Xbox's future in Japan

[Shifty Geezer]

You are missing the point. The Japanese publisher is selling you a culture, as a collective unit. Games like Metal Gear, Resident Evil, Fantasy Fantasy etc have history that Microsoft wants to be apart of. The perception Microsoft has is they need this 'property' to be successful. There is not an "European" culture indigenity in gaming that's recognizable separately from what they are doing in North America, that they are willing to sink money into the market like Japan. They reality is for Europeans: they view it as extension of the North American market. My suggestion to Europeans is to get over it and assimilate or develop your own cultural indigenity.

That reads like an ignorant yank. There are European games with a European culture. They just aren't typically being exported in much the same way most Japanese games don't get exported because the rest of the world doesn't 'get' them. But to suggest the EU should 'get a cultural identiy' (what exactly did you mean with that made up word of yours, indigenity??), is laughable.

Perhaps your thought process reflects what goes on in MS HQ? "Those Europeans have no identity and so will happily accept what we offer to fill the void of their centuries of cultural vaccuum"? Personally I miss the 16 bit era when there were more active Euro devs that hadn't been swallowed by corporate whales and had their freedom. We had more varied games back then.

Ack - there's so much wrong with your post, I'm not going to waste my time discussing it. Better things to do. Suffice to say I rate this is one of the most wrong things I've read on the internet in a long time!

 

[Ghostz]

That reads like an ignorant yank. There are European games with a European culture. They just aren't typically being exported in much the same way most Japanese games don't get exported because the rest of the world doesn't 'get' them. But to suggest the EU should 'get a cultural identiy' (what exactly did you mean with that made up word of yours, indigenity??), is laughable.

Perhaps your thought process reflects what goes on in MS HQ? "Those Europeans have no identity and so will happily accept what we offer to fill the void of their centuries of cultural vaccuum"? Personally I miss the 16 bit era when there were more active Euro devs that hadn't been swallowed by corporate whales and had their freedom. We had more varied games back then.

Ack - there's so much wrong with your post, I'm not going to waste my time discussing it. Better things to do. Suffice to say I rate this is one of the most wrong things I've read on the internet in a long time!

Indigenity: used in noun form but I can't help your own bias here. It is, what is Americans and Japanese make better games than the Europeans. I think that's pretty obvious with like 90% of the biggest IPs coming from these regions and all. But some "yank" over the interwebs that can't spell and makes up his own words, spells that plain in your face you have a problem with that? What's with all the name calling and grammar Nazism? Is that really called for? Would you like it if I called you some bias Euro-trash? I've been very careful in choosing my words to not "offend" because god forbid you might actually have not like what I say. Does some yank saying Americans are BETTER than Europeans at something gets your "knickers in a bunch"?

I won't comment any further since you obviously don't like the facts. Even if there was a European centric like games, they obviously aren't very good. I notice a lot a Japanese games don't get exported but we know of most of them at least. We get them on a design level that makes them distinctly Japanese and unable to export. We get why Gears of War doesn't do well in Japan. What we don't get is why the talent pool is so thin in Europe. Maybe it's like the whole Silicon Valley thing, Europe has been trying to make one for years unsuccessfully. Maybe IT IS the culture did you ever think of that? How's the business environment? Is there some kind of EU pub fund? Does it support start-ups well? Are there any equity investors there? I hear in the UK the tax system is horrid that can be a major problem for developers if you live on thin margins and investors may not think it's worth the risk if the return doesn't form. Maybe there are investors but their exceptions are not realistic. These are internal problem Europe should be asking if you want Microsoft and Sony to pay more attention to you.

 

[Platon]

You are missing the point. The Japanese publisher is selling you a culture, as a collective unit. Games like Metal Gear, Resident Evil, Fantasy Fantasy etc have history that Microsoft wants to be apart of. The perception Microsoft has is they need this 'property' to be successful. There is not an "European" culture indigenity in gaming that's recognizable separately from what they are doing in North America, that they are willing to sink money into the market like Japan. They reality is for Europeans: they view it as extension of the North American market. My suggestion to Europeans is to get over it and assimilate or develop your own cultural indigenity.

