Mega Man Creator Shakes Fist At Japanese Game Industry

[PrototypeC]

There's a lot of coasting on previous successes going on, yeah. Japanese companies are trying to put a big name on something to make up for lack of hardware or a short development cycle, but that has just brought down the name of popular titles, such as RE5, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, the new Silent Hill games, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Final Fantasy XIII, etc.

There will be a lull in a series, with some horrible game getting greenlit and a full release with all the bells and whistles and then flopping horribly. After that, the company will frantically try to figure out what's wrong for the sequel. If the sequel does even slightly better the company will say,

"whew, thought we were in some real trouble there, but the brand shined through so we're OK forever",

...and go right back to their previous practices. Resident Evil is a prime example of this. Between 4 (which had a long, healthy development cycle after 3 didn't do so well) and 5 (which was rushed out because, hey, the audience came crawling back and they'll buy anything now) there was a huge difference in quality and length of development time. Development time is the entirety of what seperates awful games from great ones, and the industry still doesn't seem to get it yet.

 

[dragongit]

Megaman Legends 3 Capcom. Work on it and we'll forgive you.

 

[Squidbulb]

Agreed. A lot of Japanese games fall back on the same old tricks, but it does sometimes work. See Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter. More often though, many people are alienated by all the Japanese culture. It's like anime, they're all pretty similar and look pretty much the same, unlike western animation which is filled with new ideas.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

A bit of nitpicking here, but SMG2 wasn't bad, it just wasn't new, whereas the other examples you listed pretty much screwed up all the work of past games.

 

[Roxas1359]

Its not one big problem, its an accumulation of smaller ones but there are so many its now hard to list.

I have to agree with what you said, especially the part I quoted. However I think it's more of pride that the Japanese Gaming Industry displays than xenophobia. Although that's not to say that both don't contribute.

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

He's right. In my youngest days I used to admire the luck of Japanese gamers. They seemingly got the best and most interesting games and if we got some over here it was a lucky treat. Now though, What is to envy. The Japanese game industry hasn't changed one single bit from when I admired it. American companies have made fun, interesting, and unique games while they Japanese industry is lagging behind in any sort of creativity.

The main problem is most of the games that are decently made are on the hand-held and no one wants to support them here. Everyone has an android or ios device so why buy a psp or ds?? ...

bad trolling is bad...

I am not trolling in the western market mainstream people want ios or android devices to play games on instead of hand held from Sony or Nintendo. Look at the sales numbers of those devices because of the portability they have or wide array to apps/games. No one in this day/age wants to lug around 2-3 tech devices anymore to play games, use a phone or tweet with.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Keiji Inafune: the last sane man in the Japanese game industry.

I gotta hand it to him, he's got balls of steel for risking such huge ire from his Japanese fans; but if we take a hard look at ourselves everything he's saying seems pretty true.

And really, I'd love a west and east game collaboration. I feel both mindsets can learn a lot from each other.

He's not the only one. I heard Hideo Kojima also say many of the same things. I had a game informer which had a few major Japanese devs say this but I got rid of all of my game informers a while ago.

I wouldn't exactly call Kojima sane

Well I was refering to the part about you saying he had balls just pointing out there is more than one person who realizes the problem. Also I think the Dead Rising games were some form of collaboration between east and west. I'm unsure though it might have been something else.

The first one was a Japanese dev team trying to make a game that appealed to westerners. The second was just a purely western effort.

Ah thanks for that. Though I think Keiji did work on DR2. Still my source is wikipedia.

 

[Vrach]

He's right. In my youngest days I used to admire the luck of Japanese gamers. They seemingly got the best and most interesting games and if we got some over here it was a lucky treat. Now though, What is to envy. The Japanese game industry hasn't changed one single bit from when I admired it. American companies have made fun, interesting, and unique games while they Japanese industry is lagging behind in any sort of creativity.

The main problem is most of the games that are decently made are on the hand-held and no one wants to support them here. Everyone has an android or ios device so why buy a psp or ds?? ...

bad trolling is bad...

Most people I know own an Android phone and I'm sitting in one of the very undeveloped countries. That statement is spot on for the Western market, which is what we're talking about here.

 

[Roxas1359]

Megaman Legends 3 Capcom. Work on it and we'll forgive you.

