Iga is making Bloodstained, and Kojima is making Death Stranding. That's about the best we could hope for.
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With the recent Japanese game resurgence, should western developers be wary?
- Thread starter 1st Course
- Start date
Iga is making Bloodstained, and Kojima is making Death Stranding. That's about the best we could hope for.
Obliterator
Member
Look at their stock price which is the real telling example. 2K only posted a loss due to the way they report earnings look at the actual stock climb
EA, Activision, Ubisoft, and 2K are all massively up over the last year.
Activision stock up from 32.41 to 49.20
EA stock up from 64.79 to 89.81
Ubisoft up from 26.85 to 36.89
2K up from 39.60 to 59.00
Literally every one of the "Big 4" Western publishers are hugely up from even 12 months ago
GiantBreadbug
Member
One game
Is not really representative of the efforts of a hemisphere
Even if you're using the sales metric
Obliterator
Member
I mean, what Japanese title are you expecting to outsell the big Western games this year? (COD, Battlefront, Destiny 2, Red Dead 2, etc)
Horizon, a new IP totally crushed the entire "Japanese Revitalization" this year outside of Zelda
Horizon will likely outsell every Q1 Japanese title combined minus Zelda
Uhh... What?
davidwhangchoi
Member
Everyone look out! Yakuza remake is coming this summer taking no prisoners
It isn't a situation where something having a resurgence requires that something else go into decline. It isn't hard to see what the TC is talking about, there is a large quantity of excellent Japanese games that released in very quick succession in the last couple of months. That definitely constitutes a resurgence.
This isn't a zero sum game, man.
AquaWateria
Member
that jank is what sets them apart tho...many design choices that could be questioned with "why would you do that?" are often the exact reason why I love some of those games.
VanCityGamer
Member
Should Western Developers be wary? Are you for real?
Horizon, Mass Effect, Call of Duty, Read Dead Redemption 2, Destiny 2, Battlefront 2, God of War, etc. will each destroy 90% of the Japanese games being released in sales. Any one of those will probably beat combined sales of Nier, Nioh, Yakuza, etc.
Horizon, Mass Effect, Call of Duty, Read Dead Redemption 2, Destiny 2, Battlefront 2, God of War, etc. will each destroy 90% of the Japanese games being released in sales. Any one of those will probably beat combined sales of Nier, Nioh, Yakuza, etc.
AntiFacebook
Member
The best selling games of 2017 are still going to be mass effect and cod, so nope
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
Nope. I think Japan has had a stronger output recently critically, but commercially, most of the top rated games of the past few months that have come out of Japan will struggle to crack 1-2m units, save for Zelda.
Games from the top western publishers are becoming stale af, but they have enough pull that at least for now, they don't need to worry about sales.
Games from the top western publishers are becoming stale af, but they have enough pull that at least for now, they don't need to worry about sales.
ScientificPizza
Banned
Why would they be?
Team Andromeda
Member
The Japanese are still way behind Western corps for tech and games. Capcom and Fromsoftware seems to be the only one's who can keep up, most of the time.
AquaWateria
Member
I mean Nintendo just outshined most if not all western open world games with Zelda without being a technical marvel.
In fact I would say most Western games are in some ways behind Japanese games in terms of gameplay.
Team Andromeda
Member
It's more like NCL have just caught up with all the rest. Having a true open world console game is nothing new at all. I was happily playing The Elder Scrolls III on my XBox way back in 2002, not that I'm a huge fan of the drive to open world games for any type of game genre .To me the likes of NCL are to blame for the demise of the Japanese industry, with its focus on handhelds and outdated tech has meant so many Japanese studio pipelines aren't up to Western standards and they really don't have to be,to sell and do well in Japan and its focus on mobile and handhelds.
Fairplay to FromSoftware and Capcom though and I must say RE 7 is one of the best games ever made and it's a stunning return to form.
1st Course
Member
Isn't this more because the stock market is up in general?
I mean I can see your point (and it's a very valid point) but fact is that sales for lots of AAA games are down compared to previous installments.
See
http://www.stevivor.com/features/opinion/aaa-sales-2016-many-explanations-simple/amp/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...ales-are-down-nearly-50-from-black-ops-3/amp/
http://www.eurogamer.net/amp/2016-11-21-watch-dogs-2-launch-sales-nowhere-near-watch-dogs-1
What other open world game does what Zelda does?
CadetMahoney
Member
I love all the Japanese games coming to PC.
dat gameplay.
dat gameplay.
Team Andromeda
Member
Basically any Western open-world RPG from the last 10 years. The only major difference is in art direction and the look of the game.
You haven't played Zelda.
