Wada Proposes "Japan Alliance"
Yoichi WadaBy now, it has become relatively clear to all that Western developers and publishers are starting to eclipse the traditional Japanese juggernauts. And it's not like Japan isn't aware of the shift, either; publishers like Square-Enix are continually trying to appeal more to Western gamers.
However, they're still falling behind. According to Kotaku, Square-Enix boss Yoichi Wada spoke about his country's lagging at the Tokyo Game Show and then he elaborated in a Nikkei Business article. He calls the current Japanese gaming industry a "crisis," primarily due to Western game companies having more capital and resources than their Japanese competition. Hence, he proposes "some sort of 'Japan Alliance,'" which would force smaller companies to realign and come under one banner. Obviously, Wada wants them to retain their individual identities, but perhaps in order to compete, it's time to unite in a common goal. "Individuality is important," said Wada. "It's not forcing everything into a single corporate brand. The ideal is a holding company under which several companies and brands can hang." Tecmo and Koei recently merged forces, but this would only be the tip of the iceberg if a "Japan Alliance" ever formed.
The question is, would it ultimately be good for gamers to have the big Japanese publishers like Square-Enix, Capcom, and Nintendo snap up the smaller developers and put them under their umbrella? The goal is more capital to work with, which would allow them to create bigger and more competitive titles, but would it work? Well, this is a classic "wait-and-see" thing, so...
10/22/2008 Ben Dutka
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Comments (15 posts)
Shatterday
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 12:55:59 PM
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I'm not saying 9 was my favorite, just that I liked it and thought that it was better than 10, 10-2, 12, dragonquest... blah blah blah.
Although Legend of Dragoon beats all of them.
I got off track. Good day!
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Scarecrow
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 12:57:05 PM
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Just had to sign in and comment 'bout this.
This is just not some "comments," this is a big proposition Square-Enix's boss is proposing...
This would mean that the bigger companies might start having way too much influence on the smaller companies(since they're all going to be responsible for making back expenses).
BUT I do like the fact that they're noticing how a large majority of Japanese games aren't appealing to North American and European crowds. There are many things I notice in Japanese games, one is that the kinds of characters they're creating are "stuck" in this "pretty characters" phase. Where even male characters look like females. It's the bishounen crap. I know it's a cultural thing over there, but in the US we like badass characters over cutesy/wimp characters. We're not all like that of course, but I think Japanese games need to start adding more creativity to their games. For some reason many of their games are starting to look too uniform(specially the rpgs)
In design, how is The Last Remnant much different than any other Final Fantasy(or any other rpg for that matter?)
The Japanese need to look back at the things they did in the great Playstation1 years and add as much variety(in design) to their games.
This is also a problem American Devs will face in the near future. All the games are war/gun games, this will surely catch up to them.
Life's a balance, the Japanese just need to stop
making games which are too similar too each other.
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www
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 2:28:40 PM
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LightShow
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 5:42:54 PM
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karneli lll
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 1:41:27 PM
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Alienange
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 7:01:47 PM
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www
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 2:23:33 PM
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For any other game it's the West,where Bioshock Ben n the rest live.
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Alienange
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 7:02:34 PM
Last edited by Alienange on 10/22/2008 7:02:53 PM
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WorldEndsWithMe
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 2:57:30 PM
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Scarecrow
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 3:18:47 PM
But still, in animes you can still see a lot of varieties.
In many of these rpg games it's really hard to find a lot of variety.
Even anime is having its problems, but animes are mostly based on female protagonists so that's why I don't have much a problem haha. For some reason there's more variety in female characters than in male characters in Japan for some reason....
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Joe_III
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 4:32:09 PM
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One thing that would be very cool imho would be to release more japanese games here now. All the cool adult themed games could make for an excellent market -- especially games for the DS/PSP. Because quite frankly, I'm getting tired of playing games geared towards minors (which just about every game of every rating is) on my 4 hours of public transportation commuting every day.
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Jed
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 7:39:04 PM
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BigT_1980
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 10:50:42 PM
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snglbck26
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Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 11:20:38 AM
As long as these smaller companies have the breathing room to be creative and aren't denied this creativity I think it could be a very good thing for gamers.