Capcom: Our Industry is Finished

Yet there are still some kick-ass games?

Posted by Staff
Capcom: Our Industry is Finished
Capcom's Keiji Inafune was not impressed by the Tokyo Game Show (TGS), it was simply too full of non-Japanese game makers. This made him despair that the games industry in Japan is dead.

"Personally when I looked around (at) all the different games at the TGS floor, I said 'Man, Japan is over. We're done. Our game industry is finished", Dtoid reports him as saying. Although you can actually see him saying it below.

Admittedly, 9,258 other people were also so unimpressed that they didn't even bother turning up, yes 2008's show saw 194,288 people through the door. This year saw 185,030 attend TGS. And yes, we know that people who didn't turn up shouldn't have been impressed or unimpressed.

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Comments

sean 28 Sep 2009 09:55
1/3
the japanese are too pretentious about their gaming industry who gives a F what they think lol
Kiro 28 Sep 2009 10:22
2/3
Because if it wasn't for the Japanese the game industry probably would be dead by now. The creative japanese developers are now pushed aside for the Americian developers to make their crappy First Person Shooter games, no one cares about creative level design or new ideas if the game doesn't involve killing people and screaming down your microphones when you lose.
Joji 28 Sep 2009 12:12
3/3
If you want this industry to continue, and not be dominated by one regions games, you should care. The industry is where it is now, because of japanese developers and publishers. Their western counterparts had a lot to learn, and over the last two decades, and indeed, did learn a lot from them, but also new tricks of their own.

Inafune is right, but I think that because of the global recession, smaller japanese developers would have been unable to attend TGS, especially if they attended E3 this year. I agree that for some time japanese developer have been some what cut off, from the rest of the development community, and I feel more reaching out has to be done. Inafune visiting Bungie is good to see, so lets have some more of that.

I'd hate to see TGS become like E3, where western games dominate the scene, as I'm sure with love the crazy cultural differences, but things are more likely to go that way, if japanese developers don't take enough chances to break their development straight jacket, of rehashing spent jrpg formula etc. And hot on their heels, is more upcoming competition from indie developers, who can push good product for a cheap price. This is one area more smaller japanese developers need to take advantage of, if the traditional retail route is too costly for them.

Best signs of change currently are from From Software's Demon Souls on PS3, (at last, nice to see them try something without mecha), stuff like Flipnote Studio on DSi, show that they can still make an impact, if they think outside of the box enough.
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