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Japanese vs. Western Developers attitudes towards Handhelds

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
I don't disagree that great ignorance is why anyone would assume most in the west creating games are seeking realism, but that is an answer I'd accept if a person knows little of gaming and someone off the street just randomly ask their opinion, its more questionable when its someone on a gaming forum trying to convince us that "90% of western devs always go for more realistic graphics".

So it likely is merely an exposure thing or lack of being informed, not educated about the subject etc
It's pretty obvious to tell that Danjin has a very skewed bias towards eastern games as a whole. Making the claim that western games are all realism really comes from a place of apathy for the western games that come out in the modern day. I don't think he's misinformed as he does browse the forum often and like us must have seen the many OTs and posts made regarding the games that have come out this year... he just doesn't really give a fuck.

Regardless of East Or West, many publishers are careful what they put out on Nintendo platforms, are very selective and those days of just doing exclusives for lolz seem to be lessor then before.
It's more expensive than ever to produce a game, makes not much sense why you'd limit it to one platform, even if the platform sold 100, 120, 150, 200 million. These days of third party exclusives are over. Either it's moneyhatted or it's on all platforms.
 
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Happosai

Hold onto your panties
After the Atari era, western gaming on the American side became mostly about 1) dem graphicz, 2) edge, 3) famous licenses. Consoles and arcades ruled, and their tech and interface required a type of gameplay that was ideal for those 3 elements. It’s no wonder than on the other side of the ocean, European devs were making completely different games, because they were developing mainly on home computers.

The American school wasn’t making games that would fit well and make the desired impact on the inferior tech of handhelds. This is why a lot of western games on handhelds were movie tie-ins, licensed games, and sports games. They would usually cram the best graphics they could get out of a Game Boy or Lynx into the limited space of a ROM cartridge, and be left with very little memory for any kind of significant gameplay. Many of those games would also lag horribly and play pretty badly. When a game was ridiculously big they’d put in the effort to shrink it down and that’s why Mortal Kombat somehow appeared on the GB. But everyone knew this wasn’t what the devs wanted. Nobody in America would start planning a game and worry about how it’d run on a handheld. Nobody.

You would see a bunch of typically European games being made specifically for handhelds, but those were invariably games that relied on simpler graphics and less hectic gameplay. Some of them are obscure gems, but none made a sensation at the time.

Everyone wanted a piece of the Nintendo handheld cake, but it’s unquestionable that Japan always ruled the handheld space from a very, very high place. Western games on the GBA were still mostly an afterthought, poorly made copycats of much better Japanese templates or shrunk-down versions of something made for infinitely beefier hardware. The metric ton of shovelware published on the DS has a high percentage of western stuff.

The scalability of modern games and the high intercompatibility of today’s hardware are the main reasons the west jumped on the Switch bandwagon. When Nintendo made non-portable, vastly inferior hardware than the competition with the WiiU, nobody bothered. And many western devs and publishers only supported the Wii because of its install base, while still making lots of game according to the same philosophy they made handheld games with.

It’s always been pretty obvious that Japan understands that portable gaming has its own identity, its own audience and its own space. Everyday life in Japan lends itself to portable gaming in a way everyday life in the west never could. Western devs and publishers always saw handhelds as the poor kid’s consoles, or machines for playground gaming. They never took it seriously.
Today’s indies are the heirs of those 80s and 90s British and European home computer devs. Many of them make games that are either tailored to portable hardware, or can be played on it without heavy compromises.
Now that Switch opened the gates to dedicated portable gaming PCs the perspective has changed a little. But those are still PCs, and will still be considered a compromise vs the “real” gaming on high-end PCs and current-gen consoles. In the west, vidya gamez are cool shit that must showcase the best tech available. Everything that isn’t meant to be displayed on the biggest screen available is peasant stuff. Even gaming enthusiasts scoff at indies - “I didn’t buy a PS5 to play indie shit” has been stated on GAF by more than one user.
This history pretty much says it all. It's hard to see anything exclusive with Steamdeck although I'm not going to knock that as I don't always have time to sit down at the computer for games. However, the market back to what...2nd gen has shown that Western devs really have always focused on consoles which empathize graphical output. Won't say all the names but it's well-know too that manufacturers of American consoles (not all but one in particular) never made a portable gaming handheld. Speaking of the indie crap too, that's pretty much the lean that people get who attribute their 'handheld' gaming to mobile cell phone games.
 

Jubenhimer

Member
True, but even Square and Capcom still port their titles over. Like Bravely Default 2, Octopath, Monster Hunter etc I think a lot of it has to do with Switch not using any gimmick that would hinder were the title goes to later on, as its not like DS or 3DS where if you didn't have a touch screen the concept wouldn't' work, they had to find some solid workaround with Resident Evil Revelations when it was ported over to make that concept, makes sense with the scanning
Even games designed with the Switch's features in mind such as 2-player, Motion control, etc. can often work without them. No More Heroes III for example, was designed to be used with detached Joy-Con ala Wii Remote + Nunchuck. But the game was also ported to PlayStation and Xbox as well, and even the Switch version supports button controls.
 

EDMIX

Writes a lot, says very little
It's more expensive than ever to produce a game, makes not much sense why you'd limit it to one platform, even if the platform sold 100, 120, 150, 200 million. These days of third party exclusives are over. Either it's moneyhatted or it's on all platforms

Truth. Because of how wide open the market is, fans exist on many platforms and it just no longer makes sense to have a series away from other platforms that they might be successful in. So i'm not really shocked at the move with Bravely Default, Monster Hunter, Octopath Traveler etc.

Shit look at Yakuza and Persona.

if it can work on many platforms, I feel a publisher should take the risk to see if another install base will buy the game
Even games designed with the Switch's features in mind such as 2-player, Motion control, etc. can often work without them. No More Heroes III for example, was designed to be used with detached Joy-Con ala Wii Remote + Nunchuck. But the game was also ported to PlayStation and Xbox as well, and even the Switch version supports button controls.

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It goes to show you that even making a platform with certain features doesn't mean publishers will just make default exclusives just because of that.

Them days are over..
 

Jubenhimer

Member
giphy.gif


It goes to show you that even making a platform with certain features doesn't mean publishers will just make default exclusives just because of that.

Them days are over..
This is why I really liked how Nintendo handled their usual gimmicks with the Switch. The problem with some of their past systems is that they were designed in a way that either forced developers to adapt to their unique traits such as with the Wii Remote or GameCube Controller, only really made sense for that specific platform like dual screens on the DS and 3DS, or were ultimately useless or impractical for most applications such as the Wii U GamePad or the 3DS' 3D. The Switch strikes a nice balance between having Nintendo's typical novelties and innovations, while also being a practical gaming system out of the box as well.
 
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