Love them or hate them

Ever since I first stepped into the XBOX community one of the things that they felt really sore about was the utter lack of Japanese support for the console.

All logic will say was that most Japanese developers were not keen on making games for the XBOX 360 since it was a new and unproven console. But plainly speaking it wasn’t embraced by the Japanese developers since the Japanese market didn’t bother much with it. Other the usual complaints about its size, the XBOX was a complete and utter failure in Japan with the exception of Itagaki.

Itagaki made such a big splash in the Japanese and Western markets by creating games that actually took advantage of the strength of the XBOX. Namely ‘Ninja Gaiden’ and the ‘Dead or Alive’ series. It’s also no surprise, that Itagaki’s unconventional thinking with regard to the Japanese market made him quite a celebrity both within and outside Japan.


Tomonobu Itagaki, the real life Ninja Gaiden

Itagaki has stated that the Japanese gamer market is shrinking and the truth growth for videogames exists outside Japan. Of course there will be some people who will disagree with that; armed with the monthly Japan sales report wherein in the words of some Americans, the ‘Japanese seem to have PS2s and DSes for breakfast’.

But the truth is even for start-up Japanese developers Japan is a tough market to crack. The market craves for franchise games, RPGs and simple games. Gone are the days that you will actually need a cheat code to beat a Japanese game for the games of today are quite simple and doesn’t really require much effort to play.

And that current trend that exists in majority of the Japanese games appear to be another one of the sore points with some of the XBOX community.

The XBOX 360 has gathered a pretty good list of Japanese developer support but while it was not enough to sell consoles like hotcakes in the Japanese launch window, it was also not enough for the western fans to appreciate the works of the Japanese.

Take a look at Ridge Racer 6 for the XBOX 360 which was the best and worst selling XBOX 360 title. It sold quite well in Japan while it stank in western regions. Take a look at how the other Japanese XBOX 360 games and developers are treated with resentment.

The western people whine that Ridge Racer 7 was coming to the PS3 at the same time they bashed Ridge Racer 6 for the XBOX 360. They whine about the lousy graphics that may hold a candle to ‘Gears of War’. They whine about the lack of support from Japanese developers since they are not giving their franchise Playstation titles to the XBOX 360 at the same time they don’t recognize the newer franchises and titles that are being developed.

The XBOX community talks about the Japanese maket being tough to please…and I think so myself. But I also realize that the western market is as well. The Japanese developers don’t exactly take years fine tuning their games and graphics is secondary to the presentation of the game. That’s just the way they work.

And that Japanese style has solidified the position of the Playstation as the dominant console for several years. It has also garnered a lot of western fans who love the Japanese franchise, despite the fact that most of them appear to be rehashes.

But the western XBOX community (at least those who are vocal about it) hate the Japanese style. They hate the simple graphics. They rant about the generic anime looking characters (awww…gee have they looked at all the similar looking military shooters in the console). They go on and on about ports and games that are not built from the ground up in the XBOX 360. And the list goes on…

CoD2 is a great game and all...but these guys again?!?

Like Itagaki, I believe that the true growth for videogames lies outside Japan. I believe that the success of the gaming console can no longer be decided simply by looking at the Japanese sales charts. And I believe that other Japanese developers are beginning to realize what Itagaki has long for quite some time now.

The Japanese games are coming to the XBOX 360. Perhaps its not Final Fantasy, Tekken, Devil May Cry or some big Playstation franchise…but they are coming. And there are people like me, who will be eagerly anticipating these releases.

But the question is, will the western XBOX community embrace it or will they just whine and give the same old tired excuses on how Japanese games suck compared to western games?

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