Lol, I wish
Team Andromeda
Member
Spare me, This is my recent gaming pick up's and ooh look quite a few open world game along with Zelda and the Switch
Donniewahlberg
Banned
Kind of surprised so much of this thread has ended up about sales and now stocks? I kind of interpreted and responded as such, as should Western developers be wary of becoming creatively stagnant in the face of the success of recent Japanese games in their reception. Did OP ever follow up clarifying he did actually mean he thinks JP games will outsell western games this year? Feels like what a lot of the responses are geared towards.
Obviously there's a healthy debate there to be had whether or not as a creative you should ever be wary in the face of creativity and if in fact devs in the west are in a rut at all. Saleswise seems so obvious it can't have been the point though, right?
Obviously there's a healthy debate there to be had whether or not as a creative you should ever be wary in the face of creativity and if in fact devs in the west are in a rut at all. Saleswise seems so obvious it can't have been the point though, right?
Except that still doesnt work since plenty of those western games do well critically and many people love them. Which the sales back up. So its just bullshit all around.
More like some people have a hard time dealing with the fact that the market doesnt care about the games they love as much as they do. Not even the Japanese market does, if the shrinking console and handheld markets are anything to go by.
Donniewahlberg
Banned
Well that's why I said that's definitely a debate to be had there. In my mind there's been a really healthy mix lately. Playing Horizon at the moment and it's just as exciting as some of the fantastic stuff that's came out of Japan lately (I guess I should caveat that with "on ps4"; Imo there has been great stuff coming out from Japan consistently, but more often on 3ds etc. The crux of the OP would be my assumption that now it's happening on Ps4, it's more relevant to potential impact on industry trends etc)
A technical marvel with bilinear filtering.
Boombloxer
Member
This is it in a nutshell.
And no, literally no western devs have anything to worry about. A modern open world game and Outlast:RE edition aren't changing the world.
Marmaladefire
Member
Is it like, the part where they try to be unique at all or the lack of grizzled white dudes? Because.. just counting recentish releases, do you think FFXV, GR2, Nier, Persona 5, Zelda, Nioh, RE7 and..Dark Souls 3 all suffer from the exact same unidentifiable "jank"
But anyway, competition is good, and Japanese devs tend to be more willing to stick their necks out on a weird idea, which makes things more interesting
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
The idea of it shaking Western game development is laughable. This is clearly the wishful thinking of an old timer who remembers the atypical era of Japanese game dominance and thinks "it's only a matter of time before things go back to normal!"
But I think the era of the Phil Fish quote "Japanese games just suck" has been successfully buried. It does feel like Japanese gaming has ascended to be a strong pillar of game development again. It won't "beat" western game development, but Japanese development is a major player again. I couldn't be happier.
But I think the era of the Phil Fish quote "Japanese games just suck" has been successfully buried. It does feel like Japanese gaming has ascended to be a strong pillar of game development again. It won't "beat" western game development, but Japanese development is a major player again. I couldn't be happier.
If there is one area I hope (major) western-developed games learn from Japan through this amazing string of Japanese releases over the last couple months, it's personality.
Yakuza 0, NieR: Automata, Gravity Rush 2, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Persona 5. All in like 2 months.
Compare any of that shit to the fucking sorry excuse of a personality in Ghost Recon: Wildlands... it's not a favorable comparison.
Hell, off the top of my head, the only major western games last year that had a real defining voice to them was Uncharted 4, Mafia 3, Doom, and weirdly enough, Watch Dogs 2. Overwatch and Hitman as well.
Yakuza 0, NieR: Automata, Gravity Rush 2, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Persona 5. All in like 2 months.
Compare any of that shit to the fucking sorry excuse of a personality in Ghost Recon: Wildlands... it's not a favorable comparison.
Hell, off the top of my head, the only major western games last year that had a real defining voice to them was Uncharted 4, Mafia 3, Doom, and weirdly enough, Watch Dogs 2. Overwatch and Hitman as well.
Peroroncino
Member
It's nice that Japan made some awesome games lately, but it's not even close to the steady output of quality games by western devs over the last years.
Team Andromeda
Member
I think you're being rather harsh and a little bit unfair myself. Yakuza 0 isn't a new game per say and it's hardly doing anything new or that the other Yakuza games haven't' done a million times before, the Yakuza series much like Assains Creed series needs a break and brand new tech; In Japan very much like with COD or AC (in the West) there's a new Yakuza game each year, it's only because the release of the games over here are staggered or don't come out at all (like with Kezan, Ishin) that it doesn't suffer the same issues of the just more of the same yet again . Yakuza is a series that is in decline and selling nothing like the numbers it one did on the PS2
To me Ghost Recon comes alive in online co-op and that's an area Japan is way behind the west when it comes to Online gameplay. It's a great list you've listed but overlooking you've left out RE 7. There;s been some great Western developed games the last few months with the likes of Forza Horizon 3, Doom 4, Dishonored 2, Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2, Inside Ect...
