Why Japanese developers lost their edge to western developers last generation?

From the NES to the PS2 generations, Japanese developers were dominant in home console gaming. But that changed last generation when Western developers caught up and finally passed their Asian counterpart.

What were the reasons for this change of dominance last generation?

Rise of the Dude Bro

Behind in terms of what?

They weren't behind in the things that actually matter, like game design. So I can't say I agree with this false narrative.

they dont share technology

This.

If anything, they were behind in terms of tech, because budgets exploded, and Japan has always been good at putting out a good game for little money. In that era, that wasn't possible anymore.

The West could just throw money at it because they're bigger, better financed companies who are targeting a bigger market. Japan's console market collapsed last gen. That caused problems.

It was a combination of things. Struggling with HD development and making engines, the PS3's Cell, games not selling on the 360, the rise of mobile causing many to develop mobile games.

This gen looks much better than last gen for Japanese developers thanks to UE4 and the PS4 being easy to develop for.

I think its the fact that many Japanese games never see release outside Japan, there a huge market that alot of games never release into.

This.

They kept making games when the industry demanded more semi-interactive movies.

Money was actually the first thing I was going to mention. Since Western games usually have bigger budgets, that usually results in better graphics, technology, production values, and marketing. Up until the PS2 era, it was Japanese companies like Sega, Namco, Square and Konami that were producing the most expensive games, but that changed last gen, with Western companies like EA, Rockstar, Ubisoft and Activision producing the most expensive games.

Last generation Japanese Devs produced this game

It is without a doubt the greatest masterpiece of last generation and ranks at the top of my top 10 best games ever made. With this in mind, there aren't even any other games from last generation make my to 10 best games ever.

There were a lot of western games last gen, some of them very good but none of them blew me away. Demon's Souls blew me away and I am still recovering.

There really isn't any more to be discussed in this thread about Japanese vs Western devs other than maybe an influx of gamers who like to scream America and enjoy quick access gaming.

I just want to point out that the highest rated game of last generation is a Japanese game.

Not only that, but these are just some of the great games that Japanese developers put out over the course of the last generation:

• Super Mario Galaxy
• Super Mario Galaxy 2
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
• Lost Odyssey
• Tales of Vesperia
• Xenoblade Chronicles
• Demon's Souls
• Dark Souls
• Dark Souls II
• Monster Hunter 3
• Bayonetta
• Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
• Catherina
• Dragon's Crown

So yeah, this entire idea that Japanese developers weren't doing as well last generation? It's bullshit. Hell, I'm not even counting the handhelds any more right now, because if I was, this would just be unfair.

Western devs have always had better design. They were all PC developers until Sony came in with the Playstation. Then MS entered the market and even more PC developers came in to make console games. Japanese developers have always been favored because they have always made games for consoles. And consoles are mainstream machines

This claim only holds true for a few traditionally PC-oriented genres, like FPS, RTS, and MOBA. Otherwise, it's a nonsensical claim.

It's not the case, it's a narrative that the gaming media want to embelish when in reality japanese games never got weaker, beyond rare cases like cd projekt red, japanese developers are better and have been better. Look at 2016's lineup of games.

It's funny how we keep comparing Western developers against Japanese developers... because we're basically comparing two entire continents (North America and Europe) against a single island (Japan). It's a lop-sided comparison to begin with. The fact that a single island can still hold its own against two entire continents is impressive in itself.

In handheld games they aren't, they dominate the market,

Right on the money. They were behind in adapting technology. You notice that konami faired a bit better but was late when they developed the fox engine and shared it across there titles. In a way thanks to kojima production realizing that. Problem is that this ended up being costly but would have been a good investment right now. If only they could just hang on before calling it quits. A westerner was the architect of the fox engine by the way. You have to have an engine that you use acros your titles this is the way of saving cost for game development today. This generation they wised up and most of them are using Unreal Engine.

I also have to point out that Japanese market changes contributed to this.

I remember reading a fascinating article a bit back discussing how Eastern development, the way it's structured, its hierarchy and approval process introduces a lot of bureaucracy into development that can bog it down, whereas in the West it's much more of an open collaboration with the members of the team being unafraid of objecting to people above them or presenting ideas without giving offense. A tad similar to the Alderman article on Nintendo, but not the same one.

Eh, can't recall where it was from. Will look for a link...

I think multiple reasons play in.

First off, I will argue that the last gen were the point where typical PC type games, and console games truely met, there has always been crossover, but not at the scale of last gen. I suspect that Japan always had a Console focus where alot of the western Devs used to be PC mainly devs (and fairly bad ports). This is also why we saw such a surge in MP focused games, two gens ago consoels took the first small steps towards the kind of Multiplayer setups PCs tended to have, but local multiplayer had been the focus.

The console gamers seemed to vote that they preferred the games that was usually on PC (FPS blew up, WRPGS became mainstay) where before they might have had a foothold at best, and a distant shadow at worst.

