220°

Japanese video-game developers should ignore their critics

The future of Japanese video games looks much brighter than Keiji Inafune and others would lead you to believe.

VanillaBear4829d ago

Most of them already do

cough coguh Capcom/Square Enix

Outside_ofthe_Box4829d ago (Edited 4829d ago )

@Vanilla agreed

"It’s no secret that Japan no longer dominates the global video-game market, but according to luminaries like Hideo Kojima and Keiji Inafune, the Japanese development community is mostly oblivious of western tastes and doomed to fail in its current state."

It's not doomed to fail, but they are oblivious to western tastes. End of. They think they know what the west wants, but they don't. Yes there are good japnese games like the ones mentioned in the article, but there are also bad ones which are mainly due to them trying to cater to western audiences.

This is what they need to realize. The casual fools that buy CoD every year will not buy a japanese game period. There is no point in them trying to cater to an audience that only buys one game every year. Japanese devs just need to stay true to themselves. Games like Catherine and Dark Souls show that you can still be successful and stay true to yourselves.

I don't know what SE is currently thinking with Final Fantasy with regards to consoles. I really question why they choose to put a highly anticipated game on hold (Versus 13) and put priority on 13-2. FF13's sales were fools gold. Many people bought it because it was the first FF game on this gen and nothing more. Many people (including myself) ignored people's warning that FF13 sucked. As fans we had to see for ourselves. Now 13-2 comes along and the only people that bought it were those that liked 13 and/or really thought SE fixed their mistakes. Not to mention there hasn't been any Kingdom Hearts games on consoles this gen.

I just don't understand why a lot of things are so horribly wrong this gen.

Saladfax4829d ago

There's just a lot of bad practices happening in the Japanese games market. Three of the biggest publishers (Square-Enix, Capcom, Konami) are making these ungodly idiotic mistakes with their products in recent years.

Konami:

-Launching the MGS collection with limited in-store availability with very little marketing on the same day as Modern Warfare 3? (Yeah, their markets might not overlap much, but still)

-Three Silent Hill titles released in a single month? No staggered release, another example of few copies available in store?

-The HD collection for Silent Hill riddled with bugs, mistakes, and awful changes (cut out fog in sections, leaving the camera to see unfinished textures), not to mention a day one patch on content ten years old?

Capcom:

- Massive Quality control mistakes. The IGN watermark was left on the Wii case for Okami, because apparently the artists used stock images without noticing. Various other box art mistakes.

- The mess with Street Fighter IV and Marvel v. Capcom 3

- Poor decisions regarding reboots and new titles in the franchise (Devil May Cry, Resident Evil)

- General mediocrity on most of their efforts.

Square-Enix:

- Final Fantasy XIII, more general mediocrity.

Tolkoto4829d ago

I think it's important to always acknowledge criticism. You don't have to follow all of it, but you should always look at it.

THR1LLHOUSE4829d ago

Absolutely.

And I don't think it's that they're necessarily on the right path just because of a few positive examples. As the author points out, FF13 wasn't as big as Square probably hoped, while stuff like Dark Souls and Catherine were able to make a bit of a splash. Both of those are new(er) ideas. I think Japanese devs need to listen to their critics so they'll know to evolve, otherwise they might just keep oblivously making (arguably) crummy Final Fantasy games.

Stealth20k4829d ago (Edited 4829d ago )

the west has criticism so does the east

the point is to ignore falsehoods and generalizations

fyi kojima has been completely pro japan. Even calling the west a bunch of gun shooting morons (poetic license)

you dont have the rpg or fighting genre without japan...............lets be real on a global level the amount of japanese rpgs critically received has TROUNCED the west

The same can be said with almost every genre ( not shooter or sandbox)

Saladfax4829d ago (Edited 4829d ago )

Actually, the western and JRPG genres evolved separately in each region, and for many years the JRPG was to Japan what the shooter was to the west, so it's a little disingenuous to say JRPGs pound for pound trounce the west.

The reason to provide criticism to the Japanese development community is because they're making a lot of mistakes. If the devs understand that they aren't making satisfactory products, they can hopefully work to improve themselves.

140°

50 Best PS3 Games of All Time

The PlayStation 3 is Sony’s most interesting home console ever, but what’s most interesting of all is trying to nail down the very best games on a console with hundreds of incredible games. Let’s give it a shot.

