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[humansarehorses]

With my first post.

You didn't do that with any of your posts. You're on an enthusiast site where niche games are going to significant coverage so it's no surprise that you'll find vocal fans of it here. Also, people who want Kat as a Playstation mascot want her as one because they like her as a character.

Neither supports your argument that those people consider GR mainstream.

 

[Trago]

Football Manager is made by Sport Interactive which is a London based studio.

You missed the stealth edit

 

[BBboy20]

Shareholders and Western casuals don't care. So long you shoot and collect shit and play your favorite athletes, that is all that will matter.

Also: that depends what your western bosses want out of a game that you may have no creative control over.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

Wait, hold up.

Nintendo just released Switch, after their previous console drastically underperformed and still had a shorter lifespan than PS3/360. What's their comeback right now? It's going to outsell PS4/Wii?

Their comeback is from the brink of irrelevancy.

 

[MTC100]

Konami though....

I don't know what happenend over there at Konami but since Kojima left the games have been horrible. They too need to reinvent themselves, they have great IPs and they should use them well... How about a new Castlevania? Please?

Mass Effect will fare well by selling probably as many copies as all those games not named Zelda or Resident Evil will combined.

Probably, yes, I was purely speaking by quality of the games though. It will take some time for Japan to get back in the ring with their IPs but people are already getting bored by all the CoDs, Battlefields and Assassin Creeds, those games lost their ingenuity some time ago. I am fully expecting Persona 5 to perform very well in sales also.

 

[Meffer]

They all have a lot to learn from each other. This is a good thing.

 

[CertifiedFP]

Funny, because a lot of these resurging Japanese games, outside of Yakuza and Nioh, are all taking notes from various western games, specifically trying to increase western sales to compensate for Japan's shrinking market. I mean, that reason alone is the reason some of these games are getting localized - Shrinking Japanese sales are starting to outweigh localization risks.

 

[PdotMichael]

Funny, because a lot of these resurging Japanese games, outside of Yakuza and Nioh, are all taking notes from various western games, specifically trying to increase western sales to compensate for Japan's shrinking market. I mean, that reason alone is the reason some of these games are getting localized - Shrinking Japanese sales are starting to outweigh localization risks.

for example?

 

[whalleywhat]

All developers should always be wary. It's called competition.

Sorry, this industry is solely interested in tearing competitors down, not rising to their level.

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

With the exception of Zelda, all those GOTY claims for Japanese games wouldn't even come close to the multi million sellers from the West.

 

[borges]

Japanese gaming is just taking back its place on the throne.

Was in the throne in the past? Sure?

 

[Mik317]

I think the key is that most of the "big name" Japanese devs, have sucesses to build off of instead of abject failure (critically if nothing else) when it comes to their heavy hitters. A lot of the angst of having to make up for the last game and proving if they still have it isn't as large of a thing as it once was. Like I said earlier, this is a nice start but we have to see if it was actually the start of a trend or just a lucky happenstance of long delayed games actually coming out and not being dumpster fires as expected. Nintendo's next big release is key (although that being mario....makes things easier), Capcom building on the success of RE7...and not Capcom-ing it up. SE learning from the myriad of self inflicted wounds of FFXV's development cycle and ....not doing that shit again. This is what will decide if Japan truly is resurging or if this was just a nice little blip.

 

[poodaddy]

Funny, because a lot of these resurging Japanese games, outside of Yakuza and Nioh, are all taking notes from various western games, specifically trying to increase western sales to compensate for Japan's shrinking market. I mean, that reason alone is the reason some of these games are getting localized - Shrinking Japanese sales are starting to outweigh localization risks.

This.

 

[texhnolyze]

for example?

Open world.

 

[Sumio Mondo]

Was in the throne in the past? Sure?

During NES era? SNES era? PSX era? Mega Drive/Genesis era? PS2 era? DS era? Yup, they definitely were.

 

[SomedayTheFire]

The east/west shite on this website is so tired and boring.

 

[PdotMichael]

Open world.

Don't be too specific!

 

[StrongBlackVine]

Was in the throne in the past? Sure?

Back in the 90's early 2000s sure.

 

[kyser73]

Interesting to see how the concept of what Western devs need to be 'wary' of quickly changed from commercial to critical to something completely nebulous that amounts to 'they're a relevant niche.'

 

[StrongBlackVine]

Interesting to see how the concept of what Western devs need to be 'wary' of quickly changed from commercial to critical to something completely nebulous that amounts to 'they're a relevant niche.'

