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Citan on 27 September 2009
.jayderyu said:
Good question, one not so easily answered by a Video Game forum. There are many factors in play. History, culture, mentality, expectations, beliefs.

America is founded on violence. During the time period guns were the most common weapons. There is no long term north american history that has any romantic fantasy about melee weapons. Americas most romantic figures are Cowboys and to a much lesser extent Mounties. Both of which are armed. Where as Europe and Japan/China(yes Europe likes FPS too) have a long history and one where Melee and other form of physical arts were developed. There are numerous legends, myths and stories that date back to heroes using melee weapons. And yes even these countries have created romantic icons of Chivalrous Knights and Noble/Honorable Samurai. So when it comes to current culture the "West" has the Gunslinger and Marine as the iconic characters where "East" has iconed the Swordsman.

Theres still more to go of course. The nature of the Icon is only part of the story. Theres current life expectations and current culture mentality. NA is often a quick gratitude society. They was quick answers, quick gratification essentially wanting quicker game play. Where as the "East" also enjoy reading, in depth analysis and can deal with long term planning. This doesn't mean either East or West can't or don't have the other, but you can have leanings. FPS are probably embody an Iconic figure with quick gratification. Where as "East" have Iconic figure with deep stories to go with their long tradition of history.

By no means is this the answer or tackles all the points to properly respond to this question, but it's quick insight into some of the elements that do define the different tastes.

Best post on this thread in my opinion.

 



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Garnett on 27 September 2009

Most americans dont like JRPG because..

 

1. Most JRPG are sappy love storys 

2. There story's are cliche 

3. Boring gameplay.

4. Men look like women or cross dressers or are whiney. 

 

I cant tell you why Japanese dont buy American games.



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Citan on 27 September 2009
Garnett said:

Most americans dont like JRPG because..

 

1. Most JRPG are sappy love storys

2. There story's are cliche

3. Boring gameplay.

4. Men look like women or cross dressers or are whiney.

 

I cant tell you why Japanese dont buy American games.

From what I can tell, you haven`t played many JRPG`s.

The storylines in JRPG`s are much much deeper than most of the western counterparts.

The gameplay varies alot.

There are many macho men in JRPG`s also. And what is this stereotyping of men should be  macho

without feelings?

JRPG are extremely populare in the west.



Dinomax on 27 September 2009

A big piece of this who east vs west game culture can be explained fairly easily on japans side. Most Japanese gamers simply dont know about Western games in the first place...

I had a Japanese exchange student once live with my family for a year and it was first time he ever heard or played a prince of persia (he even was subscribed to famitsu) I asked him did he ever hear about western developers? Epic? Ubisoft? Blizzard. (he knows mostly for starcraft) He never heard of Counter Strike! Well you can say his first time playing a lot of western games blew his mind open.

Most Japanese media tends to report...well japanese developed games more. Most Western third partys dont even distrubute games to Japan either, leaving them to launch without much hype or any announcement at times.


As for Japans development issues can be summed up nicely with,

Poorly translated or no effort localizing, resulting in bad voice actors or mess of scripts.

Dated controls and gameplay.

Characters that dont have a broad appeal in design but instead look more like a romance manga characters. Or even worst loli manga designs.

Games having a LOT of anime cliques lately, I dont mean well shaded/animated action scenes. I mean long boring mindless dribble, then most intense action in cut scenes than actually game play.







Onyxmeth on 27 September 2009
Citan said:

In Japan I`M sure there are more marketing of PES than Fifa, but come on, any reasonable gamer also knows that PES eats Fifa anyday.

Fifa is made for small children. PES is for the pros.

Just had to comment that.

I thought we were trying to talk about cultural differences and not silly "My favorite game is better than that other game" school age talk. Let's just come to the understanding that EA can potentially advertise more, and since we don't know how either gets advertised in Japan it's unfair to assume EA just rolls over and dies over there, or does so for no reason.

Secondly, critical review and most forum posts from the last few years on this site have shown me FIFA has become the better game as Pro Evo has been getting progressively worse and FIFA has been getting better and better on the HD twins. Even if both were on an even keel, FIFA should be selling more because it contains more leagues and teams than Pro Evo does, giving it a distinct competitive advantage.

The bottom line is, what EA does happens to work in the rest of the world, regardless of what anyone thinks about the game personally. Why doesn't it work in Japan?



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c0rd on 27 September 2009
Onyxmeth said:

Lost Planet sold pretty well considering it was an early release for the 360, which doesn't have a game that has even cracked 220K yet. Now don't get me wrong, there's more to the story here. Japanese gamers that own 360s seem to be more susceptible to buying american games than PS3 owners, considering most western games sell on par on both consoles or sometimes even slightly better on the 360 even with the huge discrepancy in userbase. WRPGs from Bethesda have both sold slightly more on the 360 and Fable II has done better than both of them.

