I seem to be one of the few who disagrees with the popular notion (not so surprisingly, popular specifically among western gamers), that western developers have taken over the industry and are SO much better now than Japanese developers are.

It's pretty obvious that the west has risen up within the last couple of generations, with companies like 2K Games, EA, Activision and Ubisoft all really coming into prominence, and studios like Rockstar, Insomniac, Bethesda, Sucker Punch, Bungie, Retro, Naughty Dog, etc. rising to popularity. And I'll also openly admit/lament the fact that many Japanese companies that were once synonymous with greatness and assured quality, such as Squaresoft, Enix, Capcom, Konami, Namco, Sega, etc., have really fallen off within that same span of time, or many more like Hudson Soft, have simply disappeared.

But, beyond that, while I don't deny that western developed games have seemed to take over the industry (other than Nintendo made games), I will absolutely argue the notion that western made games are so much better than Japanese ones these days. And I'm not talking about those aforementioned big studios that have slid in quality. I'm more disappointed than anyone how those companies have turned out, considering they used to make some of my favorite games of all time. BUT, some people seem to like to ignore that there are a lot of great Japanese developers, many of them new, who are excellent and to my mind, still make more creative/more fun games than a good majority of western developed stuff.

Just to name a few: Team Ico (if they'd ever actually hurry the fuck up and finish The Last Guardian), Studio Pixel, Nigoro, Good-Feel, Grasshopper Manufacture, Platinum Games, Vanillaware, Monolith Soft, Intelligent Systems, Camelot, Mistwalker, Treasure, Level-5, Atlus, HAL, Polyphony Digital, etc.

I can't/won't deny that there are a lot of great (especially indie) western dev studios now. But I personally don't think that a lot of the now-popular western devs really deserve quite the amount of hype they get, especially all the purveyors of FPS after FPS. Some of those are even quality games, no doubt. But I just think there is still a hell of a lot more creativity and talent in Japanese devs that many want to think, just not from the major studios (outside of Nintendo). I'd love to see Capcom, Square or Konami return to form and quit putting out bullshit. But I don't trust that to happen. Which is why it's good all of these other, smaller studios do still make great games.

I think my favorite cases of this kind of thing, were Namco making a huge public deal out of the fact that Tales of Graces was going to be Wii exclusive, and then (especially after the Symphonia games had been successful), they turn around and never release it in Wii in NA, instead porting it to PS3. Just made no sense. Same with Square making a huge deal of announcing DQX as being Wii exclusive (later also Wii U), and then never releasing it in NA, even though MMO games don't do well in Japan, and DQIX was the highest selling entry in the entire franchise. Sometimes shit like that is just mind-boggling.

Again, they'd more than cover the costs for a game as big as Tales of.  It's not like they have to redevelop the entire game again.  Localization probably wouldn't even reach a quarter of a million for an RPG. 

Why would they be releasing Xillia 2 after seeing just the amount of preorders?  The sales haven't even hit 100,000 yet, but clearly, localization takes way too much money.  Namco Bandai must not be making any money on that.  RIght?  Right?   Xillia bombed in the west confirmed!  I think I made my point. 

Yeah.  More worthwhile despite having less sales.  Makes perfect sense.

Like I said.  I made my point.  We should have been getting every title from the start.  We shouldn't have missed several main releases and several side releases that would have more than likely sold well enough to make them money. 

As I said before as well, I think with the poor sales of literally everything they've been releasing lately, they've realized some money from Tales of is better than no money.  When they get in a more stable financial position in the future believe me, they're going to abandon their western fanbase again.  I guarantee it.

DOS/Apple/PC = Still non console gaming that made games for home computers. FACT

Halo was to be a MAC game to show how powerful the MAC could be. Steven Jobs though the Halo was coming to the Mac to show how powerful their computer was but Bungie wanted Apple to buy them and they didn't. MS offered to buy and it became a PC/Xbox game once they bought Bungie outright.

Don't tell me they didn't take from the PC realm because they did.

Team Ninja was not and Xbox developer, nor was Sega. They were all third party who had second party contracts with Microsoft.

To all of the people who say hardware isn't an issue for third party devs with Nintendo IT IS! Nintendo answered the question of whether console games could play FPS titles properly.

Again, without the N64's analog stick we would not have been able to Play Doom 64 or Duke Nukem 64 properly on consoles, both which came out in the US before Goldeneye ever landed. Goldeneye was the pinnacle of FPS on consoles at the time because of the realistic hit detection, great map making and set a great standard for Perfect Dark. Rare then split off and created Free Radical who made Time Splitters. 

Enough of the history, back to the point. 

Microsoft took the top PC gaming titles from the PC realm  with them in a flood.

Microsoft brought Lionhead, Valve, Bioware, id was dabbling part time with consoles until they saw the 360's specs and decided to work full time on Rage specifically for consoles, Bethesda came over with Elder Scrolls. Ubisoft and Eidos were making and Dice had been making games. They came in by the boatload. Theres much, much more and they all just seemed to flood in this generation. With all of the western devs who were mostly working on PC flooding in, you mean to tell me this had zero effect on inspiring or increasing the credibility of western games vs the Japanese? They left them in the dust. 

As for the Japan...

had the PS3 been easier to develop for, the result would've remained basically the same. On paper the PS3 was more powerful than the 360. In reality it only had better looking exclusives. Japanese haven't been pushing tech like western devs. Never to the extent, they only have been pushing gameplay, but not really expansive worlds and playing with others in them. Essentially westerners were ahead of them by a generation already. If you look at it PC gaming today is being held back by console gaming, because the top publishers and developers are waiting for console revenue. How many Japanese devs outside of Inafune do you see getting on the case of Japan? Very few. Hideo Kojima has to be depressed because he's figuratively alone right now. I still love the games, but come on, who are we kidding here? Platinum Games is in the safe zone right now developing for the Wii U and you know it. Monolith will finally get hardware to make a proper JRPG and I think right now outside of Versus thats the only one I am interested in. Lost Odyssey was great and when I get the Wii U I will definitely look into buying the digital version of the Last Story.

Western development is growing at an alarming rate and the only thing holding back multiplat PC devs is console development. On the upside their company grows because of the revenue they bring it from consoles. Hopefully Japan shapes up for next gen, because when we see how crazy and expansive the next gen WRPG's are the JRPG's better match up.

Agreed!

I don't think we ignore them, it's just that we don't see their work. When you many of the talented Japanese devs are better talented then Western, I take that with a grain of salt because I don't see much material to back their status.

You can take whatever with a grain of salt that you wish. It doesn't change the fact that at least there are Japanese devs out there unafraid to try new things, whereas major western devs are locked into long-term franchises and "AAA blockbuster hits". I'd rather have creative approaches to gaming, instead of "Oh look, another game where you shoot things/people with guns!". If you don't see that, you're just not looking hard enough.

There are many large factors that lead to the "fall" of Japanese developers. Minus Nintendo, of course.

One being that they largely moved to handhelds, so it seems as though their home console presence has been diminished. Two, Western developers have overshadowed Japanese devs. so much, recently, that Japanese devs. just can't seem to keep up with their output. Be it quality or not.

Japanese Developers, however, are not as bad as some people make them out to be. Sometimes they go overboard on certain aspects (Really overboard) but there are still some good games being pushed out by the East.

A game like Tales doesn't have higher localization costs than Atelier or Neptunia, so that point can not be used.