Despite Square Enix's strong showing at E3 of upcoming games like Tomb Raider, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Hitman Absolution, the company has said that its lack of upcoming Japanese titles is "humiliating".
Koji Taguchi, a senior executive officer at Square Enix Holdings, posted his dismay on Twitter, as translated by Andriasang, noting his worry.
"Because we merged with Eidos and had games like Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Hitman, as a company we were able to keep face," he explained.
"But the decline in Japanese titles was almost humiliating. This has been a week where I worried daily about how we can fix this." The company did, however, have a number of Japanese titles on display, including Final Fantasy XIII-2.
Last month saw Square Enix announce a huge loss for the last fiscal year, with the company stating that poor video game sales and a costly delay in billing for key subscription-based MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV Online were to blame.
They had one majour home console game per studio, I don't see anything to be ashamed of. Up until now they've been very prolific on portable systems and they have Versus and Type Zero set up for next year. I think they will be fine after a managerial shake up to better manage their resources and get some more smaller scope titles in the pipeline to pad out the wake of their main entries.
They got a lot of very talented people under their domestic umbrella, I think if they can sort out their management inefficiencies then they'll be headed into a bright future.
I had trouble at first pinpointing why I didn't get very excited about a lot of E3 stuff this year. I think this is why. (And boring hardware PR with Kinect and WiiU)
Maybe it hearkens back to my NES days when I first really got into games but a lot of my favorites were Japanese titles. Maybe it's that Japanese games are made for a demographic other than fratty brahs like a lot of Western games are, but either way I wish I didn't have to wait until TGS to see some good Japanese games.
So what are the big Japanese titles coming soon? Dark Souls and FF13-2, FF Agito/Type-O and FF13 Versus are the only ones I can think of and I have no clue when the Final Fantasies will actually release given that SqEnix announced that they would all release at the same time of FF13. Kinda missed the mark there, or maybe I got the wrong impression through the translations of their PR.
It's actually a good thing to see that Squeenix, in their vain attempts to Buy American, haven't forgotten classical Japanese humility. If this were a Western company, his Twitter feed would be a sidewinding stream of vapid corporate duckspeak. I appreciate the honesty.
I understand their position, but I can't remember a lot of Japanese titles on the current gen consoles that were actually memorable or deeply entertaining. And god knows how I love Japanese products.
I like games made from different cultures. They do a lot of stuff differently, and yet it still finds a way to appeal to you. The Wakfu franchise is one that has been gaining a lot of notice recently. It was made by a French developer, with Square supporting them. The series itself, though not translated yet, is beautiful in both visual storytelling and its unique blending of Chinese and other elements I couldn't quite pick out yet, mainly because as I said, it's new to me. I hope we get more international developers. And hopefully they don't suck like Big Rigs.
Japanese devs seem to be trying to ape western game design and visual design lately, or outright getting western studios to write their games.
This is precisely the wrong approach imo. They need to keep their unique style of design.
What they need to do, is get better at software engineering and computer science.
When was the last time a japanese game had cutting edge:
-Physics
-3d animation systems
-AI
-GUI
-3D engine
-Online features
-Neat software technology (eg. latency hiding netcode, moddable software design, built in scripting language, etc)
?
The last time I can recall being excited was for VF3′s cloth simulation… that was a long time ago.
Japanese devs, being console-centric, are good at getting the most out of a limited system. This is why they are sticking to handhelds these days.
Western devs, being PC-centric, have always been good at making scalable systems and engines. (think iD, Crytek, etc.)
With modern consoles being more PC-like than ever, and games being larger in scope than ever, Japan needs to learn how to develop for PC-like systems, “large” software, engine/tools creation etc. We see larger japanese companies like Capcom and Square starting to wise up. But they wont recover as an industry unless there is an entire ecosystem of talent with these skills.
Its very telling what indie developers choose to write in each country - western indie games tend to be programmer/software driven, with simple art and some sort of mathematical gimmick like advanced physics. Japanese indie games tend to be traditional 2D genres (fighting, shooter, platformer) with increasingly complicated game mechanics and nice pixel art. Or visual novels - the ultimate in zero-programmer game development - just need writers and artists.
To repeat, Japan's gaming industry needs to get better at software eng and computer science.
As for artistic and game design, they should stick to what makes them unique. The only advice is maybe start moving away from the relatively recent phenomenon of moe.
