Hello everyone, greetings to all of my adoring fans...all 2 of you.  It's been a while since I made a blog entry, I was forced to delete a few...inflammatory posts of old, but no matter.  You'll be surprised, possibly ashamed, to know that I now work for those whom most gamers consider the anti-christ: EA.  I've gotta say though, they treat me quite well over here, much better than I'd expected when I started here back in September.  And no, I can't discuss the project I'm on...it's unannounced, you don't know about it, so don't ask, I won't spill even a single bean.  And before I get started in earnest here, let me just say that the following opinions are in no way endorsed or representative of the opinions of EA, this is MY opinion.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let me say what I came to say.  Japan, you disappoint me.  Deeply and profoundly.  Everyone knows that the reason Xbox 360 doesn't sell in Japan is because of poor marketing.  But there's something deeper...something that affects the sales of both Xbox 360 AND PS3 in Japan.  That something is inexperience.  The majority of Japanese developers couldn't conjure up a game worthy of being called "next-gen" if their freakin' lives depended on it.  Sure, tons of people buy the Wii in Japan, but that's because they know not to expect amazing visuals.  The Wii is delivering exactly what Nintendo promised: innovation.  PS3 and 360 in Japan are different stories.  The promise has been high-def visuals and massive processing power, but who wants to buy into those claims when Japanese developers aren't backing them up?

Case in point: Microsoft just announced that Vampire's Rain and Project Sylpheed are coming to the U.S. this summer.  The problem?  Both games look like they were made for PS2, not Xbox 360, even though they were built from the ground up for it.  Bullet Witch and Earth Defense Force 2017 are the same way.  All of these games have 2 things in common: they were all developed in Japan, and they all look like someone crapped in their hand and wiped it on the screen to create the textures.  Another, possibly even better example would be Namco's cancelled Frame City Killer.  It boggles my mind to think that someone could make an engine as powerful as Unreal Engine 3 look as bad as Namco did.  It seems like the only Japanese developers who are putting forth the effort to make their games look good are Capcom and Mistwalker.  As blasphemous as it may sound, I don't even think Metal Gear 4 looks all that good.  Everything is brown or grey and it all blends together to create a very muddled look overall.

In conclusion, my belief is that PS3 and 360 don't sell well in Japan because they aren't living up to their potential or the promises made about them, and the developers are to blame for this.  Why should anyone buy a console that isn't delivering on its promises?  I sure wouldn't.  The consumers have spoken and until Japanese developers start making good use of this new, more powerful hardware that's available to them, the sales are going to continue to be slow in Japan.  Now don't get me wrong, I realise that graphics aren't everything, but when new hardware is expected to deliver a visual experience above and beyond anything seen previously, they need to do so or people aren't going to buy into it.  Period.