To me what they sell is history. I mean currently, if the Japanese publishers/developers don't get their act together they will become even more irrelevant than they already are. Considering that few years ago, Japanese publishers/developers were the top of the food chain things have changed drastically. The franchises that do sell, do so because of history, because they have a following and word of mouth out there and still I would say many of them to me don't seem to live up to the expectations. When it comes to new IPs I have to say I don't see them doing much at all.

Maybe it is not so strange that they are actually buying US/Euro studios because they realize that they don't keep up in the development. Had they not had their golden era when they did, they would have never grown as big as they are now and be able to buy studios instead of developing them self.

The way things look now and looking forward, I think MS rather have the collaboration and support of the likes like e.g. Crytek (making an exclusive for them and develop the cry engine) and DICE (Battlefield and develop the Frostbite engine) which actually are forward looking and develop engines for current PC hardware and most likely future one as well.

MS spent a lot of money in Japan to secure the local publishers which they hoped would mean bigger xbox360 sales, but it has not worked out like that, for whatever reason, they can't be blamed to not having tried though. So spending huge amount of cash they got some publishers and games to their platform that did not promote sales (too much) in Japan and are most likely irrelevant anywhere else, even if published in Euro/US so economically speaking it makes little sense to repeat it...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Indigenity: used in pro-noun form but I can't help your own bias here. It is, what is Americans and Japanese make better games than the Europeans. I think that's pretty obvious with like 90% of the biggest IPs coming from these regions and all. But some "yank" over the interwebs that can't spells and makes up his own words spells that plain in your face you have a problem with that? What's with all the name calling and grammar Nazism? Is that really called for? Would you like it if I called you some bias Euro-trash?

You said Europe has no culture and should just 'get over it'. My highlighting similarities between your post and an unfortunate US stereotype is not an insult.

I won't comment any further since you obviously don't like the facts.

What facts? That Europe is a developer dive with no talent? The likes of Bullfrog/Lionhead, Psygnosis/Sony Liverpool, and Media Molecule, Guerilla, DICE, and CryTek are a bunch of wannabes? The fact that US and Japanese publishers like EA and Konami are big enough to boss around Sony, MS and Nintendo and demand more content in those regions, but Ubisoft is a lightweight? Thanks for setting me straight. I'm perfectly happy with your explanation, but maybe others here would like to see some copies of those documents you have that show EA and Konami telling the console companies where to invest their interests. I'll leave you now to your Indiginous American Culture of swords and sorcery, military campaigns, sci-fi, gods and myths, and return to my culturally barren life.

 

[Ghostz]

You said Europe has no culture and should just 'get over it'. My highlighting similarities between your post and an unfortunate US stereotype is not an insult.

What facts? That Europe is a developer dive with no talent? The likes of Bullfrog/Lionhead, Psygnosis/Sony Liverpool, and Media Molecule, Guerilla, DICE, and CryTek are a bunch of wannabes? The fact that US and Japanese publishers like EA and Konami are big enough to boss around Sony, MS and Nintendo and demand more content in those regions, but Ubisoft is a lightweight? Thanks for setting me straight. I'm perfectly happy with your explanation, but maybe others here would like to see some copies of those documents you have that show EA and Konami telling the console companies where to invest their interests. I'll leave you now to your Indiginous American Culture of swords and sorcery, military campaigns, sci-fi, gods and myths, and return to my culturally barren life.

Way to take everything I said out of context because you don't like what was said. I thought this was the grown-up forums where we can wax lyrical about the Real. I guess I was wrong.

....but I thought I made my position pretty clear about Ubisoft. They may be a French company but they, for the most part, sell you American made games. There's no handshake between the European pub and dev, that can put on the pressure cooker to the platform holders.

....and the facts as they stand are a good chunk of the games even featured on your forums are not made by Europeans and Microsoft and Sony are simply going to spend money where the talent is, it's a cycle that feeds into itself, like all investment does.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Way to take everything I said out of context because you don't like what was said.

If I'm not hearing what you were trying to say (and seeing your edit about business culture, I really think your point isn't anything to do with culture), it's because you haven't phrased yourself very well.

