Japan, The Gaming Giant: Can It Stay In The Game? | Japan's Comeback Game | CNA Documentary 

This 👆🏿

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The definition of the West is too broad.

Because the west needs everyone to compete thats how inferior they are, even china and korea beaten the west

Perhaps only finland or eastern europe has a chance at beating japan

Overstatement

even MMORPG giants like Blizz is losing alot of players to FF14.

Looking at your pictures, nintendo is targeted at the feminized.

@@shinyguy3766 ok...? So...? i mean its probably a good biz idea to not ignore half the population. As an aside tbh i prefer the playstation and square.

That's why we turn to indie games, but most indie games are not from Japan...

@@havenprice I'll remove have the pop to stop this rot in all aspects of life. mark my words.

Agreed. They are really traditional, but still manage to allow more creativity than a lot of western games.

@@Drstrange3000 Western games are incredibly creative especially now with triple A and indie developers

@@1WonderingApe creativity and western triple a doesn't really go well together though does it

Can i ask some of you all a question?If some of you all became game developers,who do you think would hire you to work,at their video game company?

@@1WonderingApeonly eastern european games can compare in creativity, name a single unique game from the west in the past decade not eastern european

Also Sony and Nintendo's core business is not a cashgrab like 99% of china & korean games

Lol the switch is the best selling console of all time

It same, at the end..Japan lost its grip to compete in broader and more competitive market..they have to understand that their local market is too saturated,.they need to expand their market if they want to exist in global market..

@@Shirokuma15 Yes but that's the thing: Japan always made games for Japanese! The fact they ended up being liked by ROW just came naturally thanks to their interesting culture. The main reason they decline is as above: Growth = lower % share. But more fundamentally: Software devs. Japan has not advanced it's IT workforce significantly - in part due to hierarchical structure which is not a great fit for software (should be more lateral and open). A lot of the success in 80-90s in Japan was some incredible design + engineering + business orientation eg Game Boy by Nintendo really got them through the 1st mini video-game bust in late 80s (over-supply). Personally think F2P mobile titles are equivalent to junk food for the brain. Not a good trend. The beauty of games was the separation of the digital space from real space and money making decisions. That's been breached now with MTX which suits China more and their mindset. It does not surprise that Chinese Gov wants to regulate how many hours Chinese play games... they know it's potentially a big problem. Games should not exploit people but elevate experiences digitally for brief periods of time using art and science.

@@commentarytalk1446 Beautifully put.

Well said.👏👏👍✌️

@@Shirokuma15 i'd rather have them focus more on what can sell to japanese fans first since that was the charm of most of the japanese games rather than try and appeal to the westerners in exchange of losing their identity and be lost in the sea of mediocre aaa western titles

Too late lol At this point, Chinese video game industries can have their leeway at being """heavily inspired""" from Japanese video games and somehow able to rack even bigger profits simply due to how they can adjust smoothness of presentation, much better English capabilities and localisation while able to make social games from mobile & gacha format, just look at Mihoyo, Hypergryph, to even Epic Games that got huge percentage shares from Tencent on top of others, even in mobile game fandoms, so many are baffled on how Japanese games are still getting way too slow for localisation compared to the recent booms of Chinese and Korean video game industry and they slowly began to climb back by having offices in California (only to abides by America's EGS nonsense by the biggest investors that fucked Western video game industry recently) No wonder that dev teams akin to Platinum Games are wrecked so hard recently and even Suda51 games wouldn't able to survive if there's not either professional services like Steam or Nintendo to back them up, in many ways Nintendo is the last true vestige of Japanese traditional video games but even they got enticed by gacha models that currently mastered by Chinese and Korean markets, If Japan can produce even bigger games and pop culture hits than Genshin Impact or even something as flexibly playable as Honkai Impact with localisations as good as them, I would be really surprised and applaud the current Japanese video game industry

​@@ohamatchhams Gacha games originated from Japan lmao

Or Monster Hunter, Dark Souls, Final Fantasy, Nier, Zelda, Street Fighter, I can go on... But yeah, the vid is abit meh in terms of depth on Japanese games and industry it self despite having Japan in the title.

@@primastanislaus9184 yeah

They probably had conclusion in mind when they were making this documentary so there is no way they will show those games.

Now china entered the chat..

"only japanese can do" pretty racist ideology right there

I still remember trying to import japanese famicom games because the Japanese refuses to release their games in the west and this is still happening to this day and it's not exclusive to gaming either it also happens in light novel, jdrama, anime/manga. Man these Japanese.

We all love the Japanese. In the 80s when America said videogames are over it was Japan who said Hold my beer.