Read Full Story >>
culturedvultures.com
darthv72106d ago

Personally, I'd rank Pacific Rift in my top 10. It's the best of the series.

badz149106d ago

We desperately need Motorstorm back. Evolution is no more though and this makes me sad

Cacabunga106d ago

Sly Thieves in Time
Stay the Party
Portal 2
Dj Hero
Demon’s Souls
God of war Ascension

rudero106d ago

2 of those games got railed through the “gaming media” during release.
Sly and god of war.
Both of which were fantastic games.

Cacabunga105d ago

Ascension is VERY underrated. Remake please!

Venoxn4g106d ago

Decent list.. I would put the Castle Crashers as well..

1Victor106d ago

Yes it’s a decent list of popular games with a heavy hand on FPS and no Warhawk or Starhawk 2 of the best games (not sale wise) on ps3.
I would buy a Starhawk again even if it didn’t have a graphics upgrade hell I would even take a new one with micro transactions 😱🤯

Profchaos106d ago

I've noticed a recent nostalgia for the PS3 and I don't get it for me it's been my least favourite generation to date and I've been gaming since the NES I just feel like the ambition of the developers outweighed the capabilities of the consoles so I remember lots of games running in the lower end of 20fps range and I remember for the first time ever actually disliking the duelshock 3 and it's curved triggers

Sure there were some standouts and great games but that's the only gen I switched entirely to PC gaming

darthv72106d ago

Maybe the recent nostalgia is because pretty much all of its games are trapped on that console. People want to play them on more modern hardware. hell... if XB can do it then so can Sony. there are competent emulators out there that can run on PS4/5 hardware but Sony just wont let them become official... why is that?

If we are talking least favorite generations (personally) then this one is certainly mine. i had more fun playing 8th, 7th and 6th gen stuff than 9th. And it isnt like i dont have access to do so... the heavy hitters just havent shown up anywhere close to those previous gens. The few here and there just doesnt cut it compared to the likes of constant good games that showed up in 6th, 7th and 8th gen. hell.... I'll even throw in 5th gen has been better than this one.

Profchaos106d ago

I tend to agree there's lots of amazing games locked to the PS3 like GTA IV or mgs 4 but then again my issue was never with the content the PS3 had but rather it's performance many other people have said the PS3 felt like it couldn't walk and chew bubblegum at the same time using PSN and downloading a game could take a few minutes to just start a download.

I typically don't worry all that much about performance I've never had a problem with games that run at 30 but games like crysis 2, Skyrim are good examples where the performance was so unstable you would never even touch the top of the frame cap and the hitching was worse than say Goldeneye on the n64

I think emulation is more than possible on the ps5 though it's just that Sony has no incentive to rush it's development it will likely be a ps6 feature if it ever happens at all.

But yeah the 9th gen has been so bad from a content perspective thats a given I see constant articles where people are frequently expressing their disappointment around the industry as a whole right now to much live service competition that sinks longstanding studios and consumes Devs time less ambition and games cost so much to make they have to play it safe.

The 5th gen was easily better than the 9th we had some all time greats crash, Spyro, Tony hawk, mgs, Mario,64, Goldeneye, Mario kart 64 the list goes on. The 5th gave us a new dimension and I remember being blown away by how much more open gaming had become the 4th gen with the mega drive and SNES was great and very easy to still revisit some of the greatest games of all time came out like earthbound, secret of mana, sonic , Mario world etc but saving our games was still not a standard function or a given so gaming was still evolving but it was very impressive to see some of the tricks Devs used like dithering to give us new experiences those earlier gens limitations bred innovation.

Michiel1989106d ago

if XB can do it so can sony? I didn't know xbox had a cell processor in their older consoles, that's the reason why ps3 was so cool, but also the reason why games are hostage there and no, xbox did nothing similar even though their backward compatbility is good, they always had a similar architecture to their consoles.

darthv72105d ago

Sorry Michael... I guess you missed the obvious part where i said there are already emulators out that do this. and that is what XB is doing... emulators for OG and 360 games. Its why the full slate is not BC on XBO/Series.

coolbeans106d ago (Edited 106d ago )

The list is missing Folklore.

Show all comments (16)
370°

FromSoftware didn’t want Sony to publish Dark Souls due to how Demon’s Souls was treated

Former SIE president Yoshida explained that Sony wanted to work on the sequel to Demon’s Souls with FromSoftware, but the developer turned it down and instead decided to work with Bandai Namco on what would become Dark Souls.