When I heard it was cancelled I was so upset. I remember Data's quite about how Negaman was gonna be stuck up there a little while longer...seems now it'll be forever. DX
But that also brings up a point about some companies that don't like to take risks. I mean while one game may flop, a company shouldn't quickly cancel a game out of fear of it not selling. I mean if you're certain it won't sell than they should cancel a game, but if a game has an obvious fan base, let's use the Megaman fan base as an example, then you just upset everyone; especially when the game already has a prototype and they were going to charge you for it.. But a company also shouldn't rely on it's fan base to keep a series afloat.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Inafune, shut up. It's nothing but tiring now. I love how this whiny, petulant, bitter old man does nothing but piss and moan about Japan and put the West on some kind of pedestal despite the fact that it also has ALL the same problems as Japanese development. He has to go out of his way to ignore devs like Atlus, Arc System Works, FromSoftware, Grasshopper Manufacture, Vanillaware, and NIN-FUCKING-TENDO in order to make his strawman argument work.

Also:

"Japanese game creators are just sitting on the glories of the past."

As opposed to you, who is sitting on the glories of others? Yeah, I said it. Inafune NEVER made Mega Man. That goes to either Tokuro Fujiwara or Akira Kitamura who were on the first game from the beginning as Inafune was brought on when most of the work was finished. Inafune is the Ringo Starr of gaming; a guy who was at the right place at the right time and got LUCKY instead of relying on actual talent. Congratulations Inafune, you're a pot calling the kettle black. Now go away and sulk in private instead of making your bullshit other people's problem.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Inafune, shut up. It's nothing but tiring now. I love how this whiny, petulant, bitter old man does nothing but piss and moan about Japan and put the West on some kind of pedestal despite the fact that it also has ALL the same problems as Japanese development. He has to go out of his way to ignore devs like Atlus, Arc System Works, FromSoftware, Grasshopper Manufacture, Vanillaware, and NIN-FUCKING-TENDO in order to make his strawman argument work.

Also:

"Japanese game creators are just sitting on the glories of the past."

As opposed to you, who is sitting on the glories of others? Yeah, I said it. Inafune NEVER made Mega Man. That goes to either Tokuro Fujiwara or Akira Kitamura who were on the first game from the beginning as Inafune was brought on when most of the work was finished. Inafune is the Ringo Starr of gaming; a guy who was at the right place at the right time and got LUCKY instead of relying on actual talent. Congratulations Inafune, you're a pot calling the kettle black. Now go away and sulk in private instead of making your bullshit other people's problem.

You realize that he told people he didn't make megaman right? He made Zero, the Dead Rising games, the Battle Network series, Onimusha,and a ton of other games. Also you listed 6 companies. Now how many game companies are in Japan? Also Keiji is not the only one who has said this many others have as well.

 

[mattttherman3]

The 3ds has a region lock? So, since I'm from canada, I can't play in florida on vacation, awsome.

The only Japaneese games I seem to enjoy anymore are the tales games, and at least they tried to change those up a little, very poorly done but at least they tried(I'm looking at you Symphonia 2 and Graces)

 

[WanderingFool]

I agree completely with what Mr. Inafune says. While in the past many Japanese games were wacky and really creative it just feels nowadays that they are trying to rehash the same thing over and over. While I do believe that the phrase "don't fix what isn't broke" works in real life after a while that magic formula for creating games will lose its ability.

You know, when I here someone say that about various things, I have the strong urge to kick their teeth in. While it can hold true, that same mentality can and will lead to stagnation. Thats not to say completely throwing an idea that works out is necessary, but allowing it to be pushed to the side so a new idea can grow wont kill anyone.

Oddly enough, this is basically the same arguement I find myself with when talking about the Zelda series.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

[
You realize that he told people he didn't make megaman right? He made Zero, the Dead Rising games, the Battle Network series, Onimusha,and a ton of other games. Also you listed 6 companies. Now how many game companies are in Japan? Also Keiji is not the only one who has said this many others have as well.

No, he didn't make Dead Rising, Onimusha, Battle Network, or anything else. If you look at his credits, anything he has related to a designer or a creator(beyond CHARACTER design) are Game Concept for The Misadventures of Tron Bonne and Original Story for Lost Planet. That's it. I'll admit he helped get good ideas through from talented people when he was a producer, but the man has next to no experience to call from when talking about actual game design or concepts. He's basically a hack and his attitude reminds of a bitter old man making his mid-life crisis the problem of others. I believe one of Nintendo's boys (I believe it was Aonuma) put is best when describing this idiot's strawman bullshit:

"Inafune sounds like he needs a rest."

And I couldn't agree more.

