Bingo! Ha ha ha. Yeah!

Well a lot of Japanese Gamers as well as Devs have been saying this for quite some time.

They don't want to go around using guns to kill people in broken cities. They want to fight with their swords in fantasy world RPG style.

i dont think so, black ops sold over 150 k  during the first week of its release. 

I think that japanese people are a bit biased against western games. I mean there are some cultural differences but let's say it clearly, this generation marked the rise of western gaming and maybe the fall of japanese gaming.

I can't beleive there is still people that brings up the theory that western games don't have story and atmosphere and mood. Because there is no japanese game in this generation that can best the likes of Mass Effect or Dragon Age o Heavy Rain in that department.

Probably the fact that the japanese market is moving toward handheld gaming, while in the western market classic gaming is still predominant explain partially why some quality western games fail or seem to fail in japan.

Au contraire

I just started Borderlands Goty and I am a huge fan of RPGs. But this game is going to be a similar dissappointment as Oblivion Goty was, I fear.

There is no backstory of the Characters, the story seems to be really dull, the characters are downright ugly and once again gameplay is dominated by lots of useless/senseless sidequests. Why is it that so many WRPGs puts so little effort in Characters and story?

Well, at least it has local multiplayer, so I can play it together with my wife. But this is the second so-called "game of the year" edition that failed to deliver a great gaming experience for us.

I can understand why sandbox/openworld games fail to reach high sales levels in Japan. I live in Austria (Europe) and live in the western world. In some western Games like Oblivion, Borderlands, Sacred 2, Deathspank, etc. I start thinking what the whole game is about anyway. The lack in  entertaining/thrilling storytelling and interesting characters is a big problem for me, because I cannot connect to the world of the game. So it gets boring pretty fast. Only gameplay is just not enough for me.

I usally find much more entertainment in japanese games, because they tend to put more effort in the characters/stories/emotions the game should deliver. Especially RPGs are games where you can think a lot about the story and what is actually going on in the game.

After several tries I gave up on Sandbox/Moral systems/tons of Sidequests/Online Multiplayer. Since I got used to japanese Games I develloped some sort of expectations on characters/storytelling. Thats why some of the above-mentioned western games felt dissappointing soon.

There are great exceptions. Legacy of Kain is indeed one of the best story-driven western games I have played so far. It is a pity they stopped the Franchise after the open end in Defiance. Heavy Rain was the second best game I played this year (after FF XIII). Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, Uncharted were also western games with interesting Characters and humour.

There are still many playstation 1 games that I fondly remember (Final Fantasy 7-9, Vagrant Story, Front Mission 3, Resident Evil 1-3, Metal Gear Solid, Suikoden 1-2, Legay of Kain series etc.) because of Characters/Story. But games like GTA4, Oblivion, Sacred 2, Deathspank or Borderlands feel quite shallow in comparison.

Thats why I can understand why many Japanese rejects some very successful western games. In the end, they do deliver action and gameplay and unnecessary violence, but on the character/story side they are simply underwhelming (in my opinion).

The idea that Japan is biased against Western games is utter BS, let's look at Western developed games that have done well in Japan:

Pos	Game	Americas	Japan	EMEAA	Worldwide
1	Donkey Kong Country (SNES) Nintendo	4.43	3.00	1.87	9.30
2	Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (SNES) Nintendo	2.13	2.21	0.81	5.15
3	Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! (SNES) Nintendo	1.19	1.77	0.55	3.51

1

Banjo-Kazooie (N64) Nintendo

1.86

0.56

1.23

3.65

2

Donkey Kong 64 (N64) Rare

3.31

1.10

0.86

5.27

1	Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back(PS) Sony Computer Entertainment	3.87	1.33	2.37	7.57
2	Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS) Sony Computer Entertainment	3.76	1.45	1.91	7.12
3	Crash Bandicoot (PS) Sony Computer Entertainment	3.29	0.94	2.57	6.80

Guess what, they are platformers.  this suggests that its the fact that the genre isn't that popular in Japan is the reason why many Western games 'fail' in Japan.

Whoa, some of the people acting as if Japan isn't pumping out heaps of great games every single year are just delusional.

In just the last few years, Japan has developed:

Street Fighter 4

Resident Evil 5

Gran Turismo 5

Bayonetta

Vanquish

Metal Gear Solid 4

Demon's Souls

Ninja Gaiden Sigma

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2

Devil May Cry 4

Valkyria Chronicles

Super Mario Galaxy

Kirby Epic Yarn

Donkey Kong Country Returns

and the list of amazing games coming out of Japan goes on and on.

They are as good as American developers and just because the Western media has some sort of weird bias against most Japanese games, it doesn't mean they aren't as good. 

The scary part of this picture is that half of them are dudes... >_>

well you can buy used panties in vending machines in Japan. So I can see why Western games do not appeal to them.