The creator of Kid Icarus: Uprising and Super Smash Brothers Brawl, Masahiro Sakarai, recently made the claim that Japanese developers don’t mix well with Hollywood-like titles. The creator feels that the developers are trying too hard to one-up one another through big budget titles instead of focusing on what each company does best.
Of course, Sakurai made sure to note that he enjoys a lot of the big budget productions that come out of the West, but that those types of games just don’t sit right within the borders of Japan.
“There’s really a lot of opinions on this and this is just one of those opinions. But, I feel that Japanese game design and game development really isn’t a good match for the big-budget Hollywood style game experience.
“There are lot of different factors such as things like the team size and the way development proceeds and is communicated within teams. I mean, there are instances where this trend is more dramatic than others, where teams are either more well-suited to a certain style or not.”
He added: “Don’t get me wrong: I’m really impressed with Western game design and enjoy a lot of those games. But, personally-and this is something that Nintendo also follows the same philosophy-I trend towards focusing on a gameplay mechanic and working on that mechanic.”
I couldn’t agree more with Sakurai and I believe that it was never more obvious than with the release of Final Fantasy XIII earlier this year. Square Enix felt as though it gave off the vibe that it was trying too hard to appeal to Western gamers while also providing that big budget Hollywood delivery that have helped propel franchises like Uncharted and Gears of War.
“Unfortunately, a lot of developers get caught in trying to out do each other and what ends up becoming is a simple competition in graphics or in scale and whatnot,” he added.
“I think the most important thing-and maybe my overall message for this answer-is that developers just need to focus on what they’re good at. And, while some may be good at these big budget experiences, others are not, and that could be telling of different trends between Western and Japanese game companies.”
Do you guys happen to agree? Do you see some of your favorite franchises slowly taking a dive because the teams behind them have strayed away from what they know best? Let us know below.
I like authentic Japanese games. If I wanted to play a Western game, I know plenty of Western games.
the only japanese game i like is MGS4 the rest are just all gay fantisy crap with men looking like women… in my opinion. i like how western games are more realistic even when they have aliens or whatever. and how is compotition bad? it encourages developers to make games better. but i do agree that too many developers are making games for the same genre such as the FPS genre. if the game is low quality and isnt very popular then they should try another genre because people start criticising all of the games at the top of that genre for ‘not being innovative’