Read Full Story >>
videogameschronicle.com
Luc20117d ago

Not sure what Sony was thinking. Wrong people testing the game. It was my favourite game from the PS3 days. Had to import it from Canada because it wasn't available in Europe at the time. Then I bought it again when a local version was available. It was fun to play online and get two separate platinum.

Cacabunga117d ago

I understand, sony acting so cocky when it came out. But they quickly realized what they were missing on. I remember an interview of Yoshida saying clearly he hated the game.

SDuck117d ago

"But they quickly realized what they were missing on."
So they've been sleeping on Bloodborne too

RaiderNation117d ago (Edited 117d ago )

Sony didn't realize what they had with Demons Souls. It happens. Marvel approached Xbox to make Spider-Man before they went to Sony and Phil Spencer said "thanks but no thanks". You win some, you lose some. Personally I wasn't THAT bowled over by Demons Souls either when it launched on PS3. I thought it was slow and clunky. The remake on PS5, however, is fantastic! So I get why Sony was lukewarm on the franchise. I dont know if anybody could've foreseen what From Software would eventually become.

Palitera117d ago

To be fair, not even From Software knew the huge success it would become. Their revenue target was tiny, as already confirmed by Miyazaki.

LoveSpuds117d ago (Edited 117d ago )

Exactly, these nipple head 'journalists' trying to spin this into a story to wield against Sony are ignoring the fact that hindsight is 20/20.

As you correctly point out, Demons Souls was incredibly niche at the time so it's not a surprise that Sony were cautious about investing huge amounts into advertising and support etc.

Pyrofire95117d ago

You can't just find the RIGHT people. This kind of thing didn't exist yet. FROMSOFTWARE started something huge and you could never see it unless you happen to get someone who not only gets a gut instinct but also the will and authority to act on it. You can't look back from 2025, you have to see it in a 2009 landscape. And Demon's Souls didn't even hit big, it wasn't until Dark Souls that it all started hitting, shortly after it's release in 2011.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 117d ago
GamingSinceForever117d ago

Hey sometimes you just can’t see the potential.

It’s like the Chicago Bears moving up in the draft to take Trubisky over Pat Mahomes.

Pyrofire95117d ago

I don't know one ounce of these sports teams, but yes, exactly like that.

117d ago Replies(2)
jznrpg117d ago

I bought the Japanese version of Demons Souls before US release. Me and my friend heard about it from an online friend in Japan. It took a while for it to become popular in the US. It was a new IP with nothing like it at the time and it wasn’t easy to play obviously. Eventually word of mouth spread about it and sales picked up after launch. I don’t think anyone could have seen how big it would be at the time. It was considered very niche and hardcore games were minimal.

Scissorman117d ago

I do wonder if we'll ever see Demon's Souls 2. Sony clearly wanted it. FromSoftware's subsequent releases penetrated the mainstream in ways the developer likely never imagined. Any stigma or negative perception around the original game's release has long passed. Bluepoint's remake sold very well on PS5. I think the time has come to visit the IP that started it all.

ocelot07117d ago

With Sony now firmly in bed with Kadokawa now. I think a Demon's Souls 2 and/or Bloodborne 2 is fairly likely.

Pyrofire95117d ago

They also seem to not want to get on Fromsoft's bad side or undercut them in any way. I think it's completely up to FS. (which is kinda funny cause FS themselves makes weird moves with their games whenever it's not Miyazaki helming the project. ie DS2 and Nightreign)

Show all comments (38)
130°

30 Years Ago, Elden Ring And Dark Souls Dev FromSoftware Released Its "Mind-Boggling" Debut

Today marks the 30th birthday of King's Field, a PlayStation title with an incredible legacy – and one which some Western players might be unaware of.

Read Full Story >>
timeextension.com
Pedantic91182d ago

If only they would remake or make a sequel to shadow tower abyss.

Babadook7182d ago

I remember. It showed potential for a new type of action RPG.

Loktai182d ago (Edited 182d ago )

I still have my original release PS1 long box King's Field right here on my shelf. Great game., Looks better on a CRT than you can really appreciate in emulators or screenshots too, or Im just nostalgic. Note: actually it would be kings field 2 in japan but released here as kings field, so I guess its the second game. Great none the less.

gold_drake181d ago

i recently played it, its pretty good

Grilla181d ago (Edited 181d ago )

It was great. I always wondered what happened to the series/developer. Wasn’t til a few years ago I found out they moved on to the souls games. It’s nice to see them get the appreciation they deserve.

Show all comments (6)