First you said "what publisher in Europe has clout." The reply was Ubisoft. You then said they don't count because their talent is in Canada as if Ubisoft's French roots have given way to an NA culture.

Then you said:

You are missing the point. The Japanese publisher is selling you a culture, as a collective unit. Games like Metal Gear, Resident Evil, Fantasy Fantasy etc have history that Microsoft wants to be apart of. The perception Microsoft has is they need this 'property' to be successful. There is not an "European" culture indigenity in gaming that's recognizable separately from what they are doing in North America, that they are willing to sink money into the market like Japan. They reality is for Europeans: they view it as extension of the North American market. My suggestion to Europeans is to get over it and assimilate or develop your own cultural indigenity.

So, the Japanese are important because they are selling a culture. By that I guess you mean their choice of stories, characters, design, manerisms and idiosyncracies. You then say Europe doesn't produce anything sufficiently different from the US because it doesn't have a strong cultural indigenty (it's very hard for me to know what you mean by that is it's a very abnormal word choice). You finish off saying, "get over it or develop your own cultural indigenity," which shows you don't recognise the cultural content that is produced. It's very much the phrase "get over it" that got my back up and generated a far more emotional response than usual.

IMO, the reasons for a lack of specific Euro content have nothing to do with cultural diversity. Or perhaps everything. It's not that Europe doesn't produce anything different from the US so isn't worth investing in, but regional content can be quite limited in its appeal to larger audiences. An Eastern European game can be quite abstract, distinct from the US, but be somewhat niche as a result. Something like Linger In Shadows. The difference between MS and Sony is Sony do partially support Europe's 'cultural indigenty' whereas MS doesn't. It is not because Europe lacks one, and it's not that Europe has to 'get one'. It's just a matter of business wanting larger successes, and American culture, derived from European immigrants, boths serves the largest single unified economy and is very portable as it's based on common threads throughout much of humanity and shared culture, such that investment in 'Americanised' content can be safely exported and so it's a fairly safe investment. This same 'common culture' is financially supported when produced from anywhere - US, Europe, or Japan, as a sort of meta-culture I guess, and anything that moves away from that to more specific cultures starts to risk being lost to the mainstream. eg. MGS sells because it's a very 'Westernised' game (Westernised is wrong, as it's the common metaculture of human relationships, conflict, puzzle solving, story, etc.), whereas lots of the very Japanese games have no export market. Under Siege from Portugese Seed Studios fits the common-culture standards, whereas a game about bullfighting wouldn't export well. COD will export wonderfully, whereas NFL will struggle outside of NA. If you're wanting to invest money in creating a game, investing in a US game means a base market of 300+ million US people even if you never get any exports, but also a good chance of your product being sellable to Europe and maybe even Japan. The UK also produces content that fits straight into the US market, so we get a fair bit of attention from publishers. If instead you invest in a Romanian game, or any non-English region, and support the developers in being highly regionlised, you greatly limit your likely returns.

For MS to grow their presence in Europe, perhaps they should be more willing to embrace the existing and long lived European 'indigenity' and allow devs to make games that aren't necessarily going to sell elsewhere but will attract local interest? I would attribute part of Sony's success here to fact they can pull off 'European' reasonably well. Maybe that's also something they should do with Japan. Perhaps a problem with their early XB360 titles was that there were created with an eye on worldwide sales. Maybe they should have invested in Japanese games for the Japanese without any regard for other markets?

 

[Ghostz]

If I'm not hearing what you were trying to say (and seeing your edit about business culture, I really think your point isn't anything to do with culture), it's because you haven't phrased yourself very well.

First you said "what publisher in Europe has clout." The reply was Ubisoft. You then said they don't count because their talent is in Canada as if Ubisoft's French roots have given way to an NA culture.

Then you said:
So, the Japanese are important because they are selling a culture. By that I guess you mean their choice of stories, characters, design, manerisms and idiosyncracies. You then say Europe doesn't produce anything sufficiently different from the US because it doesn't have a strong cultural indigenty (it's very hard for me to know what you mean by that is it's a very abnormal word choice). You finish off saying, "get over it or develop your own cultural indigenity," which shows you don't recognise the cultural content that is produced. It's very much the phrase "get over it" that got my back up and generated a far more emotional response than usual.