​@@roahnosh😂

*The console gaming industry. Japan is a joke in esports (Nintendo is probably one of the worst right behind Blizzard on how to destroy their esport scene). In fact, mobile market was also dominated by JP (FGO, GBF) before but they lost the mobile battle against China and SEA (Garena). As for PC, it is dominated by big western companies and indies (SE, Capcom and Bandai are doing pretty well but they are not really dominating the market anymore).

If modern PlayStation is japanese I'm Jane Austen.

Wake up Manner.

Your blind

What about Microsoft

Yeah... the mobile one's right?

@@richardtapales5764 And the ones creeping into other platforms...

LOL I agree. Sony has a lot of gaming development studios under its belt.

Lol Japan doesn't dominate mobile gaming. Sony have more western studios than Japanese studios

Japanese game development isn't as dominant as before. That part IS true. Hardware, yes, Nintendo and PlayStation are two of the three game consoles. BUT when you factor in the overall video game development, revenue wise, the Japanese software makers aren't as big and influential as they were in the 80s and 90s. Japanese were even at the forefront of mobile gaming but there too, Chinese and European game makers have produced bigger hits. The 2000s WERE a dull decade for Japanese game publishers. A lot of them went through a period where they were trying to make Western-style over the shoulder shooters, and didn't succeed. Many publishers faced bankruptcies or merged with others. Even to this day, when it comes to AAA game development, Western game studios produce better games (even visually) than Japanese game studio do. Even when talking about Sony's first party game studios, the most successful IPs are all from Sony's American studios like Naughty Dog and Sony Santa Monica. Nintendo? Yes, their console is heavily reliant on Japanese-made games even now with the Switch. So they are still *very* much a Japanese gaming giant. PlayStation? Not so much.

@@MithunOnTheNet You said Chinese and European game makers have produced bigger hits and Japanese software makers aren't as big and influential as they were in the 80s and 90s. Name 3 Games from China that's globally popular. Are you blind or dumb ? Monster Hunter and Breath of the Wild and Dark Soul have been copied by many companies.

Um. Sony is heading towards American style for past few years. They move Playstation HQ to California back in 2017 and all of their IP successes are American and European developers such as Naughty Dog, Guerrila and Insomniac and just recently this year, they shut down SIE Japan Studio. The oldest developers from Playstation History gone just like that. Now, Team Asobi is the only devs from Sony in Japan In short, yes they WERE from Japan but not anymore. Do your research.

But... Console market in Japan shunk YoY in the past decade. 2017 was the turning point, cus of Switch. But if you look at the chart... Nintendo games dominates. PlayStation and those subculture looking games (contra, pacman etc weren't subculture looking tho, also, they were pixelated and have limited story telling techniques, character looks, the struggle, everything happened in your imagination. The culture barrier issue was not really there) is killing Japan. Meaning? Even non-Nintendo j-publishers don't know how to please Japanese customers. And so, for those bigger size non-Nintendo studios, Japanese console market is not a sustanable market. Like the vid said, it's a curse. You will die (or turn indie, turn mid size) eventually if you don't go out / find a foot stand in foreign countries. PS: Japanese kids today, play Minecraft, Fortnite and Animal Crossing. And they are not interested in robot anime like Gundam and games like FF or DQ anymore.

@@hiro4476 All i see is a graph showing how the console market expanding year over year, with Japan having a smaller part of the pie since the growth is not coming from there. I have not been able to find anything to suggest Japans revenue and output decreasing tho.

​@@WinterGK btw, if you look at the sales (data from PS fan-zine Famitsu), tho occasionally you might see games like momotetsu or Monster Hunter, I don't know for how long, but it was mostly/always occupied by Nintendo games (and Minecraft. They cannot count Fortnite cus it's free digital game but survey shows kids are playing it).

@@WinterGK The steam deck and game streaming services will make home consoles obsolete

@@berrymckockiner5883 I am hoping the Steam deck will do Ok, but its really just a portable PC for gamers who want better handheld graphics. Basically a niche product. The general public will probably forget it exists as soon as a Switch 2 is announced, if they will even ever know it existed at all. I am not worried about Nintendo or Sony. If consoles become obsolete, than that will still not change the fact that they will keep making games and maybe even selling more of them since they will not be locked to a single system.

