Great explanations. I didn't know Japanese devs were behind Western devs in late 90's and early 2000 in the PC camp.Did they snub the first signs of Western devs progression and didn't mind learn from them or were they just disconnected from the rest of the world?

One question that I have is why didn't those Western devs developed for well established gaming giants like Sony and Nintendo instead of MS? What was the advantage(s) of Xbox over PS2 and GC?

The style of games that japanese gamers became less popular in the west. Also many devs failed to adapt and to deliver.

While Japan does need to solve a few issues regarding their production, localization and distribution models, this whole issue has been blown out of proportion. A lot of it has to do with perception rather than actual facts, which makes things seem worse than they actually are. As others have already pointed out, the increase of competition in the console space from former PC-only devs and Microsoft's involvement in it has an impact on its own regardless of what Japan does, which combined with the rise of handhelds in there ends up giving a negative image in the West. The difference in how handheld games are valued is key here, as well as the fact that home consoles were largely Japan's territory before, even in the West. The market changes, and so do the goals and expectations.

The comparisons I see people usually make are full of flawed reasoning from the start, making them one-sided. Does it make sense to compare the output of all Western countries combined and/or their markets to just Japan ? Why is Nintendo regularly excluded in the discussion ? Is Metacritic actually "fair" to Japanese developers when its reviews come largely from the West, with little to no representation from Japan or the East ? What about all those unlocalized games ? When you consider all this, Japan's situation is hardly as bad as some make it out to be. In fact, the sole idea of comparing them to the West combined actually says more good things about them than anything.

I would also like to mention something here, which is a recurrent issue I find irritating... (nothing personal though) Anime and manga are two mediums representative of Japanese culture, which encompass a wide variety of genres and styles. While you can point out certain characteristics that are common within them, you can't reduce them to just that, as there's many examples that break the mold. Because of all this, speaking about "anime/manga-type" of games doesn't make much sense, as it doesn't say anything specific about them. It's the same culture, with a lot of its individual talent being shared between all three mediums. Other than realistic sims or other games that deliberately try to imitate Western troopes, it's unreasonable to expect them create things outside the anime/manga spectrum.

The thing is that, technological advances have made cultural elements in gaming more evident than before, which makes those who aren't familiar with them feel the difference more than ever before. I suspect this is why you said "Street Fighter pre-cartoonization", even though Street Fighter has always had manga aesthetics. But of course, what separates them from the West is also what makes them unique...  

I agree with this, for the most part. Such a wasted opportunity... Nintendo provided them the chance of a happy medium, between making handheld games and competing with "AAA" Western games. A popular home console with a lot of visibility, without the required high budgets of the HD platforms or having to stick to digital-only games. While they did supported Wii with a few popular franchises and several niche games, there's a lot more they could've done...

If there's something that can severely damage Japan's publishers, it's the idea of competing directly with the biggest Western ones in their territory, not to mention within the same genres and styles. The way I see it, they need to better adjust budgets according to expectations, invest on more localization and distribution channels, stop trying to follow Western tendencies blindly, and embrace their own strengths.

I wouldn't go as far as saying they don't have a "real" PC market though... It's just that, home computers have a very different history in Japan, so they have a different set of values for it. Most people in the West are not aware of how rich the doujin (Japanese equivalent of indie) scene is, and of course don't care about visual novels in general, which have a big presence there. Then, you have the recent MMOs and browser games, which we rarely get.

By the way, this reminds me of a great article from Hardcore Gaming 101 regarding the history of Japanese computers and their games, which gives a good idea of how they got to where they are now. Here it is. I think it's a must read for any fan of Japanese gaming.

All I can say is that some of the big Japanese developers and publishers have a huge disconnect from their fanbase. They have alienated their loyal fans so bad that its even hard to make a good case for them.

It's clear that Japan just has no business sense. They're too dense to publish games that would make a profit because it's not making as much of a profit as they'd like. It's only making one million instead of $100 million. They don't think we'd like games in the US that are just common sense it's g ames we'd be interested in, and while this won't happen all the time, sometimes it takes a developer like Atlus to finally pick the game up and publish it(Demon's Souls.). When a single game in a franchise sells poorly, they cancel localization for most, if not all, future titles, or they hand the license over to a really shitty American company because that will really make the game sell. Tales of series, Brave Fencer Musashi series, SaGa series, Front Mission series, etc.

Japan needs a few CEOs that aren't dumbasses. Squaresoft needs to have their entire company restructured seeing as they're bleeding money with every release and every game they're releasing from Square Enix Japan is graphics, graphics, graphics, then a little gameplay development time.

You missed the underlying point. Tales is a series that should always make way to the west. It shouldn't take millions of petitions and twitter bombing especially when companies like Atlus or NIS or Marelous manage to bring them over like nothing. The big Japanese companies are ridiculous.

Why the fuck does Nintendo have to bring over Bravely default? Why cant SE do it?

Yes, true. But that only occured after the whole graces movement. Outside of ToS2 and RM up to pre graces we didnt get any tales games. That what he is saying we shouldn't have to beg Japanese developers to bring globally known franchise over.

This. 

We're finally getting Tales of now, but that's not the point.  The series has always sold well enough that we should have got every single title from the start.  We shouldn't have to have missed as many games as we did on the PS2, or every spinoff and main game released on handhelds except for the ToP remake and Radiant Mythology.

These games would make well over a half million each release for Namco Bandai, but because it's only $500,000 instead of $100 million, they just don't bother.  Even if it's a short period of time, this would open up jobs for translators and other such people to work on the localization of the titles.  They'd get more fans because while they would only be making a little bit, people would see more games on the shelves.  Hey.  There's been a shit ton of these games.  Maybe this is actually a good series. 

With 200k sold, atleast half of them being full MSRP, they'd atleast be making two million per game, but regardless of the number.  They'd be getting exposure, plus they'd still be making money.  That's the point.  It's taken them this long to realize this and the only reason it's finally sank in their heads is because how bad there other properties have been doing.  They're finally getting it into there heads its better to make this much because they'ree actually making something rather than losing money with each investment.

So you really think the voice actors cost that much?  Per person there's maybe five hours of dialogue that's kept.  Maybe 40-120 hours to get that amount.  That's for the main characters.  Say $100 an hour.  120 hours, that's only $12,000 per person.  After all the money that Namco Bandai has paid out, they should still be getting more than two million since they sell more than 200,000 in all regions outside of Japan and they only localize the games with one group of voice actors.  It's either English or Japanese voice acting in Tales games.  .