With mixed reviews for the long-awaited Final Fantasy XIII and Gran Turismo 5 and falling Japanese-developed game sales, has the Japanese games industry any aces left up its sleeves?
Trawling a video game forum I regularly frequent, I came across an interesting thread which asked users to rank their favourite video games of the 1990s. Once everyone had picked their top 30 before a closing date, each title would be ranked according to the votes it received. As you can imagine, it was no easy task.
When I finally had a full list staring back at me and a flurry of favourite memories and titles of my childhood and adolescence filled my mind (Lylat Wars topped the list, in case you’re wondering), I was struck by one inescapable factor – my favourite games as a youngster were predominantly Japanese.
Whether it was a flurry of Nintendo titles or releases from top Japanese publishers such as Capcom (Resident Evil), the then-Squaresoft (Final Fantasy VII), Konami (International Superstar Soccer, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon), Nintendo classics (Ocarina of Time, Super Mario Kart) or even quirky curiosities such as PaRappa the Rapper, the Japanese video game industry occupied a position of power comparable to that of US developers today.
Ominous Inafune
In a 2010 New York Times interview with Capcom’s ex-global head of production, Keiji Inafune, it was revealed that the Japanese games industry accounted for 50% of all game sales in 2002, before dipping to a mere 10% last year. This is the same Inafune who famously stated at the 2009 Tokyo Game Show: “Japan is over. We’re done. Our game industry is finished.” In late October, the disillusioned Mega Man creator left the company after 23 years.
Keiji’s departure caused ripples throughout the video game world, though perhaps his decision had been foreshadowed months before. At last year’s Tokyo Game Show, Inafune once again became the master of the sombre sound bite, stating that Japanese developers efforts at the event were little more than ‘awful games’ and that Japanese efforts were now ‘five years behind the West.’ His solution? “I want to study how Westerners live, and make games that appeal to them.” Whether that is the core focus of his latest venture, Comcept, is as yet unknown.
Inafune – the Buzz Killington of video games events
Keiji’s pronouncements are worlds away from the 16bit and 32bit heydays of the Japanese games industry during the 1990s, in which 2D fighters and JRPGs dominated the landscape and Western and Eastern tastes could be said to be largely compatible. Even in recent years, when Westerners began developing a passion for violent first person shooters and free-roam adventure titles (two genres that simply do no resonate with Asian audiences), developers such as Capcom could still lead the way, with the most appropriate example being the modern classic that was 2005’s Resident Evil 4.
Late to the new console party
Perhaps the most appropriate method of explaining what has drawn developers to become ‘five years behind the West’ is to compare the two biggest football franchises in video games – the Japanese-developed Pro Evolution Soccer series and its Western-developed FIFA rival.
As the new console war began at the midway point of the last decade, Japanese gamers were initially sceptic over the high cost of the Playstation 3 (first announced at the eye-watering price of €599 for its larger model) and held an overwhelming disinterest in Microsoft’s console. For a variety of reasons, the Japanese tend to support homegrown ventures in nearly all cases – witness the comparable disinterest of even Facebook in the Land of the Rising Sun, where Mixi.jp rules the social networking sphere).
While Gears of War and Oblivion were pointing the way forward for Western RPGs and third-person shooters in the West in the early days of the ‘next generation’ of consoles, Japanese gamers were instead content with their PS2’s, Nintendo Wii’s, or PSP copies of domestic juggernaut Monster Hunter instead.
As the developer’s home country was more excited in playing the Playstation 2 version of Pro Evolution, it made sense for it to become the chief iteration, leaving Western gamers dismayed at the low-tech re-use of PS2 assets for their HD gaming experience. Coupled with the exorbitant game prices at the beginning of the current generation (anyone remember new releases for €69.99?), it’s easy to see why gamers became enticed by EA’s re-working of the FIFA franchise and quite why long-awaited titles such as Final Fantasy XII featured relatively archaic gameplay and suffered poor reviews in comparison to their revolutionary Western rivals (JOE’s 2010 game of the year Mass Effect 2).
Naturally, the biggest-selling worldwide title of last year, Call of Duty: Black Ops, did not appear in the top 20 best-selling games of 2010 for Japan
It could be that both sides have grown so far apart that they have no interest in either’s output – Monster Hunter Tri hardly lit up the Wii charts this summer, yet it remains one of the biggest Japanese franchises in the last ten years. However, it should be pointed out that of the top 20 best-selling titles in Japan for 2010, just two games sold over 2 million copies – New Super Mario Bros Wii and Pokemon Black/White. One hopes that the upcoming launch of the Nintendo 3DS has been well anticipated by Japanese development houses, who are preparing a charge for Western gamers’ pockets.
The statistics don’t lie, so can we now pronounce that Nintendo are the only Japanese developers left with a catalogue of releases to appeal to universal tastes? Naturally, the biggest-selling worldwide title of last year, Call of Duty: Black Ops, did not appear in the top 20 chart.
Vanquish – the new model for Japanese game development?
Bayonetta and Vanquish creators Team Platinum are now regarded by most gamers as the last great hope for Japanese talent – a ludicrously talented team of developers that manage to revamp genres while placing their cultural stamp on their output. For many, however, Vanquish – a third-person shooter where you portray a US soldier battling a potential Russian invasion, was a competent title that felt creatively stifled in setting and gameplay for Western audiences, even if it did include a button command to allow its protagonist to sneak a quick drag while lying in cover.
Could it be that Vanquish is pointing the way forward for a Keiji Inafune-approved future of Japanese titles that resemble the best of Western efforts? Must the Japanese games industry ‘adapt or die’ or face an increasingly irrelevant future? From the land that gave us genre masterpieces such as Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid, that is a most depressing thought.
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