Both the West and Japan have been making great games of late imo
geordiemp
Member
Just because critics love Japanese games and maybe does seem to lean to helping them with kinder critique does not mean the main western audience gives too hoots..
Whats big, outside horizon recently, in the west will be large online type games like COD / BF / Destiny and even ME andromeda with its coop. Would not be surprised in RDR2 is online like GTA 5.
Most japanese games recently seem to be single player focus, and so everyone can co-exist and there is little cross over IMO.
I'd love it if we could stop dividing games up into 'japan' and 'not japan'. It made sense when the Japanese industry was greater than everything else on consoles combined but these days it's basically comparing the output of one country to the combined output of the dozens of countrys that make up 'the west' when their games industries are pretty sizeable. It just seems ridiculous to me to badge the entire games industries of pretty much every nation west of Russia under one banner and then suggest that one country has to compete with that combined output all at once. It's not as if all the cash ends up in one pot called 'western development', the main competitor of most western studios is other western studios, and smaller western devs have been just as likely as Japanese ones to collapse under the pressures of industry changes brought on by the AAA industry raising the bar of what customers expect.
With regard to the OP, no, the bigger western developers don't need to worry about a handful of relatively niche Japanese games getting a good critical reception. If they are sensible they will look at why those mechanics-heavy titles play well with the Gaf audience, but really with the budgets the big western publishers play with they want stuff that reliably appeals to a broad customer base, not relatively niche audiences.
Even looking at the biggest ones, Resident Evil has never threatened the big western shooters (and EA pretty much funded Dead Space to pare it down to the core of body-horror, haunted house and guns). Final Fantasy has gone from being a big hitter on PlayStation to being (comparatively) quite a way down the list, despite its huge dev time and budget.
Having said all that, one player's 'I don't like Japanese weirdness' is another's 'I love the oddball quirkiness, focus on mechanics and creative costume/monster design'. Japanese games will remain popular to a subset of the wider audience because they have multiple selling points that appeal to different players. However, I don't think they'll ever force the huge global publishers funding games designed to be massive cash-cows that are culturally neutral (to western audiences raised on exported US pop culture) to be wary of them. Those modern AAA games are designed from the ground up to tap into what western audiences have been raised on, and general Japanese quirkiness, so popular to western teenagers in the 90s and thus still with some of us in our 30s and 40s, doesn't have a chance now that the western pulp stuff that games revel in like sci-fi, fantasy and superheroes are culturally mainstream and on the telly every night.
With regard to the OP, no, the bigger western developers don't need to worry about a handful of relatively niche Japanese games getting a good critical reception. If they are sensible they will look at why those mechanics-heavy titles play well with the Gaf audience, but really with the budgets the big western publishers play with they want stuff that reliably appeals to a broad customer base, not relatively niche audiences.
Even looking at the biggest ones, Resident Evil has never threatened the big western shooters (and EA pretty much funded Dead Space to pare it down to the core of body-horror, haunted house and guns). Final Fantasy has gone from being a big hitter on PlayStation to being (comparatively) quite a way down the list, despite its huge dev time and budget.
Having said all that, one player's 'I don't like Japanese weirdness' is another's 'I love the oddball quirkiness, focus on mechanics and creative costume/monster design'. Japanese games will remain popular to a subset of the wider audience because they have multiple selling points that appeal to different players. However, I don't think they'll ever force the huge global publishers funding games designed to be massive cash-cows that are culturally neutral (to western audiences raised on exported US pop culture) to be wary of them. Those modern AAA games are designed from the ground up to tap into what western audiences have been raised on, and general Japanese quirkiness, so popular to western teenagers in the 90s and thus still with some of us in our 30s and 40s, doesn't have a chance now that the western pulp stuff that games revel in like sci-fi, fantasy and superheroes are culturally mainstream and on the telly every night.
The Gorby Congressmanz
Banned
The u.s. alone has consistently had higher output than Japan even at their peak alone outside of the nes/7800 if you only include consoles. It's just Japan has a higher output then most every other country combines, and sometimes Asian countries not Japan are put under japan.
Johannsson
Member
True.
PdotMichael
Banned
Repeating your nonsense doesn't make it true.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Anouma played several popular western titles and used parts of them as inspiration for mechanics in Zelda. Deal with it.
PdotMichael
Banned
Playing... what a shock that Japanese people play international titles.
While also mentioned that he didn't use ideas from those games for Zelda.
Reaching is not even the right word anymore.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
Sure ever so often a game that could come from anywhere pulls ahead of the rest, but if you were to tell the world, "OK this is Zelda BoTW, make a big AAA game like it". The West would have 8 games out by the time Japan releases 2.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Why is this so hard for you to fathom?
Glorious Nippon would never stoop to the level of filthy western devs.