Japanese games are better than Western games or Western are better than Japanese, as I said both have their aspects that they do better than the other.  I'm just sick of people saying discouraging things about Japanese games when they don't even play them and are in no position to say the things they say.

Kind of weird you list games that haven't come out. They don't really demonstrate anything yet.

For me its always been Japanese > Western.

So the trailers out for them don't demonstrate anything?  There are even reviews for some of those that are already out in Japan so we basically already know they are good.

Trailers don't demonstrate that a game will be great. They could always turn out like Aliens Colonial Marines.

Fighting generalizations with more generalizations is meaningless. Sorry, but you're doing the same thing they are. I mean, most western games are 8 hours? I've put tons of hours into Fallout New Vegas, Torchlight 2, AudioSurf, and Borderlands 2 over the last six months. What about Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age?

These generalizations accomplish nothing. If you want to defend Japanese games, fine, but trying to do that by lumping all western games together serves no real purpose.

I like diversity, so I tend to promote and play both. Japanese games have their place still. My favorite series is Japanese after all (MGS). But they have languished this gen (in terms of overall quality and quantity). I've played much more WRPGs than JRPGs for the first time this gen for instance (unprecedented for me). With that said I do not think their offerings are awful. The great majority of games I am looking forward to this year from the PS3 are Japanese games, and I have a strong appreciation for creative, niche titles like rain, SoTC and ICO - all Japanese titles.

I agree. You can find some good Western games. So saying all lack in comparison to Japanese games is just mean.

Also, there's no need to defend Japanese Devs. People who don't like Japanese games either are ignorant or just simply do not like them. This goes for both sides of the argument. You won't make people think differently.

(My point is backed up by the numerous threads across the internet that try to do the same thing you are doing.)

Japanese make the best fighters.

Stories in Japanese games better than their Western counterpart?
I'm sorry but the maturity on Most of their games cap at age 14. I grew out of Japanese games, mostly JRPG.
Cliche characters don't capture my attention anymore nor does fantasy stories that seem echoed in a lot of internal competition.
This is obviously my point of view. Japanese games obviously doesn't suck but they are lagging behind West in graphical terms and variety(sports,fps's,tps's,open world games and even other types of RPG like action a la Mass Effect).