UE4 is the real savior of Japanese home console games (mostly JRPGs)

Pretty much, I mean it doesn't require payment to license it and create games on it so no doubt it's going to be the route for many, many developers.

Maybe it's easy to develop on it.

Yeah, I'm really hyped for UE4 this gen. I wasn't too keen on UE3 but UE4 seems to be the engine I wanted for quite some time.

I hated how so many games looked similar with ue3, something about the color palette.

Yeah.. something about UE3 games.. shaders maybe.

latest C3 and UE4 look closer now to me than C2 and UE3.

It's too soon to say for sure whether those games really will revive the Japanese console industry. Those fighting games would probably be more profitable in Japanese arcades than on Japanese consoles. And those RPGs and Shenmue III could end up selling a lot less in Japan than in the West. It's not going to be easy to convince Japanese consumers to invest in home consoles. But if those games really do end up becoming killer apps for consoles in Japan, then UE4 would deserve props for that. It's a great engine that's powerful, affordable, and user-friendly, and Epic has a Japanese branch that reportedly provides great tech support.

So no heavy time/money wasted trying to develop a specific engine from the ground now... good for the gamers too.

God Bless the talents at Epic games...

PS: Dragon Quest looks fantastic

I think UE4 helps the japanese devs with development costs instead of having to build their own engines.

UE4 looks very good but the main weakness I'm noticing is faces and hair looking very unrealistic. Unless that's just the developers want them to look.

I was thinking about this the other day, glad someone made a thread. 100% agreed.

I doubt the FF7 remake will use UE 4.0

Most likely Luminous.

@AM-Gamer: Luminus seems like a pain in the ass and thats why SE dropped it for KH3 probably the only reason they are still using it for FFXV is that they are already too far into the development to drop and start from scratch.

The Japanese console market doesn't matter much. It's whether these games will sell well outside Japan or not. If they get successful more Japanese developers will probably avoid mobile and go for PC/console multiplatform development through UE4 thereby saving Japanese console game development from completely becoming niche.

I would not be so sure about that. Rumours are saying that the game is being co-developed by CyberConnect2 and that its indeed using Unreal Engine 4 and to be honest I would not be suprised if those rumours end up being true considering that Kingdom Hearts 3 is using Unreal Engine 4 and the fact that Square Enix using their own engine has lead to development hells ever since the ps3/360 generation began.

@quakeknight1991: Ya probably SE will scrap luminous after FFXV and start developing games using available engines and probably that would be the best thing they can do, maybe their games won't look as good but they will be able to release games faster and cheaper.

Dunno how much it matters SO5 still looks really dated from the little they've shown and games like Tales of Zestiria on PS4 looks exactly like every single Tales game I've ever seen on PS3. I honestly think Japanese devs most of them anyway are still 15 years behind everyone else in terms of graphics and they honestly just don't care. I see an announcement for a JRPG for PS4 and I expect it to look like a PS3 game.

The Nier 2 team have a bit more about them hopefully that one will be a 'proper' next gen JRPG.

@blueinheaven: The problem is Japan is still not letting go of ps3/Vita both of SO5 and Tales games are released on both PS4/Vita or PS3 but look at DQ11 which is the consoles version is PS4 exclusive so far (or this gen exclusive if you count NX) the game actually looks very good.

@Kashiwaba: DQ11 might be a standout title yes, but I really like JRPG's and I'm so disappointed in the ones coming for PS4 in the near future they look distinctly last gen. If any of them are using UE4 it must be hidden deep in the code lol.

I'm not too high on jrpgs, but I am liking that more of them are being announced for consoles and at the least there is a small chance that Square is about to unfuck themselves. Which gives me hope for Capcom. My thing is, not so much that the games need to be visually impressive, I don't care, graphics are like the most superficial and unimportant part of a video game to me at times. Unless the dev actually does a great job nailing a setting and the atmosphere, it does nothing for me that they look pretty in a pixel count sort of way.

However a lot of what I've seen of these games is more of the same shit I used to get, and not necessarily improvements or major shifts. I don't have a problem with these games being turn based, but a lot of the towns look really empty and unimpressive, so that's going to look super gamey, and these games are so far up their own ass with how much of their story they throw in your face. Especially Square-Enix, who no matter how shitty their stories are will throw them in your face.

And that's fine, because I actually think the real new home for modern Japanese games in the console market is to be the new middle tier game. A tightly budgeted game built more on the play, personality, and a sense of style vs the big production value experiences that a lot of western Triple A studios make, and triple A japanese studios used to make. But I'm not exactly seeing anything from these games that make me think they are doing that, Bravely Default was sort of that way, but then that story ruined the 2nd half of that game.

Why can't my fav franchise use UE4? Is the Souls series cursed to look like a ps2 game until the next decade? Fromsoft please....

A ton of games are being developed on UE4, not just JRPGs. It is a solid engine that is easy to work with, has great features and it's free. Why NOT use it?

A big reason why so many Japanese companies refuse to invest in big-budget AAA console games is because of the lack of a domestic Japanese market for such games. Since domestic sales are more profitable than overseas sales, Japanese companies now focus more on domestic mobile games rather than worldwide console games. If console gaming revived in Japan, then that would convince Japanese companies to invest more in big-budget AAA console game development.

First statement is correct because they are still insular so they have to make ground on their own country first unlike the English speaking network of countries such as UK, EU, Norway, USA, Canada, etc. Second statement is doubtful by what you mean by profitable. Overseas sales may not be profitable due to their lack of knowledge of catering to the market outside of their own country and language barrier leading to not knowing what gamers outside of Japan really want, their age-old reliance on physical media compared to digital making it more difficult and costly to release games outside Japan, etc. Releasing on Steam and other digital stores should pose no big obstacles for them. Gamers want Japanese games but Japanese devs apparently don't realize this. But one thing is for sure, the Japanese market is a small one compared to USA alone. Don't dream big and you'll stay small compared to the greats. Console gaming will never revive in Japan. It is destined to become a niche.

@lordlors:

What you said is true another thing is no matter how niche the fanbase of some the Japanese games outside japan still those games will sell well (around 300k to 500k) and thats more than what a lot of games can hope to sell in Japan due to the differnce in the market size its just that a lot of Japanese devs are clueless about. we all remember Demon's souls case and how Sony didn't consider localizing it.