"If you talk about the war between Japanese developers and those overseas, I acknowledge that we have already lost. The Japanese creators have lost to the European and American creators. Therefore, I always say to my staff, Don't look at the Japanese creators. Look toward the Europeans and Americans when looking at development". -- Hideo Kojima in the newest issue of Game Informer (I hear it has Need For Speed Carbon on the cover but I haven't personally seen it yet). I personally think Kojima's statement is completely blown out of proportion. I don't think anyone has won the war so to speak but I think it's a good idea for everyone to be aware of what each other is doing. Discuss.
7 comments:
He's right.
Japanese games have been on the decline for years now, By contrast Western development is fresh, innovative and more importantly is comfortable with the new technology driving the next breed of consoles.
One of the best looking games on the 360 is lost planet done by Capcom. I think it's fair to say that they are comfortable with the technology that is driving the next breed of consoles.
Not only that but no one has shown anything impressive on the PS3 aside from Kojima with MGS4, the only playable thing that looked decent at E3 was Heavenly Sword.
In America the race between ps3 and 360 may be close but in Japan it will be nothing but the ps3 show. Either that or the DS will continue to dominate for the next 20 years.
--OniSpike
To the above poster,
Heavenly Sword is a Western Game, developed in England.
MGS is a cut scene at the moment, no more and no less.
The Wii will dominate in Japan. The ps3 has few interesting titles, and those which are looking to push the envelope are western developed and not to the Japanese taste.
I had no idea there was a "War" going on between Western and Japanese developers...is this like the "Console Wars" or something? As far as I know Western developers make games for Western audiences and Japanese do it for the Japanese this sound like a "war"?
as far as i see, the japanese are the innovators here.
sure you can look at God of War or Grand Theft Auto and tell me otherwise, but for every speck of originality in western gaming, there is tons of NFL2k213 and TheLatestMovieBasedGame etc.
the japanese to me have always been, and possibly always will be the innovation of video gaming, because they basically mastered it waaay back with the NES.
just look at games like Okami, Killer 7, Katamari Damacy, Zelda, Mario... where are all of these coming from? JAPAN!!!!!!!
i'm not saying japanese developers couldn't learn anything from the west, but i think western developers should learn more from japan.
simply look at what they're doing from a technological standpoint with RE4 or MGS3. not only great graphics, but SOLID freaking gameplay to boot. i haven't even seen CLOSE western comparison to the organic modeling of these japanese artists.
people thought the PS2 was dead in comparison to the xbox, but look at what the japanese were able to pull out of it!
you look at crap ports to ps2 that are clearly awful in comparison to xbox. then you see MGS3 which almost decimates the prettiest of xbox games!
it's madness.
i'm just saying we can all learn from eachother, no one is better :P
oh and i think western developers need to take more chances, where's the american Clover Studios huh?
Anonymous: I think both sides of the oceans are innovating. The last few 'new' genres to the videogame industry have all come from Western Developers.
FPS, RTS, MMO have all come from American companies. GTA coming from Europe.
I think Jpnese games have more polish than any other country though.
I think a lot of is, 'The grass is greener on the other side of the fence' syndrome. I've read many comments like Kojima's from other famous jpnese developers such as Yu Suzuki:
Kikizo: What can Japanese developers do to combat the shrinking Japanese videogame market?
YS: I think Western makers are more likely to try new things, and are more aggressive. The Japanese companies are more conservative, and they rely too much on "safety" series, and sequels. They don't challenge themselves and the industry with new ideas. You can't make a new market out of that. People overseas seem to put more passion into making games that they want to, rather than games that will strictly sell.
stolen from:
http://games.kikizo.com/features/sega_yu_suzuki_iv_feb06_p1.asp
And while I admire Clover as one of the most amazing studios in the world the fact of the matter is that they are losing tons of mony - none of their games are selling anywhere besides in America. I wonder how much longer they can keep it up (hopefully forever).
Derek
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