It would be more interesting if the same person/people had said all three of those things.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Don't be too specific!

In research for Breath of the Wild, Aonuma played games like Far Cry, The Witcher, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,

Resident Evil 7 was directly inspired by several western horror/thriller films right down to using almost the exact imagery.

Arguably those are currently the two most successful Japanese titles in the mainstream, and they wear the western influences on their sleeve.

 

[PdotMichael]

In research for Breath of the Wild, Aonuma played games like Far Cry, The Witcher, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,

Resident Evil 7 was directly inspired by several western horror/thriller films right down to using almost the exact imagery.

Arguably those are currently the two most successful Japanese titles in the mainstream, and they wear the western influences on their sleeve.

”While playing those games, I do find some ideas, but it's not that it connects directly to Zelda to where I would take something and use it in Zelda, but it's more of something I keep in the back of my head while developing the game," Aonuma says.

It's like you are playing a joke character here.

 

[shintoki]

What resurgence are we talking about? Sales for RE7, MGS5, and FFXV will still end up far lower than previous entries. Yakuza sales will still be a fart in the wind. Nor would I even dare say Nintendo has a strong comeback with Switch. They always have strong launches then it plateau's out. The highest selling games of the generation are still going to be GTA,BF, CoD, etc.

Even if you want to argue critical metrics on the most Japanese system(PS4), Western titles are still scoring higher. UC4, Witcher 3, Overwatch, vs Bloodbourne and Zelda.

Which ignores how Western titles aren't just high budget products on a Japanese console, but completely dominated PC.

So no, there is no reason for a Western publisher to be worried. Rather, our expectations were surpassed.

 

[Crossing Eden]

”While playing those games, I do find some ideas, but it's not that it connects directly to Zelda to where I would take something and use it in Zelda, but it's more of something I keep in the back of my head while developing the game," Aonuma says.

It's like you are playing a joke character here.

You realize that's how inspiration works right? You don't directly ape the thing you're inspired by. BOTW has Ubisoft style towers ffs and you're unironically trying to debate that it isn't heavily western influenced?? Anouma literally said the following:

Eiji Aonuma: What really got me more in Skyrim is when you walk and you enter a new city, there is a real shock. ”Ah, there's a city here! And, oh, she's so different from the others! " This is the first time I've felt this in a video game, so I wanted to duplicate it in Zelda, albeit in a slightly different way.

 

[PdotMichael]

You realize that's how inspiration works right? You don't directly ape the thing you're inspired by. BOTW has Ubisoft style towers ffs and you're unironically trying to debate that it isn't heavily western influenced?? Anouma literally said the following:

Eiji Aonuma: What really got me more in Skyrim is when you walk and you enter a new city, there is a real shock. ”Ah, there's a city here! And, oh, she's so different from the others! " This is the first time I've felt this in a video game, so I wanted to duplicate it in Zelda, albeit in a slightly different way.

Stop being a joke character for a moment. None of your links support the claim that Japanese games are suddenly "taking notes from various western games, specifically trying to increase western sales".
The second link doesn't even talk about other western games but something what the very first Resident Evil did.

What exactly is running wrong with you that you need to act like you know it better although everyone knows that you don't know a fuck.

 

[Arion]

It's like watching an anime character and a cartoon character slap fighting.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Stop being a joke character for a moment. None of your links support the claim that Japanese games are suddenly "taking notes from various western games, specifically trying to increase western sales".
The second link doesn't even talk about other western games but something what the very first Resident Evil did.

I'm not the one who clamed that they were trying to increase western sales in the first place, just that yea, obviously the most successful of recent Japanese titles are heavily western inspired, which all things considered, is absolutely a good thing. That is absolutely undeniable.

What exactly is running wrong with you that you need to act like you know it better although everyone knows that you don't know a fuck.

 

[The Broker]

bwahaha

i'm glad japanese devs are back on track but c'mon

+42

 

[Mass_Pincup]

Open world.

Open world is a western thing now?

 

[CrispyBoar]

Yeah. Japan are making gaming great again.

 

[Fou-Lu]

I don't think there has ever been a time where I cared more about western games than Japanese games, so right now is absolutely incredible for me. I've spent so much of my recent gaming time on classic Japanese titles, but now I can play so many modern titles and be happy about it!

 

[R0ckman]

I mean sure, if you ignore all the things Western developers do on the PC.

Did we forget that Horizon Zero Dawn just came out btw? Mass Effect is also just around the corner.

Was gonna say this.

 

[Gurnlei]

No. Outside of the few standout titles (Zelda, FF, Dark Souls for example) Japanese games are pretty much niche.

