Akira Yamaoka, a world-renowned video game developer from Japan who has heavy influence on development on such franchises as Silent Hill and the Beatmania series, has made a rather confusing statement that Japanese development is in trouble. He doesn't mean in an isolated reference, but rather in comparison to the advancement of Western-development, in particular the U.S.
What I find to be rather perplexing is the fact that a number of the best games in recent years, namely Super Mario Galaxy and Okami, are Japanese based, and the games that are U.S. based have little to no consumer influence in Japan and other Asian countries. So how does he come to this conclusion that Japanese development is in trouble? Perhaps he is looking at the rather cringe-worthy early footage of GT5, or his own early work on Silent Hill 5. Let's not forget the terrible looking footage and screenshots from Devil May Cry 4 and Resident Evil 5, both of which look terrible.
Just in case you didn't realize, I'm being sarcastic. However, his comments may have been influenced by the fact that he is currently working with a U.S. based development team on Silent Hill 5, The Collective, and now that he has seen a U.S. game company first-hand, he may feel a little uneven about the state of the Japanese game development industry. In a way, this makes his comments justified, but not necessarily true. The Japanese culture and way of life is so uniquely different and uncanny to the Western way of life that he may have jumped to conclusions. While he thinks the team he is working with is "very advanced," I can't personally see how anyone, anywhere, could be more advanced then the Japanese. I think he has been whacked out at the completely different direction of Western civilization.
Article comments
1 - Malkyne
When you're making a stab at good:bad ratios for American and Japanese games, you need to keep in mind that you aren't seeing the entire Japanese videogame market. For the most part, you're only seeing the stuff that managed to achieve localization and distribution in the American market. It would be a terrible mistake to assume that the games that aren't exported are of the same quality as the games that are. There are certainly a few untranslated gems hiding out there, but there is also no shortage of crap.