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Post by wyrdwad on Jun 26, 2011 23:27:52 GMT -5
Last Story, Xenoblade, Fatal Frame IV... That's all Nintendo of America. Which, last I checked, is an American company. Nintendo of Japan had no qualms releasing any of those. (: -Tom |
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Post by kitten on Jun 27, 2011 2:16:36 GMT -5
My point, though, is that it's all subjective. What's not subjective is that most of the big names in Japan are doing critically and financially far below expectations, and many of them, like Capcom and Konami, are bending over backward to try to appeal to western tastes (and failing, if things like the Lost Planet series have been any indication). RE5 was widely considered disappointing, but a series like Dead Space, which was heavily inspired by RE4, ended up being a better sequel to RE4 than RE5 was (both financially and critically). Companies like Square Enix are reporting record failures. Indie games have also had explosive growth, lately, and most of them are coming out of the west, particularly the states. In nearly every facet, the west is trampling the east in growth, popularity and sales. Western game design is basically going through a flourishing renaissance, while Eastern gaming: Becomes more insular and OCD, like with Monster Hunter, Phantasy Star and MGS:PW Poorly imitates better Western games, like with Vanquish and Lost Planet Sticks to the same old shitty guns, like any Final Fantasy released in the last however many years, among other RPGs Or is just vapid garbage for people who care more about stylish little girls than playing a video game, like Agarest War, Otomedius, Touhou or a million other games. Sure, there's some heroics going on by companies like From Software. Atlus is still trying a few new things and hasn't gone stale yet. Suda51 is still fighting the good fight... But it's nothing like what it used to be. Japanese gaming is dying in style, dying in talent, dying in design, dying in popularity - dying in just about every way, really! Even Keiji Inafune thinks so, and the guy was easily once one of my most respected game designers. Japan isn't doing poorly in gaming because they're misunderstood or all their good games are going under the radar, they're doing poorly because they're freaking atrophying. People don't like them anymore for a reason, and it's not because they're foreign and different, it's because they're bad. Which wasn't even a Capcom game, and more evidence that Capcom has become awful given that it's a better sequel to DMC3 than DMC4 was, and definitely a better DMC game than the upcoming piece of shit is going to be. You'd sure as fuck blame a bank if they didn't protect their money, though! That analogy is absolutely asinine, Wyrdwad, and I'm ashamed to see you use it. Sony's security is something that they're required, by law, to have to protect their consumer base. Their consumer base that keeps them in business and feeds them money, no less. What they did was grossly negligent and irresponsible. They didn't just allow themselves to be fucked over, but they allowed over 100 million other people to be fucked over, too. Sony even laid off security people before this big hack happened. Seriously, look at this. They fucked up and it was their fault. They deserve scorn and they deserve to flounder for it. I could bring up a tremendous list of other awful things Sony has done, too. I can understand being fully behind some of their products, but, as a company, they're easily the most evil of the "big three." They're not just bad, they're awful. I'd argue they're contemptuous of their customer base. - - - - - Anyway, my venom toward Japan's gaming industry and game design right now is only so strong because I grew up such a tremendous fan. I wouldn't be so critical if I didn't know from experience that they could be doing so much better. I'm disgusted with their state of affairs, right now, and companies I used to borderline worship like Capcom have just become reprehensibly disfigured effigies of their old selves. |
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Post by TheGunheart on Jun 27, 2011 2:41:34 GMT -5
To be perfectly honest, I feel one of the biggest problems is the rise in development costs and the drastic change in aesthetics expected of the HD generation. I'm partly expected the Playstation Vita to be pretty much a death nail in terms of Japanese handheld games.
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Post by KeeperBvK on Jun 27, 2011 4:04:38 GMT -5
Last Story, Xenoblade, Fatal Frame IV... That's all Nintendo of America. Which, last I checked, is an American company. Nintendo of Japan had no qualms releasing any of those. (: -Tom Nintendo of Japan controls their foreign subsidiaries quite a lot, so I wouldn't be surprised if NoJ was responsible for that, in fact. VC and WiiWare releases in Europe for example are completely dictated by NoJ, with Nintendo of Germany (where the main European HQ of Nintendo is located) not even knowing most of the releases a week before. |
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Post by wyrdwad on Jun 27, 2011 4:28:12 GMT -5
NoA isn't particularly influenced by NoJ, actually. They're very separate entities.
