At one time, Japan was the centre of the gaming universe. What about today? Does that still hold true? Sure, Japan has its fair share of influential software and hardware companies — but, so does the West. Q-Games founder Dylan Cuthbert knows Japan and Japanese gamers. He’s worked directly under Miyamoto and Sony. What’s his take on the scene? Cuthbert says:

Video games used to be taken far more seriously than they are now; over here the gaming culture was affected adversely by advancing mobile phone tech., which back in the late ’90s and early ’00s was years ahead of the West. Suddenly people were playing (not games) with their phones and being more sociable than before, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for the human race. However, the Japanese still think of themselves as a kind of gaming mecca because they have a few god-like presences. In reality though, gaming has become less central and more a standard commodity; the Wii and DS have proved this with their huge demographic range. People want to play games, but without the huge investment of time and money games used to take up.

You could look at it the other way around and consider that games are taken so seriously here they are a “standard” in everyday life. There is just an increasingly diminishing core of hard core game players and increasing number of light, casual, “least-possible-investment” players.

Case in point: The DS and the Wii’s Japanese success. Pixel Junk Interview [Newsweek][Image]