really? hmm...obsessed with realism? ..America and the west released psychonauts 2, it takes two, (both nominated for game of the year in 2021.... the latter won) lego star wars, sea of thieves, cuphead, ori, medium, sea of thieves, portal, stardew valley, octopath traveler (most highly ranked on steam) ,.... and, lets not forget the west has developers from many countries not just the US. (playground games, travellers tales, Rare, codemasters etc, .... . And thats before we even talk about bethesda (heavily fantasy or scifi focussed) , obsidian etc. Actually only a small percentage of western games could be seen as "american action film" games. I would say games in the west are much more diverse than you think. The biggest difference to me ia story..... most Japanese games either completely lack story and narrative..... or have completely bizzare stories that make no sense.... Western gamers.... for the MOST part like a story that at least has something going for it. Nintendo are a good example...... very few nintendo games overall have a good story (or any for that matter). They focus on imediate fun and few complexities....if thats your thing then theyre very good at it You want to talk fantasy..... witcher 3, and the elder Scrolls series.... As far as the west being obsessed Realism.... Death Stranding is very realistic almost obsessively so..... Kojima game.... and pretty much lacks everything else

@@gothicm3rcy426 I wouldn't say Japanese games lack story or have bizzare ones...with games like Resident Evil series,Suikoden,Yakuza(the main plot),etc...

Well it depends, but if the Western AAA games make a comeback, they'll still have the upper hand over japaneese in making cinematic AAA games just because they simply have more funding.And Cinematic AAA games mass appeal is more about graphics, they don't exactly stand on their amazing, gameplay, so higher budget= better graphics = more sales. Japan's market value as of now is more for interesting gameplay mechanics, and narrative storylines, Cinematic AAA games are not exactly Japan's forte as of now so my guess is they'll focus on higher end AA titles. I think they should spend more effort localizing and marketing games outside of Japan, give a bit more polish to their storytelling and they could make a comeback.

@@sauravthegreat I don't mean breaking out like COD numbers. but breaking into the millions sales is already a win IMO. Westerners just have different tastes when it comes to games. I mean FF7R sold like >5m i think? and that's probably the most AAA a japanese game can be. Although IMO, AA games are way better and more innovative

Reading this conversation is painful. Arm chair industry analysts strike again.

Japan is more focused on gacha gaming like FGO, Uma Musume, etc. In fact Nintendo is I think the biggest publisher of gacha games with their FEH game. It's full of powercreep and p2w mechanics Sony also publish gacha games. For every high quality japanese games there's also high quality western single player games like Spider-Man, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Returnal, GTA V, Dead Cells just to name a few.

@@roahnosh depends? to me dead cells and returnal are unique. Most of the western aaa games nowadays are either another open world game or another fps game. Japanese games have uniqueness and diversity (minus fps) Tbh a game doesn't need to be graphically impressive to be enjoyable. Just give an excellent gameplay like DMC5 and a good story (Nier) and that's it. Graphics are just an expensive add-on imo

"and left their PS2 in the dust or did not buy any console at that time." You do realize PS2 is the best selling console off all time and both PS4 and PS5 are breaking records?

Yes, PlayStation is still selling like hotcakes worldwide. But he isn't wrong that between mid 00's to 10's, there is a sizable growing trend of people deciding their next gaming system of choice is PC at the time.

@@velocity790 Yes, and Steam was also released during that era that made many gamers choose to play PC games as PC versions were equally good in quality with console titles but were cheaper. It has a direct effect on how PS3 sales dipped compared to PS2 as a large portion of the gamer population simply were PC gaming at that time.

@@velocity790 I know but he worded it like PC completely destroyed PS2 and consoles.

@@experience_point6233 no, I don't see it that way. '06 to '14 was a crazy 8 years that saw a paradigm shift in gaming technology. Consoles were slowly shifting towards PC development methodologies and PC themselves were slowly embracing the console ecosystem. If we were to looked back now, no matter which system one choose to side in the 'console war', we're sorta met up the middle now

and on

I've yet to have this issue with Nintendo. It's still a name of quality

Just like nintendo fanboys defind their japanese overlords while they do all level of anti consumer practices, harrassing content creators. Killing off their old series and sueing modders and emulator creators trying to keep their history alive. Nintendo is for children and parents.

@@shinyguy3766 yeah dude, no one cares. Go dilate about Nintendrones somewhere else.

You own stuffed animals and dolls of video game characters dont you..

they have big video game franchises like mario and final fantasy

I don't know what you mean, when in capitalism, success equals revenue. Aside from Nintendo, most Japanese companies are struggling terribly. Big franchises like Final Fantasy for example, no longer by the millions, they barely matter. I think Capcom just recently has cracked the code and Namco with Elden Ring, but aside of these three, Tecmo, Sega, Square Enix, etc. do not sell their games well. If you add the fact China has gotten into the mix with MASSIVE successes like Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, ZZZ, and most recently Wukong and Infinity Nikki, I don't see how Japan will survive this war. It's getting ugly for them.

I would love more of these games with a beginning, middle, and end. I'm so tired of this live service stuff. Currently playing SMTV and Neo: TWEWY with none of that.

