Why Japan's Game Industry is Falling Behind

Yes but that also includes handhelds. Which is a mute point. It also included dead systems as well even before the date of that article.

And one singular game doesn't mean anything. The fact of the matter is that western games dominated the charts of the systems you mentioned, this is a biased offense to an objective argument. By using a point that doesn't mean anything, and ignoring previous points I made.

The Atari 2600 was a western dominated machine, pac-man doesn't change that, same with Colecovision. The Genesis was a western dominated machine, Sonic doesn't change that.

The PS1 had a very balanced library between both, but once you started going into the "decent' to small games, western games sold more than their japanese copunterparts. Again, Rugrats search for reptar was considered a small game, however, it sold more than a lot of "favorites" as it were.

This also applies to the N64, which was, outside Nintendo, dominated by western games. The only two area for which the system barely survived off of.

It's even worse for the PS2, as that was also dominated by western games. But people throw an illusion over the PS2's library to make it seem like it was filled with Jrpgs, and niche games like God Hand etc., and believing through nostalgia these were games people were playing and buying, when infact half those games had little impact, and half the Jrpgs barely sold.

Xbox is a obvious.

Issues is the way you presented your post proves what I said before, people believe all this happened in a split second. It hadn't. This had been growing for years. The japanese video game markets numbers are largely inflated by handhelds and Failed/Niche consoles, and this create invalid data on how much domination there actually was. PC games didn't just come to console games and all changed instantly. I mean, the Xbox changed part of the game, but you didn't even see full effect of that part of the change until the end of that generation into the launch of the Xbox 360.

Look at the Genesis, it's sole reason for success, was based on it's massive western/american library. because that was the area the NES basically alienated by either some of those devs running from the NES or the NES not targeting the demographics that the Genesis did. This was changed a bit later, but only because of the Genesis existence itself, it would have been a failure project without those games most likely, even Sega threw in some money to invest in American/western based FP studios. The genesis is a very good example of the start of western game growth on consoles.

Heck on the Gamecube and N64, Nintendo somehow felt it was necessary to have some big games made by western devs. Something that they only would have done if there was a reason to do it.

The reason why things quickly became lopsided after the Xbox is that the foothold was already there. Look at the games of the PS1, N64, PS2 and the Xbox and you'll see that the reason the japanese were behind was that they were in their confortzones and didn't realize why they were considered big in the first place. They also fell behind game design and mechanics that only PC and other computers provided, all were stronger than consoles for years, and once technology started coming into play, japan was still using old console limited formulas at a time where that was no longer sensible to do. Because they though it would still work, and while it did in Japan, it didn't outside of japan.

Now with that said, Japanese games were still important, and were still among the best games out there, but this change to western 90% lopsidedness didn't happen because a switch was flipped, that is all I'm saying, and a lot of people still have this false though inside their heads when they wonder what happened, again it's quite simple, it was already happening.

However, the trends I state also show that Nintendo had also except one time, had issues with Western games, they screwed that up from the start for better or worse, while there were many exceptions, and the N64, So one benefit of this is that if you are looking for japanese games you can't get anywhere else in the current climate by a Nintendo console (or handheld), wonderful 101 probably would not have ever been on PS4/Xbox one. A benefit to the double edged sword. So people upset by the new climate have a place to go.

Even if we expanded the list to the top 10 million-sellers for each of those consoles:

• Atari 2600 - 20% Japan, 80% US
• ColecoVision - 100% Japan
• NES - 90% Japan, 10% USSR
• Mega Drive - 60% Japan, 35% US, 5% UK
• SNES - 80% Japan, 20% UK
• Saturn - 100% Japan
• PS1 - 70% Japan, 20% US, 10% UK
• N64 - 60% Japan, 40% UK
• Dreamcast - 72% Japan, 28% US
• PS2 - 70% Japan, 30% UK
• GameCube - 95% Japan, 5% US
• Wii - 100% Japan

...Japan still dominated the best-sellers lists on nearly all of those consoles.

