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Final Fantasy Dev: Japanese Games Slipping Because Of Technology, Passion

5:30PM August 31, 2010 | Luke Plunkett

Why aren’t Japanese games made by companies not called Nintendo as big or important as they used to be? Square Enix’s Final Fantasy veteran Akitoshi Kawazu has a theory.

“Aside from a few well-known titles, games from Japan are receiving less and less attention, regardless of if it’s an RPG or not”, he told Nintendo Power magazine. “I feel that it has something to do with the marketing abilities of Japanese publishers, as well as the games themselves.”

“The technology is not on par with Western games, and it also seems like developers are losing their passion to stick with their vision because they are being overwhelmed by costs or market trends.”

He also says that Japanese developers “need to take on a project with the confidence and strength to stick with their vision.”

All viable theories, but I’ve long believed (warning: gross generalisation ahead) it’s the average Japanese studio’s love of old-fashioned menus, long text sequences and an inability to appeal to the emerging “mainstream” Western consumer that’s been their undoing, rather than their marketing spend.

But hey, that’s just me!

Square-Enix – Japanese games aren’t getting much attention, tech isn’t up to snuff [Nintendo Power, via Go Nintendo]

Comments

  • Ash

    August 31, 2010 at 6:31 PM

    Totally agree with the old fashioned menus and text loving. You play a current western RPG and it’s all voice acting and quite fast paced. Go play a JRPG and you spend half the game in menus and textboxes, quite frustrating!

  • Dave Rogers

    August 31, 2010 at 6:55 PM

    I don’t mind a bit oftext box action. It wouldn’t be a JRPG with out them.

  • Homeboy

    August 31, 2010 at 9:45 PM

    Text-based rpg combat sucks, its great at first, like a game of chess that is actually fun, but then it just gets really repetitive and boring. It’s much-much easier to put 100 hours into Fallout than put 30 hours into (the brilliant) Lost Odyssey.

    • David

      September 1, 2010 at 2:19 AM

      I dunno man, I got bored with Fallout’s open world format. It was entirely too much effort to walk everywhere. I don’t know why but I’ve never had that with JRPGs.

  • Ben

    September 1, 2010 at 12:11 PM

    Well the games comming out of Japan with the exception of stuff by Grasshopper Studio and Platnium. Are the same games they’ve been making for 20 years just shinier.

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