Dont think it's irrelevant, but I think it's a minor industry now.
By far I think this console war will be won and lost in America.
The market for games there is huge!

Japan doesn't matter period. The Japanese developers like capcom and konami have adapted and shifted their main focus to the USA. Square Enix is in the process of doing the same with licensing the unreal engine etc as they know Japan is just too slow to adapting this generation which mean ALOT of money lost which you can make up in USA which has a much bigger installed based and gamers willing to spend money on games.

As ssj12 mentioned they seem to be moving to casual gaming or hand held market etc which means those 15+ million dollar budgets on 360/PS3 games are waste if those games are sold in Japan.

Basically is all about the DS, PSP and Wii in Japan so basically it doesn't matter in the sense that it won't affect other regions like it used to. Now the BIG games are being made by western developers with games like bioshock, Ratchet, heavenly sword, gears among many more for the PS3/360 being made by western developers that are kicking ass here and in europe but sucking balls in Japan.

I just don't see what the hell does Japan have to offer to gaming here in the states and unless the PS3 starts selling like hot cakes there I don't know what it has to offer for gaming in general.

It's not how much they're buying, it's what they're buying.

I think the title "Is Japanese gaming becoming irrelevent to traditional gamers" would be more appropriate here. As long as they keep buying games, they're relevent.

But the differences between the west and east seem to be widening every year. We still love our platformers, RPGs, shooters, action/adventure games while the Japanese seem to be souring on them.

The Japanese market just shifted.. in a strange fashion. Handheld gaming is up and educational gaming like "Learn English Now" (made up title) will sell 400k first day but traditional platformers that sold like that last gen has fallen to the 120 - 200k launch. Its just a shift that will effect the rest of the world sadly. More Japanese devs will focus on easy educational games then their massive RPGs and genres.

people having been saying that the taste in gaming between Japan and the west has been drifting apart forever, when I remember I read an article in 98 about how the mainstream in Japan was getting so far from the mainstream in the US, people like to panic

I'd say Japan matters less in terms of sheer hardware these days, because the technology is comes from all over the world. All the consoles are built in China, rely on Korean DDR, EU motion sensors, US microprocessors, Taiwanese chipsets, etc.

But Japan remains a powerhouse in game software and design. One of the reasons is that Japan has a thoroughly multinational gaming culture, with deep roots in Japanese anime (animation), US science fiction and fantasy culture, Japanese manga (comics), and the Hong Kong films.

Weird as it sounds, as late as ten years ago, Japanese videogame designers were not well regarded by mainstream Japan - they were the crazy outlaws of the media culture. So videogames were this zone of remarkable innovation, a place where you could break the rules. I think there are places around the world which might follow the Japanese model of concentrated local innovation -- Seoul, Korea, and St. Petersburg, Russia are taking off as centers of game production.

Well here's how I see it. We're moving back to the days of the SNES and GB in Japan times. We got 2 dominant products in the Japanese market being the DS and Wii. Even despite lower sales they are still dominating their market. And this is easy to tell.

But here's the thing. The SNES had a constant sale pace in Japan. The GB had a very slow but constant sale pace. Meaning it allowed the market to grow with them over time. Wii and DS on the other hand have just exploded. DS has done in a 3rd of the time what it took GB to get to 20 million. Wii had been going on PS2 numbers. Point is the market has sustained for 2 years a fast paced growing DS and then both DS and Wii for this last year. And really I don't think the market could keep up that pace realistically.

Basically sorta of like how Point of Diminishing Returns works, but doesn't mean that sales are always going to be down. Point being DS has sold to so many people so quickly in Japan that at some point it had to come down cuase it had an unnatural growth in sales at a point in time. So now it's going to have an unnatural decline in sales over a course of time where for DS's case will probably be leveled up back to normal after holiday season.