If you think of the golden era of japanese gaming, its rare for titles to have many lolita catgirl robot maids, or whiny crossdressing tweenage boys. Japanese games were comparitively more mature than western (console) games, due to consoles being seen as kids toys in the west back then.
Japan needs to go for more of a Persona or Ico or Silent Hill or Devil May Cry approach – still japanese, but avoiding the worst excesses of anime culture.
Indeed, i feel the same way. I love some Japanese titles because of their mature content, deep story, and an unique Asian flavor. But moe, is also an unique element of Japanese games ... it can be good in some situations, just don't abuse it in every title.
Three common mistakes in entertainment. Live in the shadow of their predecessors, ignore the consumer, and always play it safe.
When you make a game it should be to your team's abilities. You don't remove them from the equation by, proclaiming they should mirror those before them. Charge too much, make the product unplayable and launch it anyway, ignoring localization differences, and more fall under ignoring your customers. Playing it safe also means milking the cash cow to death. Shame doesn't cure failure. If Square wants to fix itself it needs to address these problems as a company and not as a country. Each company is different. I have more faith in Japan as a country than Square does as a company.
They got a lot of very talented people under their domestic umbrella, I think if they can sort out their management inefficiencies then they'll be headed into a bright future.
And just how long have those been in development for?
Maybe it hearkens back to my NES days when I first really got into games but a lot of my favorites were Japanese titles. Maybe it's that Japanese games are made for a demographic other than fratty brahs like a lot of Western games are, but either way I wish I didn't have to wait until TGS to see some good Japanese games.
So what are the big Japanese titles coming soon? Dark Souls and FF13-2, FF Agito/Type-O and FF13 Versus are the only ones I can think of and I have no clue when the Final Fantasies will actually release given that SqEnix announced that they would all release at the same time of FF13. Kinda missed the mark there, or maybe I got the wrong impression through the translations of their PR.
Gee I dunno ... if that's your worry, maybe invest in Japanese developers not Western ones?
They have plenty of Japanese developers, just no announcements of new games from those developers.
This is precisely the wrong approach imo. They need to keep their unique style of design.
What they need to do, is get better at software engineering and computer science.
When was the last time a japanese game had cutting edge:
-Physics
-3d animation systems
-AI
-GUI
-3D engine
-Online features
-Neat software technology (eg. latency hiding netcode, moddable software design, built in scripting language, etc)
?
The last time I can recall being excited was for VF3′s cloth simulation… that was a long time ago.
Japanese devs, being console-centric, are good at getting the most out of a limited system. This is why they are sticking to handhelds these days.
Western devs, being PC-centric, have always been good at making scalable systems and engines. (think iD, Crytek, etc.)
With modern consoles being more PC-like than ever, and games being larger in scope than ever, Japan needs to learn how to develop for PC-like systems, “large” software, engine/tools creation etc. We see larger japanese companies like Capcom and Square starting to wise up. But they wont recover as an industry unless there is an entire ecosystem of talent with these skills.
Its very telling what indie developers choose to write in each country - western indie games tend to be programmer/software driven, with simple art and some sort of mathematical gimmick like advanced physics. Japanese indie games tend to be traditional 2D genres (fighting, shooter, platformer) with increasingly complicated game mechanics and nice pixel art. Or visual novels - the ultimate in zero-programmer game development - just need writers and artists.
To repeat, Japan's gaming industry needs to get better at software eng and computer science.
As for artistic and game design, they should stick to what makes them unique. The only advice is maybe start moving away from the relatively recent phenomenon of moe.
If you think of the golden era of japanese gaming, its rare for titles to have many lolita catgirl robot maids, or whiny crossdressing tweenage boys. Japanese games were comparitively more mature than western (console) games, due to consoles being seen as kids toys in the west back then.
Japan needs to go for more of a Persona or Ico or Silent Hill or Devil May Cry approach – still japanese, but avoiding the worst excesses of anime culture.
When you make a game it should be to your team's abilities. You don't remove them from the equation by, proclaiming they should mirror those before them. Charge too much, make the product unplayable and launch it anyway, ignoring localization differences, and more fall under ignoring your customers. Playing it safe also means milking the cash cow to death. Shame doesn't cure failure. If Square wants to fix itself it needs to address these problems as a company and not as a country. Each company is different. I have more faith in Japan as a country than Square does as a company.