It’s funny that in the newest edition of Sessler’s Soapbox, Adam Sessler should talk about the same thing I’ve been saying for a few months, most recently in last week’s feature about JRPG’s: Japanese developers have fallen off the rails. He lays out some of the issues and even mentions what part of the problem is, before offering a few solutions.
What do you guys think about this issue? Are Japanese devs playing catch-up to Western developers?
Pretty decent soap-box, if a little disappointing for the lack of vitriol in some of his previous ones. (I know he was trying to actually convey something intelligently instead of ranting, but his rants are quite funny.)
I was going to say something similar in the recent post about JRPGs falling by the wayside, but like an idiot I closed the window before I finished my comment.
Anyways, yes, I do feel like Japanese developers, with the small exception of Capcom and Kojima, are taking their time in embracing some Western attitudes towards game development. If your business model isn’t made to be adaptive to fit to the needs of a constantly advancing industry, you’re eventually going to fall behind, and when you do, it will be swift and fairly brutal.
That may sound harsh, but there hasn’t been a game coming out of Japan that wasn’t from Capcom that I’ve been really interested in. Not that I’m close minded, but I’ve seen it all before, which is the crux of the issue.
So, in summary, I would like to see the progenitors of the game industry become innovators once again instead of becoming too entrenched in their ways.
That’s the western point of view. Most of the games I see here are the ordinary Japanese games. They are just not pushing those games to western areas lot more than before. They see that, western kickass games like, Halo, Left 4 Dead, Fallout, are much popular.
Japan just wants to try different things, and even beat western games. Which I think is great. Been seeing some small changes in game development here.
btw, Gundam-musou was a hit seller because
1. It’s a part of Sengoku-musou(A huge hit series. I don’t know the western name of this game tho)
2. Gundam is more like the Guru of Anime. Any anime lover loves Gundam and will buy anything with a gundam brand on it 😛
It was fun at first, but you get board with it very fast…
ATTN: Mr. Sessler
LATEPASS!
Snowman, I think Gundam is a spin off of Dynasty Warriors, another Japanese series with endless updates and updates of updates (in the form of Extreme Legends etc). Japan really needs to get their shit together. 1st Nintendo stop making games for its true fans (the hardcore gamer and NOT granny and little sis) and with only two or three developers making games we take an interest in and then taking 4-5 years to make it… Jeez, I don’t want to think about how long I’ll need to wait for a few good Japanese games. Platinum Games are their only hope at the moment.
maybe sessler reads gamersushi…
Sessler has been ranting about this forever, he was pointing it out now because the Japanese devs are finally coming around.