I think that is sarcasm but, the wii is at 33 million right now, half way through October. To get to 45 million Nintendo would have to ship all 2.whatever million consoles they produce each month and have 8 million stockpiled for the holidays. Unlikely. And then up production to 35 million a year, again, unlikely.

Nintendo is making 2+ million a month correct? We are at 33 million right now. 2 months left. What do we get?

@cwbys21: 3 months left + all the Wii's they made hadn't been shipped. Just take a look at last years sales and stop talking crap...

3 months left? I can see why you would say that since the wii's being made right now won't be in stores for a while, but I am not talking crap. Nintendo sells wiis as fast as they can get to stores right now. Why would they hold back on making money now, to get the same amount of money later?

Interesting discussion you guys have going here. It's funny that Kojima is only now seeing this (when did he ever say this before?!), when some (most notably, but not exclusively, Nintendo) have been publically pointing this out since at least 2005. Was it the sales of his magnus opus that opened his eyes?

Of course, Kojima still picked a bad time to say this. I don't see the Japanese gaming market as really being all that much in trouble. The Wii and most especially the DS are making sure that's not the case (for now).

What Kojima fails to realize is that the Japanese gaming market is as healthy as it's ever been; it's just evolved a different set of rules and tastes. The same old stuff that's aimed at young males doesn't cut it there anymore (the fact that there are fewer and fewer young males probably has something to do with that). Games like Metal Gear, or even Mario Galaxy just don't have the same pull they used to. Not to say they're irrelevant, but where once those titles were the bread and butter of the industry, they've been overtaken by portable games and stuff like Wii Fit.

The few gaming companies that saw the writing on the wall are still doing quite well in Japan. The rest...not so much.

Of course, Kojima may have been referring to the nebulous "mindshare." Even then, though, he'd be wrong. Plenty of Japanese developers still have plenty of pull throughout the world. Capcom's as big as it's ever been, the dinosaur that is Square-Enix proves that inertia can indeed get you far, and Nintendo....well, we all know about Nintendo.

Perhaps though he's looking at the rising competition in the West from Western developers. If that's the case, why is he surprised? The West was relatively barren on the gaming front for years after Atari's crash, with few Western companies having the resources or expertise of their Japanese counterparts. But where there's money to be made, such a vacuum rarely lasts long.

Long story short: I don't get it. Are we examining the same gaming market? I suspect not...

Release games on Platform with a better focus on the target audience.
Localize properly
Closer Global Releases
Better advertising

Expensive upfront, but it should help sales quite well if they can do these right.

Just my opinion.

Pyuu~  took me some time ~°(^_^)°~.

Yea... good idea for japanese developers to make games on a console foreign to Japanese markets... JRPG on X360 where X360 has so little precense in Japan??? Japanese made RPG has traditionally sold more or about the same in Japan by itself compare to WW sales...

I agree with Soriku's statement about JRPG being misplaced on consoles. Putting it on the Wii is fine and all, but it really have to depend on what kind of RPG they are going for though. For the main stream stuff like Tales, Wii would probably be the best bet, for high end stuff like FF, WKC, Infinte Undiscovery, etc which one of its major selling points are graphic should put on the second strongest Japan console.

 Euhm what ?  That almost sounds as an lame excuse sorry for that, but you said that HD announcements from Japan are schrinking? You are normally an user who always say something that sounds reasonable and check things before you say something.  I really have no feeling that they announced more HD Japan games last year than this year.  I even think that last year we only got footage/screenshots/information about games that have to release this year or still have to be released in the future.  So again do you have a list or something like that? Any proof that JAPAN HD announcements are schrinking?

And so what if those feel so western?  Isn't Madworld also very Western?

Mad World is no more Western than No More Heroes. Probably less so.