Then at second we had the cost, Most Japanese Devs are not as big as a lot of people might think, where the western games tended to have fairly huge financial backings, a lot of us remember the writings about how much game development increased last gen. The smaller Japanese games in general simply could not make games which could output graphics on the scale of its western counterparts. Which is why we saw the death and vanishing of the great Japanese Devs and publishers. Many of those companies are not just shadows of their former selves.

Third point would be that Japanese Devs and publishers are very traditionel and rigid (or were), most things were made in house, and the people in charge had the visions of whatthe game would be, everyone else would work to make that vision come true.

In the west we operate very different, Devs and publishers are in way closer talks, inputs and ideas are shared, tech is explained, taught or even shared. Meaning that the Western games saw incredible growth in terms of tech and ideas. The rigid structure of the typical Japanese dev houses exist to a way less extent here, and alterations to the tops visions are often seen, as people such as coders and such, might find something amazing that is able to be done in the engine, and the games changes to include that. So a much more flexible development cycle (Not sure, but that would make the dreaded crunch time much worse here in the west, as things would ideally be more planned out over in Japan).

A Personal point is that maybe Japanese culture had a big role to play. The Japanese historically have had this obsession with perfecting things, including other peoples works. It is not like in the west where we would often look down on such attempts, but throughout 4+ gens we had seen what had become a stagnation in a lot of Japanese games, because they were at its base often attempts to create a story or a game we have seen before, but making a newer better version. I am unsure if Japanese culture still has that obsession, but they had up til fairly recently.

And finally my oddball argument: I will argue that the huge influx of mainstream consumers did a bigger part, We often hear the moans about CoD bro-gamers and such. Frankly? there may be a good point to this, a new generation of gamers did seem to appear which were interested in things they could relate to only. Becuase I find it rather odd that people claim that the Japanese Devs fell behind, when so many great Japanese developed games were made, but they simply got no traction in the west.

Demon's souls, Valkyria chronicles, Super Mario Galaxy, MGS4 (ah crud it, just look at Char's list).

Of course as always, just my guesses, and thoughts, nothing should be taken as a golden truth :P

That has a lot to do with marketing, promotion, and advertising. Western games usually have bigger marketing budgets, so they can spend a lot more on marketing, promoting and advertising their products. Ultimately, it still comes down to money.

Wasn't aware there was a problem. Also, can we stop talking like consoles are huge over there? Last time I checked, console sales were weak and dominated by mobile/handheld gaming.

@onesiphorus:

Japanese developers continue to have an edge. The issue is that the western market has exploded and popular game design now caters to what sells in the west.

@onesiphorus

Meanwhile, it looks like more than half of 2016's non-indie AAA blockbuster level titles are dominated by Japanese based studios.

God Fighter V

Dark Souls III

Gravity Daze 2

Star Fox Zero

Nier Automata

The Last Guardian

Persona V

Zelda U/NX

Final Fantasy XV

Tekken 7

Star ocean V

Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem

Not even closing listing all the wildly quality franchises and new exciting looking games I could

This year and the game industry itself would be SICK without the continuous and extremely high quality support of the japanese dev community. Japanese fell behind Western devs? What you been smoking must be some gud stuff I tell ya.

Mario Maker, Bloodborne, and MGS V are all *** and made 3/5 of the games for GOTY. I dont see how they are losing touch

That's another factor, the decline of Japan's console market. In order to get attention in the West, more Japanese developers need to develop big-budget console games. But before they do that, they first need to focus on reviving the console gaming market in Japan itself. And with all these new Japanese games coming out for the PS4, they might be able to pull it off.

Why only 3 genres? There were also great RPG's on the PC.

Even then, the cost of Japanese games has generally been less. They're really good at staying on budget, especially Nintendo. And why not? Back in the day, you could crank out a triple-A game in a year, maybe two.

You can't do that anymore.

Because Japanese developers/publishers design with the Japanese market in mind, which migrated heavily to mobile devices. Because costs inflated tremendously last gen and the decreased sales pool they were dealing with, only games that emphasized Western elements and found an audience outside of Japan survived the transition.

They made better "thinking mans" (strategy, simulation, RPG) types of games and FPSes, but when it came to platformers and action games. Japan has had them beat. Japan and the west both have their strengths and weaknesses, and this remains true even today.

I blame consoles. They even dumbed down Japanese developers XD

The best game of the generation always come from Japan. The hell OT is talking about?!

They don't make Western style games.

e.g. fps

@playharderfool said:

@onesiphorus

Meanwhile, it looks like more than half of 2016's non-indie AAA blockbuster level titles are dominated by Japanese based studios.