Sure, it wasn't an overnight shift, and there was a gradual decline in Japanese dominance over a long period of time, but they still maintained a huge 50% share of the worldwide gaming market in the PS2 era, which is far bigger than the 10% share they have today.

You keep backing up into your old falsity and pretending you agree.

Your percentages are worthless.(and also wrong) and miss the point entirely. Using a very limited number of games in large libraries that the majority that are broguht are not japanese games set the stage for the lopsidedness we have now. But some some reason you keep trying to reconstruct this fact by changing variables that don't eman anything.

Again fact, is the dominate games were western for the Genesis, PS2, Xbox, N64, PSX. With substancial western games showing up on SNES doing well too., as well as even the Gamecube in some areas. And you'r using not only wrong and pointless metrics to try and pretend that's not the case (and I have no idea why) but you are also pretending the japanese market was bigger than it was.

In the SNES years, japan outside of Genesis, and SNES, had Neo-geo, TG-16, and 2 Sega add-ons, that all had japanese dominated libraries, and including handhelds of course it would SEEM that there was a large percentage of the market to japan but the reality in terms of mindshare and other factors shwos that's not true, hence why japanese hold of shares almost seemed to randomly vanish in 5 seconds to people who weren't paying attention.

Again the majority of PS2 marketshare in software and such was the american/western software, this was also true for the PSX, N64, Genesis, as well as some of those other systems. There wasn't actual japanese dominance, it was a growing western dominance, that was building up, and not restricted to few games overall, which is the point your trying to counter with.

Issues is if anything you seem to be implying was remotely true the landscape right now would be different. As I said it has been a ongoing process for years, and most of the reason why Japan lost so much (handhelds excluded unless you include mobile) in the pie charts is because it had no idea what was going on and never looked outside it's own bubble, a problem that still happens now, and didn't develop with the times relying on older strategies, giving a very huge lead for it's opposite.

But I expect more ignoring the actual situation and more pretending that this all happened in 5 seconds with a flip of the switch. I mean twice you listed limited lists to prove a point that does not exist, and this is the main reason why people don't understand japan fail, there was never actual domination, and whole consoles were pretty much pushed on these games. People need to stop pretending this all happened in 5 seconds and it's a mindset people won't get rid of no matter what and I have no clue why, so if you're still not convinced than I can't help you.

--

BTW will say this, both have good games, and I think the imbalance causes a few limitations. But recently they (JP) have been picking up a bit. S0 hopefully they start getting more games out.

Is that you, TigerSuperman? You sure sound (and write) a lot like him...

Either way, the problem with your claims is that you're not presenting any sources to back up your claims. Do you have any sources? If not, then there's no reason why I should doubt the Wikipedia best-seller lists, which all point to Japanese dominance on consoles from the NES era to the PS2 era, not to mention the market shares mentioned in the BBC source.

Anyway, like I already said, I already agree with you that it was not an overnight decline, but a slow gradual decline. It went from a majority market share in the '90s, to a half-market share in the early 2000s, down to a minority market share in the late 2000s.

I like how you seem to actively be ignoring the main subject of this discussion.

Wikipedias "best seller lists" are wrong, and the references they use you don't even checkmost of the time, but that's not even the part that's the issue, the issue is the vast majority of these hundreds of game librarys, of the Genesis, N64, PSx, PS2, are dominated by western games, but you're ignoring this and instead bring up a pointless (flawed) statistic that the top 10 games maybe 6 of them are japanese. That's not how it works when there are more than ten games. If 50 games sell over 2 million and 12 sell 4 million, which is bigger? the former. What caused more sales for hardware? The former.

I mean let me go back to the point you made earlier about Sonic being the best selling Japanese game but you also ignoring the original point that majority of best selling games on that system aren't from Japan, majority. MAJORITY (heck even in this case wiki agrees with me on Genesis so this basically shows you have some kind of bias you need to work on as you didn't even check your own "evidence".)

You're best sellers list doesn't mean anything when the majority of software sales on the PS2, and PSX are western games.

Also you're own link includes Gamecube and handhelds, one of which is a market western software barely touches. But you're denying that as well, so it seems we have a small problem.