However there are some telling signs that the Japanese do hold some pride in buying their own games. The top selling racing title on the 360 is Ridge Racer 6. Now racing is universally the same. There is no feeling RR gives off in the driving that makes it seem more japanese than say PGR, Forza, Need for Speed, etc. and yet it's at the top of the pack. Why? Well Namco makes it.

This one I'm not entirely sure of since I'm not familar with either series, but why does Pro Evolution Soccer outsell FIFA only in Japan? In the rest of the world FIFA reigns supreme. In Japan, Pro Evo hands FIFA it's ass consistently. Is there a reason other than one is made by Konami and one is made by EA to explain the discrepancy here?

It's not a science, and there will always be an exception or two, but I fully believe nationalistic pride plays a huge factor in the buying habits of Japanese gamers. Why else would they be the only region to stick so close to their own products, when americans, europeans and the rest of the world can embrace products from any region equally?

I don't live in Japan so I couldn't say for sure, but I'm thinking what Dinomax said is probably true - they just aren't really exposed to the western games. Sure, Japan is the only region that seems to stick to their own games, but they're also the only region that has a ton of games developed solely for themselves. You brought up Ridge Racer 6 - I haven't played the game, to be honest, but I just looked up the intro. Take a look:

Let's also not forget that Ridge Racer is the established franchise there, so more people will be drawn to it.

In general, the vast majority of people don't care about where a product comes from. Americans don't buy the 360 over the PS3 just because it's American made. People do have some brand loyalty and make generalizations, however, and I can believe this affecting the Japanese interests. For example, the Japanese may associate games made overseas are largely about guns - shooting & killing, something they're not interested in. If someone tells the Japanese buyers of Donkey Kong Country / Crash Bandicoot that they're games made in the west, I doubt they'd beat themselves up for supporting a different country.


As for PES vs Fifa, I don't know the games, so I couldn't tell you. However, the same argument can be made about American sales - on the PS3, Fifa 09 sold nearly 6x more than PES 09 did in America. While the difference is bigger for Japan (~10x), I'd bet the determining factor is something other than nationalistic pride.



Akvod on 27 September 2009

Why don't American 360 owners buy JRPGs? Is it because they're racist and xenophobic?

If you provide a reason like, JRPGs suck, the genre, style, etc isn't catered towards Americans, why can't we apply that to the Japanese?



nen-suer on 27 September 2009
Akvod said:
Why don't American 360 owners buy JRPGs? Is it because they're racist and xenophobic?

If you provide a reason like, JRPGs suck, the genre, style, etc isn't catered towards Americans, why can't we apply that to the Japanese?

i would like to hear an answer to this question



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Reasonable on 27 September 2009
Akvod said:
Why don't American 360 owners buy JRPGs? Is it because they're racist and xenophobic?

If you provide a reason like, JRPGs suck, the genre, style, etc isn't catered towards Americans, why can't we apply that to the Japanese?

Sadly, it's the wonder of Double Standards...

"They don't like the genre's popular here, so they must be strange, odd, racist, etc.  We don't like the genre's popular there, but that's perfectly acceptable and sensible."

What a wonderful world.



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

Citan on 27 September 2009
Onyxmeth said:
Citan said:
 

In Japan I`M sure there are more marketing of PES than Fifa, but come on, any reasonable gamer also knows that PES eats Fifa anyday.

Fifa is made for small children. PES is for the pros.

Just had to comment that.

I thought we were trying to talk about cultural differences and not silly "My favorite game is better than that other game" school age talk. Let's just come to the understanding that EA can potentially advertise more, and since we don't know how either gets advertised in Japan it's unfair to assume EA just rolls over and dies over there, or does so for no reason.

Secondly, critical review and most forum posts from the last few years on this site have shown me FIFA has become the better game as Pro Evo has been getting progressively worse and FIFA has been getting better and better on the HD twins. Even if both were on an even keel, FIFA should be selling more because it contains more leagues and teams than Pro Evo does, giving it a distinct competitive advantage.

The bottom line is, what EA does happens to work in the rest of the world, regardless of what anyone thinks about the game personally. Why doesn't it work in Japan?

Do you know what a biased review is? Did you see gta iv`s reviews? Don`t try to out-review PRO vs. fifa.

I`m sure that Japanese soccer fans are interested in soccer from all over the world, but they choose gameplay over Ronaldo looking more like Ronaldo.

At least I do that.