You know? That is actually what Inafune wants. He says that in japan, many people still believe that their game is the best and the western games are only decent or horrible BUT that is actually the opposite of what is happening right now. He even actually likes it how Phil Fish insulted japanese games(I forgot what site/article where i found that he said that) because japanese developers don't want to admit that they are losing the battle with the exception of Inaba and Saito from Platinum games.
So...he says that insulting japanese developers would probably open their eyes or something like that. There are actually Japanese games today which was Critically Acclaimed such as Dark Souls and Xenoblade but loses in terms of Sales.
East = Mainly RPGs
West = FPS
I understand that point. But that's also not quite the full story. Games are made for us. So if the a certain group(western) aren't playing certain games then that isn't the Japanese industries fault. Is us, as westerns for being so bland and pathetic with what we buy. This is why I consider Keiji Inafune wrong; because it's not that the Japanese have lost their ability to develop games, but it's that the audience you're trying to appeal to are mindless drones. The Japanese gaming is considered "finished" because the westerners have their heads up their arse and don't WANT to play fun games like Vanquish. This also works in reverse. Westerns games don't do as well in Japan since they also have the same level of pathetic mentality. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the Xbox sells extremely poorly in Japan and is one of the worst selling consoles there. BUT, we don't have Cliff Blezinski(Gears of War/Bullstorm/Unreal Tournament) saying that Western developed games are "finished" because the other group doesn't buy them.
Also, I think(as in I don't have any research to back up my claim BUT this could easily be considered the point)the reason Xenoblade chronicles failed was because it's on the Wii. If you make a game on the Wii with brilliant ideas, put in a lot of time to the mechanics and story etc, it won't ever sell on that console. Games like: Dead Space Extraction, No More Heroes, House of the Dead Overkill and a few others were Wii exclusives that were great but, were eventually ported to the Xbox and PS3. If they port Xenoblade to the Xbox/PS3, you'll get the sales. You just cannot make a sale on the Wii due to the audience on that platform.
I hate to side with them but Japanese developers are kind of losing in terms of sales and popularity....okay maybe not Nintendo but most other developers. I mean losing the shooter market is one thing but Western developers are up against Japanese developers on all corners now (hack n slash, RPG, puzzle, and even platformers). I mean the only market the Western developers aren't competing with the Japanese developers are fighting games cause the West is to yet come out with a decent fighting game....they have come close but Street Fighter, DoA, Tekken, and other Japanese fighters have already solidify and shaped the fighting market that is like a Japanese developer making a new shooter IP to compete with CoD or Halo.
The gaming industry is rough out there man.
No but we have so many highly praised platformers from the West you could easily say that "west is cornered" is off. Games like: Limbo, Braid, Warp, Splosion Man, Terraria, NightSky, Shadow Complex (just to name a very small few) and those games are huge....and made in the West. As for fighting games, WWE, Skullgirls and Mortal Kombat 9 (Along with Injustice soon). The Japanese dominate sure, but we still have those. As for RPG, I don't even know where to begin....Bioshock, Mass Effect, Borderlands, Skyrim.... You do make a good point about each side molding certain genres though. East for fighting games and West for shooters. The industry is rough though. It's full of gamers who have no effin' clue what they want.
Lastly, about Dark Souls, it's really a fancy looking Dungeon Crawler(I love that game too) and we had those for years since the early PC days with the first Elder Scrolls(Western) games. Dark Souls is classed a Dungeon Crawler as well meaning, it's not combating the West but playing homage to the early Western developed games (with it's own twist).