IMO, the reasons for a lack of specific Euro content have nothing to do with cultural diversity. Or perhaps everything. It's not that Europe doesn't produce anything different from the US so isn't worth investing in, but regional content can be quite limited in its appeal to larger audiences. An Eastern European game can be quite abstract, distinct from the US, but be somewhat niche as a result. Something like Linger In Shadows. The difference between MS and Sony is Sony do partially support Europe's 'cultural indigenty' whereas MS doesn't. It is not because Europe lacks one, and it's not that Europe has to 'get one'. It's just a matter of business wanting larger successes, and American culture, derived from European immigrants, boths serves the largest single unified economy and is very portable as it's based on common threads throughout much of humanity and shared culture, such that investment in 'Americanised' content can be safely exported and so it's a fairly safe investment. This same 'common culture' is financially supported when produced from anywhere - US, Europe, or Japan, as a sort of meta-culture I guess, and anything that moves away from that to more specific cultures starts to risk being lost to the mainstream. eg. MGS sells because it's a very 'Westernised' game (Westernised is wrong, as it's the common metaculture of human relationships, conflict, puzzle solving, story, etc.), whereas lots of the very Japanese games have no export market. Under Siege from Portugese Seed Studios fits the common-culture standards, whereas a game about bullfighting wouldn't export well. COD will export wonderfully, whereas NFL will struggle outside of NA. If you're wanting to invest money in creating a game, investing in a US game means a base market of 300+ million US people even if you never get any exports, but also a good chance of your product being sellable to Europe and maybe even Japan. The UK also produces content that fits straight into the US market, so we get a fair bit of attention from publishers. If instead you invest in a Romanian game, or any non-English region, and support the developers in being highly regionlised, you greatly limit your likely returns.

For MS to grow their presence in Europe, perhaps they should be more willing to embrace the existing and long lived European 'indigenity' and allow devs to make games that aren't necessarily going to sell elsewhere but will attract local interest? I would attribute part of Sony's success here to fact they can pull off 'European' reasonably well. Maybe that's also something they should do with Japan. Perhaps a problem with their early XB360 titles was that there were created with an eye on worldwide sales. Maybe they should have invested in Japanese games for the Japanese without any regard for other markets?

That's the problem with quote mining, you miss the context. I'm not talking about European culture as cultural reverence, that's immaterial. I'm talking about gaming culture ( the full quote is: cultural indigenty in gaming ), as in mechanics; how a game feels and plays. Why does a Devil May Cry game feel so differently than God of War? That sort of thing.

Americans gave you FPS and RPGs but the Japanese gave you platformers and character action games. Within this framework, there's nothing distinctly "European" ( though I guess The Witcher is changing that ) and because of that there's nothing really worth 'owning' from the platform holder's perspective whether it's exportable or not. We know Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest aren't exportable but Nintendo doesn't want Sony to have that property. Do you see the difference?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's the problem with quote mining, you miss the context. I'm not talking about European culture as cultural reverence, that's immaterial.

I wasn't quote mining, and I read every word you wrote. If you were talking about gaming culture in the context as you describe in the rest of this post (particular gameplay styles) why did you say:

The Japanese publisher is selling you a culture, as a collective unit. Games like Metal Gear, Resident Evil, Fantasy Fantasy

...and not describe genres or such?

I'm talking about gaming culture ( the full quote is: cultural indigenty in gaming )

Use a little known word that I can't find any references to doesn't help with your communication of your point.

Americans gave you FPS and RPGs but the Japanese gave you platformers and character action games. Within this framework, there's nothing distinctly "European" and because of that there's nothing really worth 'owning' from the platform holder's perspective whether it's exportable or not. We know Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest aren't exportable but Nintendo doesn't want Sony to have that property. Do you see the difference?

Yes. That's an argument I can understand (which I don't see described in your previous posts).

