LMU Uncle Alfred said: Replicant said: There are exceptions of course but roughly speaking I agree with you. And my biggest complaint about them isn't even the microtransactions and season passes. It seems like the majority of Western AAA games nowadays are built around MMO-like structures and I really find them boring and soulless. If we make Western developers know how much quality decline we think their games have seen, maybe that'll motivate them to improve just like the Japanese developers were motivated by the criticism   OT: Shout-out to Capcom as well. Like Sega, they still struggle a bit but I really enjoyed Resident Evil 7. RESIDENT EVIL 7: BIOHAZARD 86 Metascore 98 critics 7.8 User Score 1523 Ratings   The west for the last two gens was ahead in terms of technology and had a better grasp on the PC infrastructure of gaming.  But now that the Japanese are catching up the creative blocks that Western studios run into are showing more and more.

Pretty much this and its not too hard to find good PC versions of Japanese games anymore.

Well, we're mainly referring to console games, and North America, Western Europe and Japan are the main places where they're popular (as most of the world went with PC games). So, Japan has a much bigger influence on console games than it's population may suggest, so that's why many people compare Western and Japanese games despite the huge difference in population.

There are still great games coming out of Western developers (just look at Europe) but I agree with you that many Western AAA's are mediocre and boring.

I don't however agree with bolded. For me, a game that is too cinematic is a game that has too many and too long cutscenes. Not necessarily bad gameplay. For instance, current Naughty Dog games are very cinematic but I still enjoy the gameplay. It's just that some of their latest games take away player control too often. I prefer when the story is told through gameplay, environments, characters, video logs, notes, etc.

When Valve still made games (pre Dota 2) they were so good at this with Half Life and Portal.

LMU Uncle Alfred said: Replicant said: There are exceptions of course but roughly speaking I agree with you. And my biggest complaint about them isn't even the microtransactions and season passes. It seems like the majority of Western AAA games nowadays are built around MMO-like structures and I really find them boring and soulless. If we make Western developers know how much quality decline we think their games have seen, maybe that'll motivate them to improve just like the Japanese developers were motivated by the criticism   OT: Shout-out to Capcom as well. Like Sega, they still struggle a bit but I really enjoyed Resident Evil 7. RESIDENT EVIL 7: BIOHAZARD 86 Metascore 98 critics 7.8 User Score 1523 Ratings   The west for the last two gens was ahead in terms of technology and had a better grasp on the PC infrastructure of gaming.  But now that the Japanese are catching up the creative blocks that Western studios run into are showing more and more.

Yeah. That sounds right.

And I did enjoy many of those story-focused Western games in the last two gens. Before we got games as services :-/

Wtf does he think Western devs were magical in 2009? What a stupid comment.

No Nioh in the OP?

On topic he sure crashed hard, he thought he was far bigger then he actually is no wonder Kamiya made that stinging assessment of him. Every region has a quiet period I also like how Phil Fish got flashed out the industry as well.