You keep pretending to agree with me but then you backtrack and then be defensive as if you don't agree with me. If you agree with me there was a decline, then why are you using limited best seller lists instead of overall libraries (and even then ignoring one of your own lists) and why are you not agreeing that handhelds, and niche consoles (like NG TG-16) didn't count for Japanese market share before, inflating the numbers? Because if it wasn't inflated then it would be easier to see japans marketshare going down. If you can't agree with that then when you say you believe me when I say there was a decline than you're basically lying to me straight in my face, because then why are you defensive?

Heck, you're cop-out of "I agree, but slow gradual" doesn't even make sense because that's still the same mentality that leads to "when the Xbox/360 came out the market changed in 5 seconds" there was no slow decline, it was rapid, and the majority of best sellers show that in the overall game library. Again, a game like Rugrats Search for Reptar, a game that is considered small is bigger than tons of other japanese games, including known favorites, by noticeable margins, and there are a lot of games like that on the PSX, and these aren't games in the top 20 games on the PSX. But again I doubt you actually are reading my points and probbably think my argument is Japanese games don't sell, which seems to be the posting pattern you're currently on. (heck before you even separated the "top 10 games' by regions like europe and so on, which doesn't even make sense because it proves you don't understand the man subject of this conversation.)

I'll leave you with the original point, that the decline of the Japanese was rapid, and that on mainstream systems, the marketshares of japanese games were falling at a very fast rate. If we were to make pie charts for Genesis, N64, PSX, PS2, the majority of the best selling games in the library will be western games. (N64 may be more even), and this goes into the very strong change that showed when the 360 released, because the momentum was already there. How can there be a "slow" decline, when you have games like Sly 1-3, Ratchet 1-3/Deadlcoked, and Jak 1-3/X all alone sell more than a large number of japanese game favorites, and games in these series weren't in the top 10 "best sellers"?

So like I said I know there are people that refuse to acknowledge actual trends so if you still think that this all happen didn't 5 seconds I can't help you. Maybe you aren't actually noticing my main point and thinking I'm arguing a completely different subject, i don't know, but we clearly aren't going anywhere and you clearly aren't agreeing with me. So I'm afraid we must move on.

It looks like I was right about you being TigerSuperman, after all...

Anyway, if we changed it to sales figures and expanded the lists to include all of the known million-sellers listed on that page, then the software sales figures for each of those consoles would be:

• Atari 2600 - 9 million Japanese, 19.8 million Western
• ColecoVision - 2 million Japanese
• NES - 136.45 million Japanese, 8 million Soviet
• Mega Drive - 26.31 million Japanese, 15.73 million Western
• SNES - 55.57 million Japanese, 13.37 million Western
• Saturn - 3.4 million Japanese
• PS1 - 67.89 million Japanese, 23.13 million Western
• N64 - 44.39 million Japanese, 24.89 million Western
• Dreamcast - 7.365 million Japanese, 2.14 million Western
• PS2 - 56.2 million Japanese, 34.84 million Western
• GameCube - 72.9 million Japanese, 6.02 million Western
• Wii - 329.13 million Japanese, 5 million Western

Whatever way you look at it, Japanese software dominated the sales on nearly all consoles from the NES era to the PS2 era.

If you disagree with the evidence presented so far, then why don't you just counter with your own evidence? If you have any counter-evidence, then present it. If not, then I don't see any reason to respond any further to you, Tiger.

How the hell did I miss this if true?

lolz

@Jag85: I understand when people like you are wrong you do things like add personal attacks and ignore the actual original topic going into a childish rage.

Let m try helping you jag, if if argument is Total library, why would a sane person counter with million seller lists that only applies to 15 or so titles?

Your not even talking about the same subject as me anymore because you are so upset you think I'm arguing something different.

My argument is that th majority of games sold on the consoles I stated, put together would lean towards the west, I didn't argue million selling games, your using 15 or another limited number for a WHOLE Library of games?