I disagree that there's nothing particularly European flavoured to be brought to gaming. You have to go back a few years to when development was a lot freer. The God Game and Space Exploration were British creations, as is GTA, one of the biggest franchises ever. RTS has a strong European content. There was also more innovative gameplay, unique titles like Lemmings and these days something like LBP, that Europe is good at producing. But I'm not sure your premise even stands, polarising markets so strongly. A good game is created by good, talented developers, irrespective of where they live. A publisher wanting shooters doesn't have to go to the US to have them made there because the US is the home of the FPS. A lot of decisions of where to work when making games comes down to business and finances, and very little to do with gaming culture. MS could just as readily invest in Europe and have shooters, racers, party games, etc. And I don't see what that has to do with regional adoption of hardware anyway! It's not as if Europeans are sat around looking at 360 and thinking to themselves, "I'm not going to buy one of those until we have decent European games, just as soon as we can invent a particular genre or style to call our own."

 

[Ghostz]

I wasn't quote mining, and I read every word you wrote. If you were talking about gaming culture in the context as you describe in the rest of this post (particular gameplay styles) why did you say:
...and not describe genres or such?

Use a little known word that I can't find any references to doesn't help with your communication of your point.

Yes. That's an argument I can understand (which I don't see described in your previous posts).

I disagree that there's nothing particularly European flavoured to be brought to gaming. You have to go back a few years to when development was a lot freer. The God Game and Space Exploration were British creations, as is GTA, one of the biggest franchises ever. RTS has a strong European content. There was also more innovative gameplay, unique titles like Lemmings and these days something like LBP, that Europe is good at producing. But I'm not sure your premise even stands, polarising markets so strongly. A good game is created by good, talented developers, irrespective of where they live. A publisher wanting shooters doesn't have to go to the US to have them made there because the US is the home of the FPS. A lot of decisions of where to work when making games comes down to business and finances, and very little to do with gaming culture. MS could just as readily invest in Europe and have shooters, racers, party games, etc. And I don't see what that has to do with regional adoption of hardware anyway! It's not as if Europeans are sat around looking at 360 and thinking to themselves, "I'm not going to buy one of those until we have decent European games, just as soon as we can invent a particular genre or style to call our own."

First and foremost: the Japanese and Americans are selling you a culture; a gaming culture with a very long historic indigenous root. They have years; 3 decades of history and innovation that has popularized modern game design. I've been clear about the importance of that couldn't be understated by the lack thereof in Europe. You view it as polarizing because that's your bias - the lack of influence Europeans have in shaping that history piss you off and it shows by the poor support of the platform holders. If you are going to continue to try to twist that up into something that allows you the swallow the reality a bit better more power to you.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If you are going to continue to try to twist that up into something that allows you the swallow the reality a bit better more power to you.

I've tried to turn this discussion into something workable, but as you are unwilling to explain more, or give more info, or counter-argue, and just throw bias as your counter argument to anyone who disagrees, it's clearly not going anywhere so I give up.

 

[Ghostz]

I've tried to turn this discussion into something workable, but as you are unwilling to explain more, or give more info, or counter-argue, and just throw bias as your counter argument to anyone who disagrees, it's clearly not going anywhere so I give up.

What isn't this stupid, ignorant yankee doodle explaining what's good enough for you? Tell me what you want me to say that'll make you feel better about Europeans being pretty damn irrelevant in game design? You have no counter-argument for why, like, 99% of biggest IPs in gaming over the last 30 years aren't from Europe. You have an axe to grind simply because somebody came out and said: Americans and Japanese are simply better at making games than Europeans and it shows in the platform holder's support. The onerous is on your to prove otherwise; the onerous is on you to prove European talent is worth investing in. So of course this one-way discussion I'm having with you won't go anywhere. I mean, I really don't give a **** about Europe. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are always going to support America because that's where the talent and money is.

 

[Platon]

First and foremost: the Japanese and Americans are selling you a culture; a gaming culture with a very long historic indigenous root.

You have to expand that, as I don't know what your reference to culture entrails. You mean history, type of games, capability of making games? Because I don't see culture so much as business pure and simple.

Historically there has been quite a bit of game development in Europe. Wasn't Atari one of the pioneers in the home console business with game like Pong and so on. As for capability I would say Euro devs trump right now all over the Japanese ditto, at least technically. Some of the most impressive "next gen" engines are built in Europe, like the cry engine and frostbite.

