There’s been a lot of debate recently about whether Japanese developers are losing their touch compared to Western development studios. Thankfully, Platinum Games executive director Atsushi Inaba has made a valid point on the debate stating that there’s also a lot of terrible Western development studios as well. Atsushi went on to say that trying to lump studios together in great masses completely misses the point.
“I don’t like it when people lump Japanese games developers all together into one group. Frankly, I think it’s a joke. What do these people know?”
“Think about Western developers. There are many Western developers making terrible games, and then you see one like Infinity Ward making a game that sells 20 million and everyone goes, ‘hey, Western developers are amazing!’
“There are tons of terrible Western developers, just like there are tons of terrible Japanese developers. To lump studios together in great masses misses the point.”
Well said.
It’s a shame that it needs to be said in the first place though.
He accidentaly said ”like there’s tons of terrible japanese developers” .
he should of just quit after he said there tons of terrible western developers . I hate the vast majority of western shit . Japanese games have so much more imagination and character .
Nintedward you are right on the money. Western developers mostly exist due to their countries economies supporting labor, because most software and game designers here grew up as visionless nerds ( no pun ). In countries outside the US one can be extremely intelligent and have common and street sense and not be a nerd. Wise minds will decipher what I have just shared.
Japanese games are just a lot cooler than western , end of lol :) .
The only company which rivaled japanese development in terms of style was RARE in their snes and N64 days …
This is true. Japanese games >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Western games
Japanese characters are pigeonholed in their own cliches. I can pretty much guess what kind of characters are in every Japanese game without even looking at their promo arts.
I can guess what EVERY character is in any western game. A soldier.
Imaginative.
Try again.
Well he has a point. Almost every new game has a shooting elements. The “solider” part is a little bit of a stretch but its true in a sense.
True. But it is pathetic that people have to link developers to race, like it really matters.
Word
Platinum Studios is making a spotlight….. they might be bought by Nintendo if they have great games
1st
I didnt even know this was an issue, it was to my knowledge that people liked games for their content and not their country of origin.
That changed when Microsoft entered the scene.
Once the first Xbox was out, American retailers and the English-speaking press now had another American/English-speaking company manufacturing a gaming platform and going toe-to-toe in the big leagues, something that didn’t happen since Atari (and look how badly it ended).
It’s not a coincidence that the only countries where the Xbox does lead now are the US and the UK. The press and the gaming retailers will always favor working with companies that speak the same language (both metaphorically and literally in this case). And the end result is… It’s not a coincidence that “suddenly” Japanese games/developers are not good enough anymore. You’ll be hard pressed to find any mention of such talk before the introduction of the Xbox.
Reason why Nintendo is number one world wide and Sony second. The rest of the world sees right through ms’s xbox lines shallow money grabbing antics. Plus the rest of the world is above and beyond buy america propaganda even when companies are fleecing customers. Though the majority of Americans do choose Nintendo over ms because even here common sense still prevails to some extent.
Platinum Games are becoming one of my favourite devs, keep on rollin.
Only because they’re supporting Nintendo. You guys need to hop off their dick and stop being a bunch of sheep, tbh.
Take your own advice.
Says the PC-dick-rider.
Hypocrites like you are the reason people look down on gamers in general, so just stfu, sissy.
Actually it’s because firstly they are making MG:Rising, loved Bayonetta 1 and will get Bayonetta 2. So go fuck yourself you one console playing asshole, I will play games on all systems and enjoy myself.
agreed, it seems that Western developers get all high and mighty about their games when in reality a lot of them are terrible. I prefer Japanese developers
Western games sometimes are subjected to such hype.
Skyrim is a great example. If you set it apart, nothing in it is stellar or, in some cases, not even particularly good. Setting, writing, plot, all essential to a RPG, none of it is outstanding (and there’s a simple way to demonstrate this: you’ll be hard pressed to find a Best of 2011 award that chose Skyrim as the best game in any of these categories. In pretty much all of them the same thing happened: it was chosen as the best RPG and/or GOTY, but not a single other award such as Best Plot, Best Setting, Best Characters, Best Whatever).