You didn't even read anything I said have you? Pathetic just like your personal attack. Well I can tell you're not intelligent enough to talk to so I'm afraid you have to misread and ignore someone else's post. Maybe positive discussion is something you can't do.

Hypocrite much?

I knew all along.

It's as simple as this. Japan had too much pride and arrogance when it mattered, to do what was good for business and take notice what the rest of the world wanted. They didn't want to look when there became a massive shift in the West, to Western games for Western gamers. I'm glad that happened too. I some Japanese games, but I like Western games a whole lot more.

Last gen actually had a lot more to do with it. Because Japan was busy shunning Xbox, MS started to bring a lot more Western PC developers into it, of course this started with the original Xbox. They were able to shine a lot more in an ecosystem with a lot less Japanese games combined with the 360s growing popularity. A lot of the 360s early games were straight PC ports. Tastes started to turn, to the point where even the best the PS3s exclusives were either Western or Western in Gameplay. The PS3 is the least and last Japanese like Playstation. It's identity has changed.

It was never such a slow decline. It didn't matter how many Western games were on the previous consoles, there were enough Japanese games to keep control of markets and prevent them from shifting.

The linchpin was probably Sony's arrogance with the Cell processor and the console expense. It led to slow development, people didn't want it and it allowed Xbox and thus western gaming to grow in popularity and stand out at a crucial time. Japan seemed to be happy with the PS2 and developers there seemed to struggle with the PS3.

The Western dominance could only happen at a time when Japanese development declined. Let's say they balanced themselves out before, with as you say there being both Western and Japanese games on consoles. It still kept the Japanese at the forefront of the industry. But when Japanese development stood aside in the West, it allowed Western development to advance.

Thank You Sony :-)

@kingstablewar: You seem to be the one in rage.

How can you continue to.make the same mistake over and over and over again. You keep saying people don't read your posts when the fact is you're so incredibly anti-japanese you keep confusing yourself.

Yes everything you said about western games dominating is true, in North America and Europe. Not WW. NOT WORLD WIDE

You make this same mistake repeatedly and you still don't get it. You still don't realize the holes in your logic

The reason why western games are dominating now is because they are no longer isolating their markets. For example DQ may not do well outside Japan, but the 6 million sales of an entry in Japan can become 8 million because they released and advertised the game.

Western countries used to have a problem with targeting only either nationally or certain demographics. Currently this problem got transferred to Japan in a switch up. Don't believe me? Look at Tony Hawk, Fallout, Mortal Kombat, Spyro, earthworm Jim. These are best selling franchises but none put much to no effort in other areas of the world to push them. While games like ff7, tekken, Contra, Parappa, Pokémon did.

The best example is your own broken example of the Sega Genesis. It doesn't surprise me @jag85 showed slightly more sales for Japanese software and here's why:

NBA jam, Mortal Kombat, NFL Madden, these are best selling Genesis games, and yes in NA your theory would be correct, but how much did certain European countries or all of Japan buy these games? Marginal,. There also was next to no effort in advertising these abroad outside MK in a few countries.

However, phantasy star, sonic etc, we're, thus it's only logical to conclude by reaching a wider audience you would sell more. This is why jags 50% link during the ps2 gen makes perfect sense. That's also when the switch started happening.

The reason why western games are big today is because countries like America have rapidly spread out more, and Japan is becoming more nationalist with its software, a problem a lot of Western development used to have.

You're so caught up in your fury you keep making this same mistake, NA does not equal the world. Your sometimes interesting arguments are all turned to garbage the same way and then you act confused and then insult people. You wouldn't be confused if you woke the hell up an look at your statements.

This is what my friend said in reply to waht you said:

"They won't apply it to console games nor PC games and if they do, it'll be rare
like the occasional FF game or MGS title that's all
they might be catching up but that's only because the casino industry there relies heavily on graphics and making things appear new

he's right in that they're adopting those technologies, but not in the way he's implying

they'll be used for advertising, CG movies, and gambling machines

that's the whole point of the Konami debacle this summer.
They're switching to like, 95% gambling machines rather than taking the hit on console games every time
"