God Fighter V

Dark Souls III

Gravity Daze 2

Star Fox Zero

Nier Automata

The Last Guardian

Persona V

Zelda U/NX

Final Fantasy XV

Tekken 7

Star ocean V

Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem

Not even closing listing all the wildly quality franchises and new exciting looking games I could

This year and the game industry itself would be SICK without the continuous and extremely high quality support of the japanese dev community. Japanese fell behind Western devs? What you been smoking must be some gud stuff I tell ya.

Calling some of those AAA blockbusters is a bit of a stretch (Gravity Rush 2 and Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem) but you make a good point overall.

@GreySeal9: im excited for SMT X FE (and GR2 to a lesser extent). Point being though is *** devs havent lost their touch just yet and 2016 looks like a great year for *** games

Their market likes handhelds more, ours didn't, they did their thing, everybody else did theirs. Our publishers started pumping more money into games, theirs didn't have the resources to. Console gaming was hard for smaller developers with less resources to do there. PS3 was too complex and complicated for smaller Japanese devs to make games for. Wii gamers didn't buy third party games. And Japan didn't care about no Roundeye Gaijin Box. This just widened the rift between the two markets.

But, like others above have shown, those that have survived have done well and have set the bar for others to hopefully follow... except Capcom, they're like on life support at this point, even with a semi-successful SFV they need more money to fund other projects.

I like western games a lot, but I didn't realize they were necessarily dominating. I just think of the great success of the Souls series.

In Japan fluoride water is illegal.

In the west, it's ok to drink fluoride water.

Flouride reduces IQ and breeds stupid people. Stupid people like simplistic games.

Lots of this is just some fans love affair with anything Japanese. Western game developers are more advanced in their technical expertise than their Japanese counterparts. The only place where Japanese Developers excel is in intangible things that cannot be measured.

Money is a big issue, but also the lack of technology and sometimes gameplay elements. It's not to say that there wasn't some great Japanese game, it's just not as many as I'm used to. Naming roughly two dozen games to represent an entire generation is kinda bad. I couldn't name as many games as Charizard did because I either didn't play it (due to lack of interest) or didn't like it. Also I can only speak from my opinion. A game can get a 10 everywhere, but if I didn't like it doesn't really matter to me how well it's rated.

Not really

Most countries in America and Europe share similar culture and ways of thinking. Japan is a unique entity of its own. It's not about size, it is about different approaches to game design.

@JangoWuzHere: You're still comparing over a billion people (europe and america equal around a billion plus I guess a few other key locations are the west as well) versus 127.3 people in japan. (that was there population in 2013, it's honestly likely less now with their aging population compared to baby booming.

So yeah, it's idiotic.

The fact that japan is doing better than the western world except key cases like cd projekt red as far as making good games is either massively impressive for them or really pathetic for western developers.

Consoles and computers both have great RPGs, and Japan and the West have both developed great RPGs. It's highly debatable which had the better RPGs, so it's not something we can generalize. On the other hand, FPS, RTS and MOBA are a lot easier to generalize, since Japan rarely makes games in those genres... although, ironically, the Sega Mega Drive game Herzog Zwei was the big daddy of all RTS and MOBA games today.

It's still a lop-sided comparison, since North America and Europe have a combined population (1.3 billion) that's ten times larger than Japan's population (126 million, and declining). And if we're comparing the population of young working-age people, then the comparison is even more lop-sided, due to Japan's declining birth rates and higher average age. It's fair to compare and contrast between their fairly unique game design philosophies, but it doesn't make any sense to complain about why Japan would be lagging behind a Western world with a working-age population that's a dozen times larger.

@onesiphorus: I would say that online play has a lot to do with it, but also the timing. PS2 was a great system, with tons of different RPGs and other Japanese games to play. But the thing is, I think people got a bit burnt out on all of those games - it was just JRPG overload. And when you have so many different variations of one genre of a game existing on one console for about a decade, pretty soon you start to notice the redundancy and the similarities, and realize that some were a lot better than others.

Another factor is probably the aging Japanese population. A lot of the same developers have been pioneering the Japanese video game industry for years, and now they are getting old and there's not a lot of experienced, up-and-coming youths to replace them.

And the game industry itself is kind of unpredictable and changing these days. Who would have guessed that a game like Flappy Bird would come along and be this massive hit one day, for example? We don't know how long consoles will be around for, or what format games will be manufactured in. We don't know what that "next step" will be, or if it will even be a good one. Motion control could come back around, VR could be the next big thing, or maybe they're all wrong and it'll be holograms. It's difficult for any developer to navigate the confusion of an industry with so much possibility, especially a Japanese developer that is used to a certain level of stability and longer development cycles.

Well, a good developer makes games people want to play and if those so called "interactive movies" is what sells then you make those kinds of games.

You better watch your mouth before spouting something so carelessly.

They didn't. People just chose to buy the worse games.

GTA V is worse than most Japanese games made in the past 5 yrs? Yeah, nice try.

Um, yes?