The "culture" the Japanese pubs/devs sell you, is in the end quite "westernized" or should I say games that make it to US/Euro region are games that comply with our taste. I would be more impressed if they would export and sell all their quirky Japanese market only games, then they would be selling us their culture.

They have years; 3 decades of history and innovation that has popularized modern game design. I've been clear about the importance of that couldn't be understated by the lack thereof in Europe.

Isn't innovation what is the problem right now with the Japanese devs? After the PCfication of the consoles that recently happened, when a slew of US/Euro PC devs came into the console arena, to me it feels like they have been left behind in the dust. History is all great and nice in the end they should be able to make games that people want to buy and right now they mostly don't.

However, during their golden era the Japanese publishers grew very large and therefore and till recently very influential and therefore their support was a must to succeed in Japan and most likely in the rest of the world, but I have to say, the way things look now, that influence is all but gone.

You view it as polarizing because that's your bias - the lack of influence Europeans have in shaping that history piss you off and it shows by the poor support of the platform holders. If you are going to continue to try to twist that up into something that allows you the swallow the reality a bit better more power to you.

That, or now maybe MS has realized that having the support of the Japanese publishers does not mean much anymore. It didn't really give them anything in Japan and the rest of the world now looks to games like GTA, COD and co as the standard of gaming. I hope MS has realized what they need to do is just sell a lot of consoles and the Japanese devs will have to come on board, for business reasons, you can't say no to a very substantial market share and not take a hit in your finances, at least not in the long run.

Since what MS needs to do is sell consoles, I hope they focus more on Europe next time around, in the end it is a much larger market than Japan and more importantly they should have higher chances of succeeding in Europa rather than Japan. It is not so strange that the gaming taste after all is quite similar between US and Europe, apart that we might want a FIFA game instead of NFL game...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What isn't this stupid, ignorant yankee doodle explaining what's good enough for you? Tell me what you want me to say that'll make you feel better about Europeans being pretty damn irrelevant in game design?

I want you to actually make a coherant argument instead of an unsubstantiated, fragmented assertion spread over the discussion followed by dismissing anyone who disagrees as just being biased. Truth is you may have an argument I'd actually agree with but you aren't explaining it very well at all and now refuse to. Try something like, "Over the past 30 years, US and Japanese gaming has had a significant culture develop in those countries leading to many developers and strong publishers. In contrast, although Europe has had a significant number of strong studios, gaming overall hasn't been as important to Europeans resulting is less studios and those generally being taken over by US and Japanese publishers as the industry has progressed. I see gaming as being indigenous to the US and Japan but not Europe. The result is an industry dominated by US and Japanese developers, yadayadayada..."

You could then present a list of games, developers and/or publishers highlighting that and underlining your view with actual facts.

You have no counter-argument for why, like, 99% of biggest IPs in gaming over the last 30 years aren't from Europe.

You've presented no actual facts, so you haven't made an argument; only presented an opinion. I haven't been trying to counter that opinions because I haven't even understood that's what you were trying to say!

I mean, I really don't give a **** about Europe.

That's quite apparent, and where I was thinking I was harsh in my initial reaction to your first post due to confusion over your phrasing, now I'm thinking my initial assessment was pretty accurate. Reading your posts again, trying to understand what you were really meaning, looking up the current state of developers worldwide, I may actually subscribe to that view (though only in the diminishing of the European games industry, and not a lack of an industry for 30 years because in the 80s and 90s half the games I was playing were European), but clearly there's both a communication problem in how you present your argument, and an attitude problem in how you don't engage in a debate but just dismiss those who disagree. If you're ranting because of my original 'ignorant yank' remark then I'm sorry I used that term as I misunderstood you* and you can try again. If you're going to remain thinking I'm biased, nationalistic and irrational just because I've so far disagreed with you, then you were and are being ignorant.

*Extra clarification: I read 'indigenity' as 'identity', which was a mistake, but that's part and parcel of trying to make sense of rapidly written and often not very thoroughly checked posts from various flavours of English. Another example is your use of 'onerous' in this post where you mean 'onus'. This time I read the right meaning among the wrong words because context and alternative were obvious, where 'indigenty' gave me no clues to find the write meaning.