 

[dlauv]

Even if these Japanese games are better, Western developers have no reason to care when their own games are selling so much better. In fact, it should be discouraging them to make anything similar to these Japanese games.

In a perfect world, they should be inspired by what works though.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Open world is a western thing now?

Western devs dominate open world gaming atm regardless of western influenced outliers.

 

[Raven117]

Strange debate going on in here.

Not only that.... truly who gives a shit? Japanese game designers have started to find their footing again after last gen. And I cannot be more excited. For fucksakes look at how many awesome games we are getting from both the east and the west...

Whatever is happening I want it to keep happening.

 

[Raven117]

Open world is a western thing now?

Actually.... yeah. It is.

 

[kubev]

All developers should always be wary. It's called competition.

Yeah, competition is good for everyone. Better games will come out of it.

 

[Memorabilia]

"Wary" is a strange choice of words. Japanese developers being "back in the game" is *good* for everyone and the industry as a whole. It's better for gamers and Western developers to have better competition producing better games from which to draw inspiration.

 

[Mory Dunz]

I'm starting to think GAF has a very skewed look on how these Japanese games are selling compared to their Western Counterparts.

Like For Honor and Ghost Recon are going to substantially outsell any of the Q1 Japanese releases other than Zelda. Horizon as well. Western games are far far larger than Japanese based ones.

yeah, this has been a weird train of thought I've been seeing lately.
It's still a whole different level of sales

It's also interesting when Nintendo gets included in JP games and when it doesn't lol

 

[Obliterator]

But growth is also important. Surely publishers are getting worried with the stagnant/declining sales? I mean even Ubisoft gave Assassin's Creed a rest with the yearly installments.

You may want to read Ubisoft, Activision, 2Ks and EA financial reports.

To summarise, they aren't stagnating whatsoever. In fact we are talking record quarters in revenue and profit

 

[ULTROS!]

I'd probably say Western AAA titles have nothing to fear like COD, GTA, AC. Sure there might be a decline but it's definitely still up there.

Now for the A/AA western titles, maybe so because a lot of the Japanese A/AA titles are starting to get traction (which is good since they weren't as noticed last gen) but then again, anyone want to point out what are the current gen western A/AA titles? I know there were a lot last gen but I don't know much this gen, nor how they fared.

 

[Big One]

Japanese games have always been great, friend. They just finally following Western trends and doing unique things with them like MGS5 and Breath of the Wild.

 

[Spman2099]

I don't know why anyone has to be wary of anyone else. They do different things well, they could learn from each other, but I suspect they will always have somewhat different priorities that will occasionally overlap. Personally, I am just so damn happy that Japan has essentially found their way after being lost for so long...

 

[The Gorby Congressmanz]

Last gen? Outside Nintendo consoles western games always topped the sales charts every gen outside japan(on relevant consoles.)

 

[Obliterator]

Last gen? Outside Nintendo consoles western games always topped the sales charts every gen (on relevant consoles.)

To be fair last gen seemed to be incredibly difficult for Japanese developers. They had a very hard time transitioning to HD development. This gen at least seems to be going smoother for them

 

[The Gorby Congressmanz]

To be fair last gen seemed to be incredibly difficult for Japanese developers. They had a very hard time transitioning to HD development. This gen at least seems to be going smoother for them

I mean a lot of them were not doing well on the Wii either. I mean yeah HD was a factor but you could see the trends clearly around 2003-2004.

 

[1st Course]

You may want to read Ubisoft, Activision, 2Ks and EA financial reports.

To summarise, they aren't stagnating whatsoever. In fact we are talking record quarters in revenue and profit

I just looked​ up:

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ea/financials?query=income-statement
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ttwo/financials?query=income-statement
http://quotes.wsj.com/UBSFF/financials/annual/income-statement

EA and Ubisoft saw a decline in revenue compared to last year. And look like Take Two posted a loss.

Activision doing great lately yes but looks like that on back of Blizzard/mobile mainly.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Japanese games as a whole still suffer from that unique Japanese Jank that makes them harder to play than Western games.

 

[Head.spawn]

Stop being a joke character for a moment. None of your links support the claim that Japanese games are suddenly "taking notes from various western games, specifically trying to increase western sales".
The second link doesn't even talk about other western games but something what the very first Resident Evil did.

What exactly is running wrong with you that you need to act like you know it better although everyone knows that you don't know a fuck.

I agree with them. Seems like you're being obtuse about it from where I'm sitting.