Outspoken Tokyo Vikings developer Tomonobu Itagaki has been chatting with Kotaku about life, love and bouncy boob physics. While the interview is laden with his usual bravado and trash talk, the Ninja Gaiden creator did have some very interesting words to say about the Japanese game industry.
"I think that, in time, it will end up much like the Japanese film industry, you know?," he explained. "I mean it will become similar in terms of its competitiveness in mass markets, its ability to raise funds, and its technological prowess. I mean, Kojima-san at Konami has been talking about the technological side of the issue for quite some time now, hasn't he?
"Whether it goes into a major decline or not will depend on the publishers and game creators here in Japan. There's no point in traveling the same path that Japan did 400 years ago, after all ... I'm talking about sakoku, the policy in which Japan closed its borders to the outside world. What the industry is doing right now is just a modern form of sakoku. What I'm trying to get at is that you've got to be an Earthling first, and a Japanese second."
This mirrors sentiments expressed by Sony's Yasuhide Kobayashi when he declared Japan must start appealing more to the West. While I still wonder if the whole "Japanese decline" thing isn't being a little overblown, there's no escaping the fact that this is a global market now. Simply developing for your own little club doesn't quite cut it anymore.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
7:20 PM on 09.22.2009
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The man speaks the truth.
Actually, it's more accurate to say that they are all part of the entertainment industry (which would also include books and toys). However, each medium has it's own set of unique quirks and traits that differentiate it from the others. The movie industry comparisons would be like a toy company comparing itself to a book company. One makes things that are fun to play while the other covers a wide range of genres and emotions that no one cares about.
The games themselves isn't so much of the issue as finding publishers to invest in them for the West.
Namco Bandai stated that they want to co-develop with western companies and that's great, but there's no way in hell a western company is going to come up with games like I previously listed. I'd hate to see to a *absolute* global game industry work in that way. Sure, build each other up, but don't stop making niche games.
Note: less shooter than JRPG, please.
If they really want to make a good game for the west though, they should make it like a western. Have it take place in a lawless land where you're alone against the world, relying only on your wits and guts against authority, nature, savages, industry, etc. but with the complete freedom to do anything you want.
Americans want to be cowboys.
For those not in the know, the Japanese movie industry started tying to compete with foreign movie on a meaningful level. In the industry's hay day we got movies like Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and so on. Nowadays though the Japanese movie makers are only concerned with churning out a movie with as little a budget as possible and focusing only on the Japanese audience. This has spawned movies with the same plot being used over and over again. Example of this would be the movie [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_girls/]Swing Girls[/url] and the movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rookies_%28manga%29/]Rookies.
Pretty much nowadays 90% or more of Japanese movies suck. And before you bring up Micheal Bay movies, those are still way more entertaining than Japanese movies. I'm glad to see that someone is trying to break the mold here.