Can't speak for NoE, though.
And Kitten: I wish I could give you some insider info to prove my point, but suffice it to say, Sony is NOT evil. Not even close. They're one of the best, friendliest, most laid-back, understanding and generally well-intentioned companies to work with of them all, and the PSN hack really wasn't their fault in any way. Their security wasn't as good as it COULD'VE been, sure, but it wasn't really lacking, either -- it was at least up to the minimum standards required by law, and I maintain that even if it WERE super-duper hefty, they STILL would've been hacked just as badly -- the hackers who hit them were out for their blood, and would've stopped at nothing to get in and give them a bad name.
I don't feel bad for a single person who had his/her account info compromised -- MYSELF INCLUDED -- because I know it wasn't Sony's fault. The hackers are the ones to blame, and they're the ONLY ones I blame for the incident. I wish people would be more understanding, and stop trying to vilify Sony, because Sony really is a good company that cares about their customers and -- most unusually in this industry -- cares about and respects all third-party developers and publishers who work with them. They're misunderstood, if anything, NOT evil.
Also, Japanese games are NOT stagnating at all -- you just have to know where to look. Falcom is as good as ever, Acquire's done some really creative and interesting things with games like Akiba's Trip (which I maintain is a brilliant satire of Japanese otaku culture), Sting continues to innovate with every single title they release, Spike games are ALWAYS an experience (try playing Dangan Ronpa or Gachitora and tell me you're not impressed with the sheer originality on display!), excellent indie titles like Corpse Party are coming into their own (and getting funded sequels, no less!) thanks to smaller publishers like 5pb... the list goes on and on.
Before you can say "western games are flourishing and Japanese games are stagnating," you really need to take a firm look at ALL games from both regions -- you can't just make a blanket statement like that based only on the few games you've played. Every game I'm currently looking forward to is Japanese (El Shaddai, Catherine, Gravity Daze, Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, To Heart 2: Dungeon Travelers, etc.), and I'm willing to bet you've only heard of one of those games (Catherine). You might want to look up some of the others at some point, as well as titles I referenced earlier in this response.
Japan has a lot more to offer than you seem to realize.
-Tom
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Post by robertagilmour on Jun 27, 2011 8:15:40 GMT -5
I hated it when GBA versions of SNES classics added in sound effects from their newer games.
I dont have much to say about this Japan vs the rest of the games world industry, but it would be completely impossible for them to stay on top like they used to as the industry grows around the world. I'm sure some day Chinese, Indian, African, South American and Middle Eastern developers are gonna be giving other developers trouble.
I wouldnt blame all the problems on racism, but I do think there is a significant aggressive cultural divide (which veers into racism at times), which is sometimes understandable because I do hate certain aspects of Japanese, British and American culture which rubs off into their games in repulsive ways.
I sometimes think games are gradually losing their souls and imaginations, but that is probably just the big boys losing their good guys and the good stuff gradually gets more and more obscure, as it happens in every entertainment industry.
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Post by vetus on Jun 27, 2011 8:29:23 GMT -5
This whole "waaah Japan is eviiil" shit is getting so old. And the same goes for "Waaaaaah! American companies are so evil!" shit from japanese wannabes. I also prefer japanese games over american/european ones but if a game is awesome I won't give a damn if it's japanese, american, european, whatever. |
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Post by alan01987 on Jun 27, 2011 8:53:23 GMT -5
I think the problem is some of Japanese companies haven't come to terms with the fact that many of their games aren't the crowdpleaser they used to be. People want more FPSs, Sandboxes and WRPGs, plain and simple.
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Post by retr0gamer on Jun 27, 2011 9:19:24 GMT -5
I don't agree with that. I think they should continue to keep making the games that they always make and not try to copy Western conventions because everytime they do they mess up. They just seemed to try and appeal to everyone once this generation hit but during the PS2 the very japanese games were still selling well. They've managed to create a negative stigma now of japanese games with all the poorly thought out western centric games that they try to put out.