 

[Ghostz]

You have to expand that, as I don't know what your reference to culture entrails. You mean history, type of games, capability of making games? Because I don't see culture so much as business pure and simple.

Historically there has been quite a bit of game development in Europe. Wasn't Atari one of the pioneers in the home console business with game like Pong and so on. As for capability I would say Euro devs trump right now all over the Japanese ditto, at least technically. Some of the most impressive "next gen" engines are built in Europe, like the cry engine and frostbite.

The "culture" the Japanese pubs/devs sell you, is in the end quite "westernized" or should I say games that make it to US/Euro region are games that comply with our taste. I would be more impressed if they would export and sell all their quirky Japanese market only games, then they would be selling us their culture.

First and foremost as I said to shifty I'm talking about game design culture; it's the mechanics. In Metal Gear Solid snake may be some American super solider - which is "exportable" - but the game design is distinctly Japanese - the mechanics. While Cliffy B may have been inspired by WinBack and Resident Evil 4 ( both mechanically distinctly Japanese ) Gears of War flips those mechanics into a competitive shooter but you see that force feedback when you play Vanquish but Vanquish is still a mechanically Japanese driven game.

But there are also very Japanese, Japanese games that do well in the 'Western' market, like Final Fantasy. You can't really get more Japanese than a Final Fantasy game. Even people who don't play games can tell they've heard of Final Fantasy before they've heard about Metal Gear. Lets also not forget Nintendo my most anticipated game this year is Zelda. You may not know it but Zelda is also a very Japanese, Japanese game and people from David Jaffe to Ken Levine have been expired but by flipping the mechanics to make something of their own.

That, or now maybe MS has realized that having the support of the Japanese publishers does not mean much anymore. It didn't really give them anything in Japan and the rest of the world now looks to games like GTA, COD and co as the standard of gaming. I hope MS has realized what they need to do is just sell a lot of consoles and the Japanese devs will have to come on board, for business reasons, you can't say no to a very substantial market share and not take a hit in your finances, at least not in the long run.

Since what MS needs to do is sell consoles, I hope they focus more on Europe next time around, in the end it is a much larger market than Japan and more importantly they should have higher chances of succeeding in Europa rather than Japan. It is not so strange that the gaming taste after all is quite similar between US and Europe, apart that we might want a FIFA game instead of NFL game...

Having the support of Japanese publishers means you get their biggest franchises on your system. Microsoft needs to sells consoles but it's only games that sell consoles and despite whatever you may think about Japanese game development they still are making some of the biggest and best games in the world.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You have to expand that, as I don't know what your reference to culture entrails. You mean history, type of games, capability of making games? Because I don't see culture so much as business pure and simple.

So I'm not the only one.

Historically there has been quite a bit of game development in Europe. Wasn't Atari one of the pioneers in the home console business with game like Pong and so on.

Yes, but Atari was a US creation. It disappeared years back, and now exists in name only passing from hands to hands. There has been a very strong European game development culture for as long as games have been around. Many have been swallowed up by bigger international publishers like EA and SCE (forming SCEE), but there's as much talent and capability is Europe as anywhere else. I already some examples like Psygnosis and DICE.

The "culture" the Japanese pubs/devs sell you, is in the end quite "westernized" or should I say games that make it to US/Euro region are games that comply with our taste. I would be more impressed if they would export and sell all their quirky Japanese market only games, then they would be selling us their culture.

I've already tried that debate but it appears to be the wrong one. The use of culture by Ghostz doesn't have the interpretation most would attribute it. I think.

I'd go on to say though that the state of European game development is irrelevant to the situation of wanting to grow a console's market anyway. If MS or Sony or Nintendo overlook giving a market the sort of games it wants because that market hasn't a long history in gaming, they'll just leave it open for their rivals. eg. Sony has invested in Indian games with regional content, and moved production to India to solve import issues. Even without 30 years of gaming heritage there's a viable and growning market there to be exploited.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's the problem, there's no argument. The facts are this: Americans and Japanese have been making better games than Europeans for a better part of 30 years. If you want me to run down a list of the best selling games ever to embarrass you some more I can? Riddle me this: How many of those games are actually made by Europeans? I can rattle this stuff off the top of my head because I'm well research and read.

