There’s always a bit of a cold war going on between Japanese game developers and western developers, and it’s not really a big surprise that the Microsoft-made Xbox 360, which is such a dominant force in North America, never found its footing in Japan.
However, it seems like a few of the Japanese developers are well-aware of the situation that compared to their overseas compatriots, they are falling behind in terms of sales and mindshare with western gamers.
Ex-Capcom employee Keiji Inafune feels it’s about time Japanese developers learned more from the western games and developers and use that understanding to develop titles with a wider appeal than the typical Japanese title.
While Inafune feels that the game developing scene in Japan is improving, he hopes that “Japanese game developers are breaking through the stagnation,” reports IGN.
“However, the reality isn’t as good as I want it to be. I see they’re starting to be aware of the problem and that they have to do something. They know they have to learn more from western games and create games that’ll sell more in the western market. However, they don’t know what to do or how to do it.”
But that’s not all. Inafune also adds that even worse scenarios occur when pride gets in the way of these developers and this prevents them from learning from overseas developers. As a result, they end up staying in the domestic market rather than going global.
“Overseas media have been asking the same question for a long time; is Japan’s game industry okay? Are Japanese brand games dead? The fact they’ve been asking these questions for a while is because they care and they’re worried about it,” says Inafune.
Keiji Inafune is currently developing the action role-playing title “Soul Sacrifice” for Marvelous Entertainment. It will release on the PS Vita this month on April 30.