 

[80Maxwell08]

[
You realize that he told people he didn't make megaman right? He made Zero, the Dead Rising games, the Battle Network series, Onimusha,and a ton of other games. Also you listed 6 companies. Now how many game companies are in Japan? Also Keiji is not the only one who has said this many others have as well.

No, he didn't make Dead Rising, Onimusha, Battle Network, or anything else. If you look at his credits, anything he has related to a designer or a creator(beyond CHARACTER design) are Game Concept for The Misadventures of Tron Bonne and Original Story for Lost Planet. That's it. I'll admit he helped get good ideas through from talented people when he was a producer, but the man has next to no experience to call from when talking about actual game design or concepts. He's basically a hack and his attitude reminds of a bitter old man making his mid-life crisis the problem of others. I believe one of Nintendo's boys (I believe it was Aonuma) put is best when describing this idiot's strawman bullshit:

"Inafune sounds like he needs a rest."

And I couldn't agree more.

All right fine I'll give in that he was just a producer on many of those regardless of how well he did at that job. Also since he said he was getting tired of making games I can agree on the quote. Still there is a problem here and he isn't the only one to acknowledge it. There are so many games made in Japan that will never come out of there simply because they don' like the West. I've heard publishers say they don't trust Western companies (Namco Bandai especially) and many companies that do don't have enough money to bring anything over. Square Enix is looking to start mimicking the dev cycles of western franchises and making games in a 1-2 year dev cycle. Capcom is making monumentally awful design decisions from putting 600 people on Resident Evil 6 to not even bothering to advertise many of their products save Resident Evil. The Jimquisition episode on Konami said it better than I could about them. My only comment on Nintendo is they basically make consoles for themselves and let their 3rd party developers just die on arrival. There are problems over there and they do need to be fixed their massive loss in business has shown that.

 

[Roxas1359]

I agree completely with what Mr. Inafune says. While in the past many Japanese games were wacky and really creative it just feels nowadays that they are trying to rehash the same thing over and over. While I do believe that the phrase "don't fix what isn't broke" works in real life after a while that magic formula for creating games will lose its ability.

You know, when I here someone say that about various things, I have the strong urge to kick their teeth in. While it can hold true, that same mentality can and will lead to stagnation. Thats not to say completely throwing an idea that works out is necessary, but allowing it to be pushed to the side so a new idea can grow wont kill anyone.

Oddly enough, this is basically the same arguement I find myself with when talking about the Zelda series.

I couldn't agree more with what you said. "Don't fix what isn't broke" isn't completely bad, but making decisions just based on that philosophy won't work forever.

 

[Sylveria]

Not every game needs to compete with CoD and MW3. When someone says "Compete with Western games" that's what they mean, more macho-shooters which we already have more than enough of.

Gaming used to be a niche thing and there's still a niche audience for a lot of the stuff coming out of Japan. I find a lot of what comes out of the western development scene incredibly tedious and dull, however, I've found a great deal of enjoyment from some of the stuff still coming from Japan and hope they stay that way.

It's all subjective about which industry is more stagnant. Personally, I'd rather not re-live Shooter Season 2011 every year because Japan started shoveling out the same brown, samey junk that US based devs are crapping out on an already yearly basis.

 

[Sylveria]

.

He's right. In my youngest days I used to admire the luck of Japanese gamers. They seemingly got the best and most interesting games and if we got some over here it was a lucky treat. Now though, What is to envy. The Japanese game industry hasn't changed one single bit from when I admired it. American companies have made fun, interesting, and unique games while they Japanese industry is lagging behind in any sort of creativity.

The main problem is most of the games that are decently made are on the hand-held and no one wants to support them here. Everyone has an android or ios device so why buy a psp or ds?? ...

bad trolling is bad...

I am not trolling in the western market mainstream people want ios or android devices to play games on instead of hand held from Sony or Nintendo. Look at the sales numbers of those devices because of the portability they have or wide array to apps/games. No one in this day/age wants to lug around 2-3 tech devices anymore to play games, use a phone or tweet with.

Spoken like a true hipster-casual. Yes, phones do have higher market penetration that handheld gaming devices.. because almost everyone has a phone, but not everyone plays video games. Your grasp of the obvious astounds even me. I always do like the "It isn't mainstream, therefor it doesn't need to exist," argument. In other news, McDonalds is the greatest restaurant in the world because they have the most locations and the Big Mac is the best food product in the world because it has the highest sales.