Duckhuntdog
Member
DCharlie said:
Dude, you where supposed to keep that quite!!!
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Reggie: "Xbox(2) ... is a mistake"
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Dude, you where supposed to keep that quite!!!
Duckhuntdog
Member
Well the rise of Western developers is only a recent development. The Japaense dominated for a long time and in general should have a larger pool of games to tap in.
But this is slowly shifting to favor the West. The benefit the Japanese devs have is that their games can actually sell a million in Japan, while most Western deved games won't.
So I would agree, worldwide, Japan is still leading, but in Western markets, the momentum is shifting.
The holy grail for Western devs is to find something that not only works here and in Europe but works just as well in Japan.
In reading Kabun's book, I think the fact that Western games have a western look and feel to them, while the Japanese, for the most part, like a look that can't be pinned down in nationality.
Sorry, Kabun could explain it better than me and I don't have his book near me.
But this is slowly shifting to favor the West. The benefit the Japanese devs have is that their games can actually sell a million in Japan, while most Western deved games won't.
So I would agree, worldwide, Japan is still leading, but in Western markets, the momentum is shifting.
The holy grail for Western devs is to find something that not only works here and in Europe but works just as well in Japan.
In reading Kabun's book, I think the fact that Western games have a western look and feel to them, while the Japanese, for the most part, like a look that can't be pinned down in nationality.
Sorry, Kabun could explain it better than me and I don't have his book near me.
Chittagong
Gold Member
P90 said:
Driver
Tomb Raider
Ghost Recon
NHL
FIFA
Tiger Woods
Need for Speed
Lord of the Rings series
Star Wars series
Burnout
Sims
Battlefield
RallySport Challenge
Medal of Honor
Midtown Madness
Doom
Wolfenstein
would be some of the current "Big Time" (>1 million WW) series from the West, too. And that is just top of my mind.
Scalemail Ted
Member
Chittagong said:
Dood, you left out Madden!!!111
Chittagong
Gold Member
Scalemail Ted said:
yep, like said, it was "top of the mind". So Madden is not in the top of an european mind. See that FIFA there? That's what we call Football here
P90 said:
Also, Sonic. I'd love to include Monkey Ball as well, but I honestly don't know how much 1 and 2 combined have sold.
Just as a matter of point, lists are only one part of the larger equation. The pattern that seems to have developed is that Japanese developers have a stronger ability to maintain franchises. Sure, they may pump out a lot of sequels, but they also maintain the qualities of the previous game, and actually make sure that the $50 being spent isn't on some rehash of the previous installment. If you consider some of the more successful western franchises:
Driver self-destructed on the launchpad with Driver 3; Tomb Raider was laughed off of gaming shelves last year, after previous years of declining interest; San Andreas will make or break the GTA franchise (which is fine by me, Rockstar needs to prove that they're not just a one-trick pony); and Ubisoft is milking the Tom Clancy license absolutely dry.
This whole "Western dominance" thing...there's something about the argument that's striking me as inherently flawed, and believe it or not, it's not the fact that it just seems to be EA in particular that's taking up a lot of the slots on the chart, and everyone else trying to ride the egotrain. From what it looks like, given how many studios seem to crop up, make one game, and then vanish (e.g., Quantum Redshift) Japan still has the edge on stability. And in the end, that may be more important than anything else.
Duckhuntdog
Member
I will agree that Japanese devs tend to, or appear to, be more stable than Western ones, but I do not know if that is ultimately true. We don't often hear about X Japanese developer going down the tubes in the West.
Western devs can be on pins and needles sometimes, you screw up once and you could be spending two years or more trying to dig yourself out of a hole, if you can ever recover at all.
Take Oddworld for example, AFAIK, none of the Oddworld games made money or atelast the last few didn't, they were lucky to dupe Fries into signing them as part of MS' team. Fries was... well... let's say he greenlighted too many projects that he shouldn't have. They got cut loose, half the staff left OW and went to Sammy, Loren's fault?? Who knows? And now they have EA behind them, which again they should be thankful for, atleast for now.
If Stranger cannot do well on a system that is generally more recpetive to FPS games, then I don't know what excuse Loren can use this time.
Western devs can be on pins and needles sometimes, you screw up once and you could be spending two years or more trying to dig yourself out of a hole, if you can ever recover at all.
Take Oddworld for example, AFAIK, none of the Oddworld games made money or atelast the last few didn't, they were lucky to dupe Fries into signing them as part of MS' team. Fries was... well... let's say he greenlighted too many projects that he shouldn't have. They got cut loose, half the staff left OW and went to Sammy, Loren's fault?? Who knows? And now they have EA behind them, which again they should be thankful for, atleast for now.
If Stranger cannot do well on a system that is generally more recpetive to FPS games, then I don't know what excuse Loren can use this time.