Wii on the other hand started off the gate at super speeds but had to come in at a wrong time where the market had been dried from the DS. Meaning it's falling through not only a dried market from the DS but through itself flowing out of the gates. But because it hasn't moved as fast as the DS it'll most likely regenerate after the holiday season.

All other generations in the Japan area has seen either one dominant hardware or 2 dominant hardware saling at reasonable paces. Whether it be SNES and GB or GBA and PS2. Nothing though has been like the Wii and DS combo and I just think it has strained the Japan market for awhile. And this very apparent becuase despite DS and Wii sales being down no other product has really stepped up at all. Wii drops for 2 months, and the PS3 and 360 sales stay exactly the same and only move whne an event happens. That means its obvious that Japan isn't switching to another dominant product.

Although PSP increased it was due to other things and has returned to normal and didn't capitalize on the DS decrease meaning onece again the popular brandname hasn't changed. But its most apparent that this is all true is becuase Wii and DS's decline has seen numerous attempts by the other companies to do pricedrops or new SKU's and Japan and all have been futile. The brandnames haven't died and the dominant products stand.

But it's probably best described as a point of diminishing returns but only in the drop sequence as it'll most likely rise again after holiday season.

Well glad you like it. But I'm not saying it's sucked it completely dry. I'm just saying it's just sucked too much too quickly out of the market and not enough has returned to keep filling in. Sales and the market are like that. Normally there is always a nice median pace to go off of and you can drop above and below that and still keep the market steady. But when you go into a market and completely take it by surprise and sale so much at once eventually your going to get to a point where that pace can't keep up at a certain time. Kinda like our oil situation right now. There is a certain pace we could have used oil such that it would replenish at the same rate we used it. That's a very small pace but you get my gist. But we started using it at ungodly high speeds, which is now causing a shortage as nature hasn't had a chance to go through a cycle and replenish itself.

Same concept here except alot faster haha. DS came in and just got sales upon sales at amazing rates. And then it hit a part of diminishing returns and those sales couldn't stay at those same rates. So naturally the sales are going to drop until the market is able and ready to sustain those numbers which will probably be after the holiday season.

That's basically what I'm trying to say. I mean its obviously not a brand change that is causing this cuase Wii and DS are still the most popular brands in Japan as noone is switching to the other hardware. And its obviously not just handheld domination as DS sales are down as well. So that's my best explanation. But thx for the compliments and comments.

Not only do I think Japan is relevant but I see them as the 'Canary in the Tunnel'. They are the forecasters of what's to come in the rest of the world, to an extent.

DS and PSP are doing great. Wii is doing great too. The issue with games not selling like expected on Wii is the Wii has a broader audience than any seen before (except DS) but the games currently are the same games that have always been there and never appealed to those 'non-gamers' before. So why would they now?

Nintendo needs to find the equalivalant to Nintendogs, Brain Age, English Training etc. that work for well on the DS for the Wii. That's where Wii Fit comes in. Non-traditional players need non-traditional games. But the Wii is different than the DS and it'll take some time for Nintendo and 3rd parties (who mostly just follow Nintendo) to find what works for them on that platform.

Nintendo knows what it's doing, but even they were caught off-guard with the immediate embracing of the Wii by non-gamers. They have plans on how to capitalize on this new market and what works in Japan will eventually work it's way to the rest of the world.

As for 'traditional' gamers in Japan, they'll always have a place but have been in decline for quite some time now.

I don't agree with that. I think non-traditional gamers want to play the non-traditional games but at the same time enter the regular gaming market. That's why Galaxy is such a perfect title becuase Mario is the most well known video game character. It's something that even these non gamers can refer to and say I know who that is. Why do you think New Super Mario Bros sold so well? It sold to more than just hardcore gamers.

But maybe that's why Galaxy started off a slight bit slow is because the bulk of people buying it will be the casual/non gamer who buy randomly or during holiday seasons.

I don't think too many people should be scared about the sales of Galaxy in Japan cause I think in the long run it'll probably either hit or beat expectations for the game.