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Inafune: "I look around Tokyo Games Show, and everyones making awful games"
- Thread starter Gomu Gomu
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Solid warrior
Banned
that's false. Nintendo is probably doing better than any other publisher and/or developer in the world. but in the west, I think the story is different, there are a lot of successful western publishers/developers this generation in comparison to the Japanese industry. western industry has the quantity AND the quality this generation, IMO.Vinci said:
Krauser Kat
Member
djtiesto said:
Wha? i guess you have not heard of D&D or WOW or Diablo. For more recent stuff Mount and Blade has a great combat system. I would say Depth>innovation, and not superficially deep like Disagaea is where power leveling weapons in their own world counts, or de-leveling to compound stats, thats just grinding.
Sadist said:
It's just insane. I mean, if you read any business magazine coming out today, it's going to mention Apple somewhere; there are entire articles about Apple's procedures, how the company operates, how it makes decisions, and how everyone and their dog wants to learn from them.
Meanwhile, in this industry, not a damn company is even trying to understand what Nintendo is doing. Or if they have, they refuse to put anything into action. It's the most insanely stupid thing imaginable.
Solid warrior said:
Who knows, maybe things have turned around, but last time I saw a graph of the industry's biggest companies - East and West - the only reason the entire industry wasn't running in the negative was because Nintendo was making billions every quarter. But I'd have to have one of the Sales folks to either back that up or deny it.
Boombloxer
Member
Vinci said:
The west is still doing better than the east.
Looking at other companies is a better barometer of where the industry is at large. You don't just look at the leader, you have to look at everyone. You seem to just want to point at Nintendo as an example when no one else is comparable. They're the exception, not the rule.
And since you didn't name any of the 3rd party devs or games, I'll assume that you have none. That's what they are trying to fix, and don't know how.
They see Assassin's Creed, new IP, 8 million. They see Uncharted, 3 million. Gears of War, 5 million+, Mass Effect, 3-4 million, and the list goes on. That's what they want to aim for, and it's a (seemingly) easier blueprint to follow, hence all of the clones.
Capcom was actually doing well with Dead Rising and Lost Planet.
Fimbulvetr
Member
How is Ass Creed selling that much higher than Uncharted and Gears? :|
ChoklitReign
Member
Those weren't the numbers I saw but the median is in the late 80s. Pretty close to GoW. It's DMC that is more skewered.StuBurns said:
I didn't say it was perfect. How am I supposed to take the time and read the reviews and analyze what they thought was better or worse? Someone said GoW wasn't as good as DMC or NG, but where is the evidence?jman2050 said:
Fimbulvetr
Member
ChoklitReign said:
Did you play all those games? You could start with that.
ChoklitReign
Member
Exactly. Why did I post in the first place? I hate this thread.Vinci said:
Solid warrior
Banned
Multiplatform title?Fimbulvetr said:
Eh, if Apple gets mentioned more that's mostly because the iPod/iPhone/iPad etc. is seriously everywhere and anyone and their mom knows about. With Nintendo though, it amazes me how many people don't know the Wii is a Nintendo developed machine. Still, the lack of articles about Nintendo is weird though.Vinci said:
And developers want to try to understand what Nintendo is doing, only in the most superficial way possible: to copy or not to copy...
Boombloxer
Member
Fimbulvetr said:
I would wager more appeal in Europe, and multiplatform.
Fimbulvetr
Member
Solid warrior said:
Which version sold the most and how much did it sell on that console?
Seriously, I have to get to the bottom of this.
This discussion got weird. You guys are weird. Why can't you be less weird?
I agree that the quote should be:
" I look around at the games this generation, and everyone's making awful games"
Sure that's hyperbole, but this gen has been a disappointment for me, especially, RESIDENT EVIL 5!!!!!!!!!
I agree that the quote should be:
" I look around at the games this generation, and everyone's making awful games"
Sure that's hyperbole, but this gen has been a disappointment for me, especially, RESIDENT EVIL 5!!!!!!!!!
digita1alchemy
Member
Boombloxer said:
I don't think people play NG, DMC or Bayonetta for their stories.
My personal stance in all of this East vs West stuff is that, in general, is that the East excels in crafting intricate, satisfying gameplay systems. The West, on the other hand, excels at creating cinematic experiences with polished presentations. Apparently, right now Western gamers want the latter. They want "experiences". And I guess so do reviewers. I am of the opinion that what is passed off as cinematic or engrossing in many Western games is actually fluff. Regardless of what Metacritic says, God of War 3 is absolutely not a better action game than Bayonetta when you get down to the nitty gritty details of how the games play. But in the West right now, presentation is king. I do think presentation is important, but I think it is becoming overemphasized. The 8-10 hour watered-down cinematic story game has almost become a genre in itself this generation.
The idea of D&D as anything approaching a good or deep combat system is just straight-up never-actually-thought-about-this-for-half-a-second crazy. That aside, while there is indeed a vanishingly small number of western RPGs that do manage to come up with good combat rules, once you skim off the cream from the Dragon Quest-alikes and the Nippon Ichi autism simulators, you've got a larger, much more diverse, and generally higher quality pool of RPG combat systems with the Japanese games.Krauser Kat said:
Solid warrior
Banned
Fimbulvetr
Member
Solid warrior said:
Thanks.