If you did that in the first place you'd ahve had no argument! That's the basis of good discussion, and as I said earlier, I could actually be convinced. I wasn't trying to prove you wrong with my links, and I said all this earlier but you replied I was just beating around the bush and not facing up to facts - facts which you weren't willing to present but just expected to be taken at face value because you claimed them.

 

[Ghostz]

If you did that in the first place you'd ahve had no argument! That's the basis of good discussion, and as I said earlier, I could actually be convinced. I wasn't trying to prove you wrong with my links, and I said all this earlier but you replied I was just beating around the bush and not facing up to facts - facts which you weren't willing to present but just expected to be taken at face value because you claimed them.

Actually, what would be a proper discussion after my accusations would be how should Europeans bring their work to market, to a global audience if there's indeed talent and good game design.

The that fact Americans and Japanese are making the best games is well understood. There's no need for literal interpretation of the facts. Do you need to see the trigonometry to explain why 1+1=2? No, it's a pointless exercise of an understood rule. I think you simply took to the way I said it as an offense. ....and oh believe me, I've been filtering what I say.....which is why I have so many edits.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Actually, what would be a proper discussion after my accusations would be how should Europeans bring their work to market, to a global audience if there's indeed talent and good game design.

Yes, although it'd be nice to get some recognition that there have been a lot of great devs in Europe since gaming began. Their influence on gaming over the years can be debated, but that's not really appropriate in this thread. The financial/business power of Europe in gaming needn't be disputed as, like you say, the greatest money-making titles very often have come from Japan or the US. If that decides where the console companies invest in software, one questions that they should. After all, the more you invest in a place, the stronger it'll become. Perhaps now is the time to invest in Europe and get a revival of the gaming culture that existed here born on home computers? When Sony announced Linger In Shadow there was talk of more demoscene creations, but nothing happened. Housemarque came from that extremely talented Norhteastern European demoscene and I'd love to see that potential harnessed in games in a more widespread fashion. Then again, if you have $20 million to invest in a game from anywhere in the world, a look at some history would suggest more chance of a breakout success from NA or Japan than from Europe. Then again, such stats really need to be considered in relation to total output, amount of investment, and the business history of whether products have been properly backed or not, etc. For example, Japan having 50 or however many of the top 100 selling franchises of all time could be due to Japan creating 100x as many games. It can also be to them recycling franchises more than other countries that create more original franchises. Not saying that's how it is; just that that's the sort of detail that a straight list can't shed light on. MS invested in Japanese developers at the beginning of this round, and it didn't net them much. Had they spent that money instead on Guerilla or DICE or Media Molecule, they've had had better returns from sales and perhaps better penetration in Europe. It's hard to say how much Blue Dragon and friends furthered their presence in Japan.

The aim of all this talk should be identifying what it is that makes a hardware platform find success in a market. I've kinda lost track of what has been said, so I'll ask a simple question and sorry if you're repeating yourself in your answer - what do you think MS can do to get better sales in Europe?

 

[Arwin]

This discussion is somewhat ridiculous to me. I think the majority of my favorite games over the last 30 years are from the EU and so are most of my favorite studios. Sure many have been bought by US and Japanese companies, but that doesn't suddenly make them cultural property of either (intellectual property, yes).

 

[zed]

This discussion is somewhat ridiculous to me. I think the majority of my favorite games over the last 30 years are from the EU and so are most of my favorite studios.

same here, maybe because Im an older gamer (who hasnt really played games for ~10 years)
but lifetime I'ld rate them
1. EU // mainly UK, home stuff
2. Japan // arcade
3. US // arcade & come home stuff

here are my top 10 games ever, rough list

manic miner // UK
galaga // Japan
knight lore // UK by the greatest game programmers ever the stamper brothers
elite // UK
donkey kong // japan
mr do // USA, actually it might be Japan since its namco
shadow of the beast // UK
stargate // USA
settlers 2 // germany

my nr 1 is some spectrum game, where u controled a wizard/druid and fought skeletons etc I cant think of the title, any ideas? I'ld love to play it again (it'll prolly suck now)