The game relies 100% in its vastness and freedom of movement and action. Which is cool, of course, and it does it at a level no other game has done before… But that’s pretty much all there is to it. Now try to make a JRPG with a mildly interesting setting, a clichèd plot, characters that are not particularly engaging, all exactly as Skyrim did… It would never get past 60 on Metacritic and wouldn’t be this hyped, even if you could put a bucket in the king’s head too.
Note that I didn’t even mentioned combat. Anyone who thinks combat in Skyrim is anything but a pile of poo needs to get taken to a mental institution. Even the first-person perspective isn’t an excuse, go play the Condemned games and see how better first-person combat can be.
The reason games like The Elder Scrolls and other western RPGs are so popular among critics is because they are what Role Playing Games are supposed to be. You create a role and you play it how YOU want to play. That’s what an RPG should be. It’s not perfect but then again no game is. If I want to play an RPG for story instead of Playing a Role, then yes, I will play a jrpg. Both western and japanese games can be amazing. And they can also be bad.
Yeah, I never really beat Skyrim because the Story wasn’t very compelling and I never felt as though I’d find some amazing new place or an enemy that did anything but just run after you and just attack you head on. Dragons were the only interesting enemy to fight since everything else was either too easy or killed you instantly. Locations were really bland and hardly had any variety compared to a game like Zelda or Dark Souls. There’s too much freedom and not enough structure to the game.
That’s pretty much it. It was particularly jarring when compared to Dark Souls, as you said, which came out just before it.
The funny thing is that it doesn’t hold up even when compared to other games from the same studio. Locations in Fallout games don’t suffer of blandness – probably because Bethesda didn’t really created the universe, they just redid it in 3D – and the plot in New Vegas is way more concise and engaging than the plot in any Elder Scroll game (which are just typical high fantasy drivel about the chosen one saving the world of evil and such, nothing to write home about).
The main problem with japanese developers is that their awesome games sometimes don’t reach me ):
Western dev studios like the now closed Data Design Interactive prove this to be correct.
i usually prefer japanese games tbh, western games are bland as fck
But you haven’t seen their new game with a Bald Marine Guy that has to help humanity win against an Alien race….. this time it’s on EARTH!
It’s called Marine Shooter: Classic War
Platinum and Retro, the new Rare…. y’know because Rare is still around but sucks balls.
Let’s forget Rare…… and remember RareWare.
I hope Nintendo buys rights for Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64, I’d love to see those on Virtual Console.
Nintendo can release donkey kong 64 anytime they want
Yup. Donkey Kong is Nintendo’s franchise.
Indeed! If they buy the rights back to the other Rare franchises though we could finally see Goldeneye make an appearance on the eShop.
I want Killer Instinct.
Honestly think western devs make shooters more than anything else
Sony hurt Japanese developers because they raised the cost of developing games way to high, and Japanese developers are not use to spending astronomical budgets with huge teams to make games. I think Japan makes the best video games, all my favorite games are Japanese except Halo, Black Ops, and God of War, and Ratchet and Clank.
Western developers are obsessed with graphics.
Not all but most.
I agree.
I was just checking my library…I don’t own a single Western game. Most western games I have tried were just bland in comparison. Best luck for western studios.
No lies about that. I find myself more and more excited and interested in japanese games. I don’t see why haven’t gotten the fact that it’s game’s content and gameplay that matter the most when making it.
It just got real up in here :)
everyone thats says calof duty is good got an brain tumor:)
Everyone that* says Call* of Duty* is good has* a* brain tumor.
…..So I hear you like Call of Duty
There is no need to say that. Video games are meant to be fun! I don’t have much fun in call of duty besides zombies, but if people have fun in COD, there is no reason to hate on them like that, so stfu and go ahead and limit your fun if you want, because unlike idiot fanboys like you I’m free to play all the games I like, japanese, western or any oothers!
Inaba has a very valid point. There are many bad Western developers as there are Japanese developers. Platinum Games is sure an exception, as is a group like Naughty Dog.
Retro Studios and Ubisoft are the two truly great western third and second party developers, maybe EA also due to FIFA. The rest are FPS obsessed no vision lactivison companies. Eastern developers give U’s variety and substance, from Capcom ( as much as you might not like them ), game freaks, Konami, Atlus, Namco Bandai, Even Square Enix. The Wii U is being gaming back. Even by starting wars between developers as should always have been.
