Wed, Sep 10, 2008 | 19:58 BST
We’ll never catch western dev, says Japanese chap
Game Republic head Yoshiki Okamoto thinks it’s all over. Almost. The ex-Capcom man think western development is now too far ahead for Japan to ever revisit the glory days.
“It’s almost too late,” he said. “During the Famicom (NES) era, Japanese video games comprised 70 percent of all video games.
“And currently, it’s like 15 or 20 percent, isn’t it? Now, Western games are more advanced. For games like GTAIV, those guys are spending something like 5 or 10 years to make them. Even if we thought about catching up with them now, they’d still be making progress.
“But, not necessarily giving up, it’s just not possible to catch up in a single lifetime.”
He has a point. Thanks, Kotaku.
7 
Posted in: America, Development, Europe, Japan
Tags: Yoshiki Okamoto
7 comments
#1
Psychotext
10/09/08, 8:02 pm
Don’t give up Mr Japanese Dev! We still love you.
#2
wickedman
10/09/08, 8:16 pm
Yeah! look at Kojima,excellent work on the movie mmmm the game, MGS4,PEASE DON’T QUIT,I DON’T LOVE YOU BUT DON’T QUIT!!!
#3
No_PUDding
10/09/08, 8:27 pm
I am sorry but it’s so not true.
it’s just Western Developers and Industry members who are insular enough not to realise Japan is making it’s own leaps.
Most of the best games still come out of there.
And people who say JRPG’s are more stale than WRPG’s are just as insular as others who claimed it.
All RPG’s are stale, they haven’t chnaged for years.
#4
Psychotext
10/09/08, 8:30 pm
He never mentioned quality, he mentioned quantity and level of advancement.
#5
Dr.Haggard
10/09/08, 8:47 pm
“And people who say JRPG’s are more stale than WRPG’s are just as insular as others who claimed it.”
I don’t know about that. Western RPGs may be formulaic in some respects, but arguably not in respects that make them as dated and stale as JRPGs have become.
Japanese deveopers are still designing games based around ancient genre conventions that have no value or justification on modern hardware, or indeed in this decade. And why? It seems to be purely out of tradition, and when the occasional game comes along that tries to fix this stuff and bring the genre into the 21st century, other developers ignore it and go back to the pointless traditions.
I’ve been ranting about this over on EG only recently though, so I shouldn’t really open up that can of worms again, and it’s not what the guy in the interview was talking about anyway.
#6
mortiferus
10/09/08, 9:05 pm
Japan has fallen behind in the number of games produced,not quality nor innovation. Though they are far more conservative in the design approach, which to some might border on stale, I believe some of the best game play still comes out of Nippon.
#7
cachucha
11/09/08, 1:18 pm
Think the are dragging in both aspects, has been a long time since a japanese game, gave me a good impression