Also Sony can go to hell for closing down lik sang and how they treat customers suffering from fault PS3's due to their own bad design.
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Post by vetus on Jun 27, 2011 9:32:07 GMT -5
I think the problem is some of Japanese companies haven't come to terms with the fact that many of their games aren't the crowdpleaser they used to be. People want more FPSs, Sandboxes and WRPGs, plain and simple. I think it's the total opposite: japanese companies think that their japanese games don't appeal to the western market, the people there mainly prefer FPS, sandboxes, sport games, mmorpg etc and that's why they try desperately to "americanised" their japanese-oriental games (like Devil May Cry that got negative feedback when Capcom decided to "americanised" it) or make games that they believe they will appeal to western market (like Enslaved: Odyssey to the West that Bandai Namco believed that it will be a blockbuster but sold much less that they expected). The videogames market have room for everyone, which means that not everyone in the west market like FPS and they prefer something more "exotic" like monster-breeding games with cute monsters (see Pokemon), japanese visual novels with over-the-top story/characters (see Phoenix Wright) that they sold much better than the producers expected. Speaking for Pokemon, did you know that Nintendo of America was intented to "americanise" Pokemon by making the Pokemon design less cute and more wild? Fortunately they did not. Was it their loss? The total opposite: they sold like crazy. Let's not forget to mention that japanese companies knows to make successful, qualitative western-oriental games as well like Contra and Metroid that are inspirited from american movies like Aliens. |
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Post by wyrdwad on Jun 27, 2011 12:34:50 GMT -5
The Lik-Sang thing was Sony Europe, which is a completely separate entity from Sony Japan and Sony America. And from what I've seen, Sony America (at the very least) is very supportive of replacing faulty PS3s -- and PS3s don't die all that often to begin with, unlike a certain other red-ringed console that shall remain nameless.  The only thing Sony America's done that I disagree with was their whole removal of Linux support and subsequent persecution of Geohot -- and they paid dearly for that, since that was the impetus that led to the PSN hack. Make no mistake, those hackers would've just as easily been able to get into Microsoft or Nintendo, but they had a score to settle with Sony over the Geohot debacle. And hopefully, they've learned their lesson -- as Extra Credits on escapistmagazine.com put it, "you do not want to mess with the kind of people who put Linux on their PlayStations." (Consequently, Nintendo of Japan has done far worse, too, what with their whole anti-R4 crusade, going so far as to actually SHUT DOWN MOM-AND-POP STORES solely because they had R4s for sale, likely costing those people their entire livelihoods and essentially ruining their lives over something that's not a whole lot different from what Geohot offered Sony fans. But Nintendo never seems to get a lot of flak for that one, while Sony's persecuted endlessly! And then there's the whole thing where Sony consoles and handhelds are region-free this generation, while NO ONE ELSE'S ARE, which everyone seems to forget...) Anyway, that's all for my little rant. Sorry for the non-sequitur. (: -Tom |
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Post by retr0gamer on Jun 27, 2011 12:39:23 GMT -5
To sum up: Corporate entities are all evil.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2011 12:51:14 GMT -5
Could have sworn the owner of this very site got a huge middle finger from Sony of America when it came to his PS3 getting a Yellow Light of Death.
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Post by megatronbison on Jun 27, 2011 13:01:44 GMT -5
This whole "waaah Japan is eviiil" shit is getting so old. And the same goes for "Waaaaaah! American companies are so evil!" shit from japanese wannabes. I also prefer japanese games over american/european ones but if a game is awesome I won't give a damn if it's japanese, american, european, whatever. Oh I agree with all of this. I just see a lot more "Japan sux!!!" online these days- even from so called professional reviewers. To be perfectly honest I think Western and Japanese development stinks at the moment. It's all become a big base of shitty grey and brown graphics with a cheesy layer of "open world FPS sandbox!" gameplay with some shitty toppings called "DLC". Oh no, I think I've officially become old  |
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Post by vetus on Jun 27, 2011 13:20:14 GMT -5
Oh I agree with all of this. I just see a lot more "Japan sux!!!" online these days- even from so called professional reviewers. You mean these ones who think that most jrpg are all about emo protagonists with spiky hairs and big swords?  |
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