Yep, the gameplay styles and their type of progression are just not monetizable. I do think they can make a few games that have that kind of monetization, like blue protocol is coming, but the fundamental design of these games is very different from your typical japaneese games, they will have to invest quite a bit to retrain a portion their game designers in the online gaming style gameplay. Moreover the live service market is becoming quite saturated and even genshin impact is bleeding players now.

It's safe to say however Xbox changed how Nintendo and Sony develop their consoles. Now Playstations and Switch adopted more commonly used architectures like x86 and ARM, and much more friendly to generic game engines like UE or Unity. In the past it's really about developing everything by themselves, and try to pack the best tech they could get.

Gambling has existed since ancient times, and games with gambling elements are likely to continue growing in the future, unless there is a concerted international effort to stop them, and even then there will always be the black market.

水口さんは確かに新しいゲームを創造する素晴らしいクリエイターであるものの、宮本さんや宮崎さんらと比べたらね… 宮本さんのようなまさしくゲームの歴史を作った日本の超一流のクリエイターはあまり国家とか市場のシェアというものに固執しないのでは。もちろん彼らにも帰属意識やルーツは見つめ直すことはあれど、それはただただ面白いゲームを作るためのヒントを探すためだと思う。我々ゲーマーにとって神であるゲームクリエイターにはまだやったことのない面白いゲームを作ることだけに集中していて欲しいし、このドキュメンタリーはマネージャーやマーケター、投資家の苦労話に過ぎない。

We should support our local market..

Information of this video is old like 15 years ago.

Shin Megami Tensei is also alive and well with SMT V and Pokemon is still the highest grossing media franchise.

They haven't made a Dark Souls game since 3, so I wouldn't call that alive. Sega has fount a lot of success with Yakuza and it's spin off series. And before the pandemic their arcades were doing well.

@@simonlow0210 I wasn't talking about Namco Bandai, I was talking about Dark Souls.

Genshin Impact??

@@theburden9920 That is a Chinese game.

A lot more japanese games are on pc now.

@@belstar1128 yes an asian game. More asian play on pc than in console

@@belstar1128 Tokyo Xanadu from Falcom

I love you, Burger. You make so many people morbidly obese❤️

Ehhhh China and South Korea are better at making games

@@berrymckockiner5883 China and Korea don't make anything. Many games you mentioned were in development or not released.

@@yuko1127 hahahaha Japan is falling behind

@@berrymckockiner5883 No Korea only makes bad pay2win mmos and china also makes poor quality stuff and the Chinese gov keeps sabotaging the creative companies.

As a gamer, i think we still need to be wary of addiction. (I was addicted too). I think games are a good thing but it can be very, very bad.

NO CNA is crap. Just like your Japanese videos.

You must be stuck in the 80s. Japanese consoles are still going strong and you can play Japanese games online.

Lol Japans only good games are the kids games Nintendo make. Besides kids games, the west literally make everything better, even RPG's

@@berrymckockiner5883 The West vs. Japan It is interesting that Japan is the only country that always has to fight against the world.

@@berrymckockiner5883 Do you mean Anthem?

@@KH-of2rb Even China and South Korea make better games than Japan

@@yuko1127 do you mean Unlimited Saga

The dlc after dlc is also force labour china will force a rival company to go out of business to where their the only option left.

@@maplemiles3381 wtf are you even smoking or you're just being r acist? The developer of the game is one of the highest paying studio in Shanghai (there's an article about it google it if you want facts). Also, Tencent one of the largest company in the world tried to buy Genshin and the developer but got rejected. They have been harassing Genshin for 2 years since then but they can't do anything about it.

mobile games suck

@@steviejohnson378 true but it makes money

It's the same in the West. It is companies in China and other Asian countries that are focusing on smartphone games. But smartphone games have no global influence.

@@KH-of2rb what do you mean by global influence?

JP releases main games on consoles and spin offs on phones. Mobile games tend to be cash dumps.

We are talking about games here mate. Why are you talking about Vehicles? So dumb and your info is wrong.

while the latter part is true, i read a bad news regarding sony. in most if its industries, it os not a full Japanese company anymore. but American.

The west make better games

@@jirehtheprovider It's like Tencent. Small companies are Western companies. The parent company of PlayStation is SONY in Japan. The funding is also provided by SONY.

Sony doesn't own Fromsoft...

Also the Switch has been the best selling console the last 4 years

Doesn't help Nintendo releases games like the new Mario Party with 5 boards... 5?! Too few. Nintendo is too comfortable in their success and don't try to grow. Hard to be the Titan, when you aim to be the humble budget system.

The art style is anime tho

LOL, yup!