According to music composer Akira Yamaoka they are. From QJ.net via Next Gen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by QJ.net
We often see creative games of all flavors from the land of the rising sun, yet according to Silent Hill 5's composer and producer, Japan is falling behind in the technical aspect of game development. "I look at what American developers are doing and I think wow... Japan is in trouble," he concluded.
EDIT: Apparently I fail at reading. Yamaoka-san is also a producer and apparently a talented one at that. So his views probably carry more weight than I originally was led to believe.
Say what you will about the Japanese devs falling behind on pushing the hardware to the limit, I'd still prefer wacky concept #109 over shiny shooter #3707.
Once American devs start pushing limits and putting out their own Okami and Shadow Of The Colossus, THEN I will say that Japanese development is doomed.
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I think that's a fair assessment. Take a look at Devil May Cry 3 vs. God of War 2. Japan has dominated since the NES days; but since Xbox released, a lot of PC devs joined the game. In addition, the Japanese market has always been highly competitive with few companies sharing their research with each other. There's exceptions to this, like Square, Nintendo, Capcom, Tecmo, etc. But a lot of smaller devs just can't keep up.
Say what you will about the Japanese devs falling behind on pushing the hardware to the limit, I'd still prefer wacky concept #109 over shiny shooter #3707.
Once American devs start pushing limits and putting out their own Okami and Shadow Of The Colossus, THEN I will say that Japanese development is doomed.
I agree. I prefer many Japanese games to many American games. I think it's because of our PC roots, with the rather limited approach to genre. But I highly doubt Japan is doomed. The may become a smaller player, but some of those big guys over there are far too important.
Maybe they are not as popular as they once were, but Japanese developed games are going nowhere. If anything, thier decline in popularity might have something to do with the fact that other people are developing now, where Japan easily dominated the console market during the 90s.
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I think there's something to what he is saying. Look at the poll here of potential Games of the Year:
Bioshock
Mass Effect
Super Mario Galaxy
Orange Box
Halo 3
Rock Band
Call of Duty 4
God of War 2
Crysis
Uncharted
One game not made by Western developers? One of the best years in gaming according to popular opinion and only one Japanese title on that list?
The Japanese are still leading the field with innovative ideas, and dominate the handheld and casual markets, but when it comes to the hardcore market they are falling behind. It's hard to blame them, though, the Japanese market seems to be shifting casual even moreso than in America.
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Remember he means technically, not necessarily creatively. And he's right. By and large the Eastern developed games by and large don't match up graphically with their western counterparts right now. There are exceptions, but generally that's how it is now.
In terms of game design, I think the overall quality of Japanese games is superior. But technically speaking, America is superior. It does make you wonder what would happen if Wii hadn't been released. Probably would've seen a hell of a lot more portable games.
Once American devs start pushing limits and putting out their own Okami and Shadow Of The Colossus, THEN I will say that Japanese development is doomed.
While I agree to some extent, how well did those two games actually sell? Both are considered by those "in the know" to have fallen well short of their expectations and potential. In the long run, games that don't sell well simply stop getting made. There aren't many business models that survive by creating expensive to develop products which do not sell well.
That being said, I also think "DOOMED" is a bit of an overstatement, although I do feel that Japanese developers are shifting away from even being minor players to borderline irrelevant unless they cater heavily to Western-style games, like Capcom has. Sure, they're from Japan, but their biggest titles in recent memory did pretty poorly in their home country (Dead Rising and Lost Planet... correct me if they had other big hits that bucked that trend).
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Sure, I enjoyed Megaman back in the day and the remake on the PSP.
I'm just saying that recently however, the AAA titles out of the US have been better than much of the Japanese games with the exception of Nintendo.
You just proved his point. AAA titles require technical resources - that's what many Japanese developers don't have. The highest-rated, Japanese 360 title is Virtua Fighter 5 on Metacritic, and it stands at a mere #16 place. Metacritic is an American site, to be sure, but yes, the divide is widening. It also seems like Japan is becoming increasingly xenophobic as of late. I may be wrong about this.
You just proved his point. AAA titles require technical resources - that's what many Japanese developers don't have. The highest-rated, Japanese 360 title is Virtua Fighter 5 on Metacritic, and it stands at a mere #16 place. Metacritic is an American site, to be sure, but yes, the divide is widening. It also seems like Japan is becoming increasingly xenophobic as of late. I may be wrong about this.
I just realized I forgot Ninja Gaiden: Black, which was frickin' great.
We'll see if Collective can pull off a Buffy or if this is another DaVinci Code. Since all of the Buffy people are gone, my money's on the Code.
I think Japan is behind the tech curve now.
They used to rule but got too slow and complacent and now western devs have left them in the dust (tech-wise).
As for story both sides have a bit of work to do, so take it on a game-by-game basis.
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