Rahxephon91
Banned
I don't know about that. The Japanese can craft games with fantastic presentation and cinimatic qualities. Few western games have matched the level of presentation of Metal Gear and Final Fantasy.
Boombloxer
Member
digita1alchemy said:
Again, still debatable. I get what you're trying to say, but I would also include non-linear gameplay as something the West does better.
And I take the entire experience as how the games play, not just combat. A lot of that is subjective, do you prefer humor or brutality? I prefer brutality. I enjoyed the torture attacks because they were funnier, but ripping a Cerebus' head off was more enjoyable to me.
Games preference aside, I get where you're coming from though.
Coxswain said:
Well granted some PC games borrowed D&D rulesets, granted I don't know much about Diablo or WOW but what makes those combat systems deep? Just looked like "click click click" to me, the strategy being more so what loot you're equipped with than stuff like elemental affinities, positioning, etc. Krauser, would you mind explaining and elaborating?
Here's a very small cross-section of Japanese-made RPGs from the last 2 generations... Shadow Hearts: From The New World, Valkyria Chronicles, Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria, Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, Persona 4, Tales of Vesperia, Knights in the Nightmare. All have wildly-different battle systems.
I think the Japanese have a much more narrow approach to design. They want a specific instance to be incredibly polished, at the cost of the greater product. The west seems to be the opposite.
Individual moments in a game like MGS4 are a lot more polished than something like Halo Reach, however when looking at it as a whole, MGS4 abuses you with constant insane loading and a few horrible installs, where as Reach doesn't take you out of the game outside of brief cutscenes.
Individual moments in a game like MGS4 are a lot more polished than something like Halo Reach, however when looking at it as a whole, MGS4 abuses you with constant insane loading and a few horrible installs, where as Reach doesn't take you out of the game outside of brief cutscenes.
Warm Machine
Member
Rahxephon91 said:
Uncharted 2, Halo Reach, Gears 2, God of War 3, Killzone 2, Assasins Creed 2, etc. immediately come to mind. And these are games coupled with gameplay that is very satisfying.
Rahxephon91
Banned
Well I would scrath off Ass Creed 2 since it's pretty terrible. Regardless, what's your point? I said few. I didn't say none.Warm Machine said:
As for satisfying. That's up to you. None of those games are as satisfying are as memorable as a FF or a MGS. Uncharted 2 maybe. This is my opinion obviously.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
StuBurns said:
This is a good way of putting it. The Japanese are "jewelcrafters". Americans paint vast murals. The problem Japanese developers have had this gen is that they are still mostly concerned with oft myopic attention to detail on what they see as the core concept of a game. For example, if it is a mech game, they focus entirely on how the mech moves and strive for a precise feeling in the controls. They put a lot of engineering work into the kickback of weapons and balance of abilities. They create entire systems for just configuring the mech and customizing parts.
But then they place that mech in a sterile, barren world (again, as an example scenario) with nothing compelling or a greater reason for playing the game than paper-thin plot told in a dull, disinterested way with a few text-based mission briefing screens, say.
Westerners meanwhile seem to begin by figuring out how to build overall technology to enable the creation of a world in which a game can then be devised and molded to fit. But westerners until recently didn't care much about how the individual details in that expansive world felt. It didn't matter if your character felt like a manniquin hung on an invisible box that had no physics, engineering, or nuance to its movements and no reaction to the environment. The big picture was all that mattered.
People who grew up on Japanese made games have come to care a great deal about the engineering of the tactile player experience. They do have high standards for it, though if their perspective becomes too Japanese influenced in itself, they can fall prey to failing to see the big picture as well.
Now, where western developers /have/ begun to very quickly catch up to the Japanese is that western devs are fans of Japanese games too - they grew up with them. It's common to find the classic and staple Japanese games, from Metroid to Super Mario to Darius to Gradius to OG Ninja Gaiden cited as inspirations for western game creators. And now that tools and technology have begun to mature a bit, western devs are beginning to incorporate better engineering into player interface with the game world. Some fans laughed or exhibited outrage when a reviewer said that Assassin's Creed II was what a mature themed HD Zelda would be like.
But the truth is that a game like ACII has a fantastic tactile player experience to go along with its vast world and epic canvas. Or we can look at studios such as Blue Castle Games who can get that "Japanese feeling" down precisely in Dead Rising 2. Or a hundred indie games on the internet that have damned good shooting, action, and platforming gameplay and feel, inspired by and building on the Japanese classics that their creators are clearly fans of.
That is how the west is outracing Japan; it's not just about first person shooters being hot in the west (and the first person shooter argument is on the verge of becoming a strawman at this point). The west has surpassed Japan on the whole because the west sees itself as trying to make the best games /in the world/.
I'd say that the reaction of Japanese developers like Inafune is culture shock. They've finally taken a hard look at what is really going on elsewhere, and they are despairing at what seems to be - for the moment - an insurmountable gulf.
