Japan's gaming market is a world apart

Indeed but as Mr Keiji Inafune said that japanese games seem to fall in the same tropes over and over again is why a lot fail in the west. Besides Monster hunter is only played by fans,besides Grand theft auto was so over-hyped of course it would sell.

Eiji Araki, senior official of mobile social game maker Gree, added: “We’ve learned that characters and visuals favored in the United States are different from those in Japan.” -- thanks Captain Obvious.

There's a market if they would just do the translations. Most of the games are bubbles of text that need internationalization.

"Cultural differences"? Yes, the US is a violent society, so of course Grand Theft Auto is popular.

“Japanese consumers prefer family-use games to those with violent, anti-social or extreme expressions of sexuality,"

Whaaaat? Not based on what I have seen the last 20 years.

Video games are a social thing overseas, in Japan they are consider nerdy and you would not dare tell anyone you played video games.

The biggest difference is multiplayer. I used to be a "hardcore gamer" and online gaming in Japan is no where near as popular as it is overseas. Most big-selling games here are single player with a solid story. There are a few exceptions, though (like the GTA series)(which also has a big online element).

@Mathew I have to agree. When I was in high school in the middle 90s, one of my friends father ran a coffee shop that had a table computer games (the game machine was a box shape where the screen on top was the table -- the games were big back then). One was a card game, and as you won plays, the cards disappeared to one by one to reveal a naked woman. Since I was totally gay, this didn't do anything for me.

Video games are a social thing overseas, in Japan they are consider nerdy and you would not dare tell anyone you played video games.

Well not that extreme, but it's funny how it's portrayed in the media, it's completely the reverse. In Japan pretty much everyone plays video games and it is considered extremely normal.

Japanese video games a really the best though.

"Japanese consumers prefer family-use games to those with violent, anti-social or extreme expressions of sexuality"

Wait, wha? Japan has at least 2 out of 3 of those down pat.

Gone are the days when the world's most successful games tend to be Japanese games. Japan is still making Japan-centric games that it has always been - it's just that the rest of the world has changed tastes when gaming in the West has become mainstream.

AT LEAST if not export all games- stop the ridiculous region locking!!!! Don't worry, you'll see then how even westerners would buy Jp games. (Also if a game is published on a specific console in Japan, we'd love it if you publish it on same console in the west- don't be heartless!) About MH4- I cannot wait for it to be able to play online with my friends :3

I lived in Britain for many years, and yes gaming is a social thing there, I was REALLY in a minority there, a Japanese -female-gamer, and if I wanted to play games, I had to accept what was available. The industry plays its part in moulding and manipulating the market to how they see it. The Final Fantasy series didn't get a UK release until #7, despite English language versions being available from the US, as they had previously decided it wasn't be what the Brit market wanted. It sold loads. As Qamar says, ditch the ridiculous regional locking, and let people decide what they want to buy and play.

@kingris

"The Japanese". All the same, eh? Every single one.

It is really simple. Japanese developers of the 90s and early 2000 are the driving force behind so many amazing creative games. But, with their practices of working 100+ hours a week for months to complete a game in time, it cost them their future. Most of these amazing talents are either burnt out and left the games industry, or lured into the prospect of creating simple games that make millions. The current developers are the fruits of yutori education, moe anime, and two decades of Japanese golden age pop culture. They are happy to just trying to recreate their childhood fantasies in their games, while the world demands games that closely reflect big budget blockbuster movies.

Game industry talents in Japan are dwindling not because the lack of it, but more because they are no longer motivated to compete in the world.

Game industry talents in Japan are dwindling not because the lack of it, but more because they are no longer motivated to compete in the world.

This is untrue.

No wonder. GTA is a unique game in its own way - stupidest game made for gore loving idiots.

3kunfuuSep. 23, 2013 - 03:33PM JST

Japanese video games a really the best though.

Best?

Absolutely not. I bet you grew up with video games. Japanese video game manufactures have been promoting very violent games. US kids are killing at least 90,000 by the time they are 16 years old. That's our violent culture. Some of them cannot tell the difference between games and real killings.

The handheld gaming market would be much more profitable for Japan if China did not sell fake PSP machines and hacked software. Japan should negotiate with China to secure monetary returns from the government to pay for all the gaming bootlegs just like the US has done with China for all the movie bootlegs.