WC: Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, Japanese gaming was all the rage. But when the Xbox 360 and PS3 ushered in the HD era of gaming, Japan quickly found itself knocked into niche status. During the eight year life span of the last gen consoles, only a handful of Japanese games ever got widely advertised releases in the west.
Japanese gaming companies have also been the target near constant criticism from western developers and even Japanese devs like Keiji Inafune. But the biggest snub so far is the February release date of the PlayStation 4. Not only is it a sign that Japanese developers are behind the curve when it comes to PS4 development, but it shows that Sony doesn’t have a lot of confidence in the Japanese market to move consoles with games played by the rest of the world.
While there have been some positive trends in Japanese gaming recently, the question of whether Japan can be relevant this generation remains (outside of producing the PS4, of course).
So here are seven things that can keep Japan relevant this generation.
Skewed and Reviewed have written an Opinion Piece covering issues in the gaming industry, how current issues were issues years ago, and what can be done to help restore consumer trust.
Nothing. It's up to the gamers to stop consuming content from companies that they don't agree with.
How do you know if you agree with it or not unless you play it? Which without conventions forces gamers to rely on trailers. Perhaps Demos should be made more frequently. But companies need to do better as well.
But is that not what they have now? Tons of gameplay or are you talking about watching actual gamers play it versus the trailers and streams? The big issue is that some companies pay streamers and influencers and they create content but for me; that is hardly a fair, unbiased, and factual look at a game.
They usually are attached to the money sadly. It would be nice to have gamers in charge but you have so much money invested that business people are needed. Hence the issue; you need people who know business but are also gamers who know have an eye to the community. It sounds simple in theory that if you give gamers quality games that they want to play; money will be made. But that is not always so.
Marie Dealessandri speaks to Borislav Slavov and Gustavo Santaolalla about “the new golden age of games music”.
A famous actor from Starship Troopers has showered praise on Helldivers 2 and said he is open to the idea of playing General Brasch.
I think it's their obsession with handheld gaming that has caused them so much. Too much emphasis on handheld gaming and lets not forget how they want to appeal to western gamers. They are forgetting that Western gamers loved Japanese games because they were... wait for it... Japanese games!
They should stick to their roots, stick to their strengths and they'll earn their respect back.
Remember Ni No Kuni? Valkyria Chronicles? Yes, that's what I am talking about.
How the world has changed when i was at school Japan ruled the games industry, i used to drool over screen shots of games that were a good 6 months to a year before being released in the UK. Because of this the import market for the games and consoles was huge, i guess they now order consoles and games from here, very weird. These new consoles have all the flashy graphics etc but there has been something really missing since the megadrive/snes days just great gameplay and trying to get a higher score than your friends. Side scrolling beat em ups were huge back then what happened to them? has there been one since streets of rage 3?.