StuBurns said:
Well, to be fair, metacritic does return scores in the 80s: http://www.metacritic.com/search/game/ninja+gaiden/results?sort=score
Your numbers look like they're from gamerankings: http://www.gamerankings.com/browse.html?search=ninja+gaiden
PataHikari
Banned
It really is quite hilarous.Vinci said:
Very well put, I think that is essentially the issue.Kaijima said:
I believe there are some games coming out of Japan that are still going to be incredible, TLG, Versus XIII etc. And I'm probably currently excited for more Japanese games than Western ones, but growing up I really didn't care all that much about Western games at all, but now the West have come so incredibly far, where the Japanese haven't really progressed at all to me.
When I think of the best Japanese games this generation, they're literally very pretty versions of games that came before, Bayonetta in terms of game design is no more refined than DMC1, it's quicker, the gameplay is better, it's more varied, but design wise, it's no better. MGS4 took the superficial benefits, over the shoulder shooting, better graphics, etc. But ultimately it didn't make for a better game at all, and it's actively going backwards in terms of overall usability with the horrible installs and loading.
I'm most excited about The Last Guardian of any game, but that's because it appears to be basically the sequel to Ico, which is approaching ten years old.
Japan have some great games still, and upcoming. But I don't think they're improving beyond the minute details of the games they're producing.
Nop, that list doesn't include NG1 or NGB, the two highest rated. That's because metacritic have taken xbox scores offline when they redesigned their site.dwebo said:
Fimbulvetr
Member
StuBurns said:
By design you mean?
I'm not even disagreeing here I really just don't know what you meant by that. :lol
MrMephistoX
Member
digita1alchemy said:
Was going to post my opinion after seeing this thread explode but I think you hit the proverbial nail on the head. I enjoy God of War but to prove your point just set the game to the highest difficuty level and compare it to Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta.
God of War on hard is a text book example of cheapness. Enemies get health and damage buffs but are not necessarily smarter. Not to say enemies in Japanese developed title aren't cheap bastards but well the games' well designed combat systems tend to have a learning curve and a master can overcome the system on harder difficulty levels whereas in God of War you're basically screwed unless you've leveled up Kratos.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
"You get the others so deeply involved that they don't dare fold. Its the dream, you see? They think if they stay in that it will all work out. They daren't think that its all a dream... ...But they'll never win. Part of them knows that, but the rest of them never listens to it."Vinci said:
The Japanese have always seemed to prefer something more limited in scale and scope to work within compared to Westerners. They tend to appreciate small things better. I remember reading through the Iwata Asks with the Game & Watch developers, and I thought, "That was really the perfect time for the Japanese perspective. They'd take something with very sharp limits, very strict limitations, and they'd come up with some really imaginative idea for how to fill it in and make it shine."
I think this is why, as the scale of games and gameworlds have increased, Japanese have struggled - because they've always prioritized filling the scale they're working within with content and not wasting space. The West appears to prioritize the reverse - scale over content, but we're getting better at filling it in, even if it's with distractionary content like random attacks and/or quests popping up in RDR. This content isn't massively fulfilling, but it helps to keep you from noticing the sheer emptiness - the gulf in the content-to-scale ratio.
So I think the problem they're facing is going up against their own natural instincts whenever they try to create a game 'for the West.' And that's noticeable to anyone who plays those games. It doesn't feel right. At least no Japanese Western-themed game has to me thus far.
I think this is why, as the scale of games and gameworlds have increased, Japanese have struggled - because they've always prioritized filling the scale they're working within with content and not wasting space. The West appears to prioritize the reverse - scale over content, but we're getting better at filling it in, even if it's with distractionary content like random attacks and/or quests popping up in RDR. This content isn't massively fulfilling, but it helps to keep you from noticing the sheer emptiness - the gulf in the content-to-scale ratio.
So I think the problem they're facing is going up against their own natural instincts whenever they try to create a game 'for the West.' And that's noticeable to anyone who plays those games. It doesn't feel right. At least no Japanese Western-themed game has to me thus far.
Fimbulvetr
Member
Eteric Rice said:
You're using hyperbole here right?
Even then, you're not assuming all anime art is shonen and loli right?
PataHikari
Banned
Don't you know that every animu is about them loli pornos.Fimbulvetr said:
PataHikari
Banned
Make that thread if you want to talk about that.Mike G.E.D. said:
Meanwhile us adults will stay on topic.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Ya know, I've honestly never heard of an eastern media publication outside of Famitsu. Thats...odd.canova said:
Blackace
if you see me in a fight with a bear, don't help me fool, help the bear!
Outside of his comments about being Ryoma, his points are very valid..
Global games are better for companies.. if you can have decent to good sales anywhere on the planet that is a good thing...
I love that a Japanese dev is a questioning how things are done and speaks his mind about it.
Global games are better for companies.. if you can have decent to good sales anywhere on the planet that is a good thing...
I love that a Japanese dev is a questioning how things are done and speaks his mind about it.