You forgot about bungie lol.
I like quite a few western games. Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed and the Arkham games are exemples of good western games.
But then I go play something like Zelda or Metal Gear Solid and remember that those games are just that, good. The really amazing stuff usually comes from Japan.
I prefer Japanese games, because I know I’ll be playing something different from CoD! The only thing I see western developers making that makes a huge success like Japanese games do is the overrate FPS genre! The only FPS I loved playing was Metroid Prime series, and because it isn’t FPS, but FPA! Seriously, I’m tired of wars and shooting other people only to hear 13 years old kids saying they seep with everyone’s mother. There’s nothing else to do in the game but kill and yell. That’s why I love Japanese games so much, even being cliché sometimes, I know there’ll be something that makes one game different from another. Be it the visual, the characters, the story or gameplay, I may find secrets, or get attached to characters that have minor roles in the story, or get fascinated by the vast and beautiful world and background music!
I’m glad there are western developers like Retro Studios and Ubisoft, otherwise the only thing western developers would do was CoD!
Well Valve is probably the only company that makes FPS games that I like. Portal is a fantastically unique puzzle game and Team Fortress 2 is the most fun you’ll ever experience in a shooting game.
100% agree with this, just a shame it needs to be said in the first place.
Agreed. Who gives a damn about where the game comes from, just give us good games to buy!
I think the main problem why devs even have to say stuff like this is because of the fanbase as well as the press, in particularly the western audience. Japanese developers haven’t really gotten sloppy; it’s the people buying games who have shifted to stuff like graphics and gore. Look at Skyrim, for example; it was considered the holy grail of gaming last year. It’s a good game when it works and it has many interesting ideas built into it. However, it’s a freaking buggy mess left and right. Some people might enjoy that since they can be funny, but I don’t think it’s funny that you pay full retail price to experience stuff like that. Even Bethesta’s older games still have bugs.
What this guy is actually counter is the comment by one of the devs from Assassin’s Creed 3. AC 1 was really painful to play through. It was interesting, but it was boring and repetitive. AC 2 fixed that, but after all these years, they still haven’t fixed the combat system up to AC Revelations. AC 3 might change that, but it’s taken way too long.
The press have put the western developers really high this gen and now they complain at the lack of Japanese games and stuff. They have basically force some Japanese companies to focus on Western games such as Capcom, Square Enix, and Kojima (seriously, they’re even making tweeter games!).
The combat system has never been fixed, man. It’s been the same crap as ever, except now you can end the battles a lot faster, which makes things a tad boring.
Wow, how quick we are to forget the actually awesome Western games like Bioshock, Borderlands, AC series, Deus EX HR, Fallout 3, and so on. Western games suck? Western games were the inspiration for most Japanese games in the first place! Before Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, there was D&D, the granddaddy of pretty much every RPG out there.
Infinity Ward it’s trash! Treyarch 4 life!
First of all, It’s thanks to the japanese developers (Espeacially Nintendo) That video gaming has progressed so far.
I agree, I hate it when they don’t Localize games for the U.S. There are so many good games that are only available in Japan, More people need to open they’re eyes and realize how great a lot of these games are even if they do have a different art style and a whackier sense of humor, we should be Welcoming the Added Variety and Not Shunning them because they’re different. Well, we can only hope……..Leave Luck To Heaven (;
Gearbox are my new favourite western developer :3
He makes a good point. There are plenty of bad Western developers as well as good ones. Same with Japanese developers. And there have been developers who were great in the 90s but are terrible now and vice versa.
You are so mean, Platinum Games. What did we ever say to you? How would you like it if we told you that almost every Japanese developer is really bad? Do you have something against Americans? Good grief, are they racist or something
Treyarch >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Infinity Ward
He’s definitely right about this. Imo Japanese devs have American devs beat hands down. They just have more imagination and are willing to take risks. Sure some of there characters can be cliche, but the same could be said of Western devs. Leave luck to heaven.
*cough* EA *cough*