So I’ve been giving alot of thought into the argument about how Western developers have apparently far surpassed Japanese developers as a whole, there really seems to be alot of chest beating especially from the western game “journalist” community about how much better western developers supposedly are than their eastern peers.
I suppose the real question here would be in what way exactly are developers in the west so much better than developers in the east. I’ve been playing video games for longer than I’d really care to admit sometimes, I love video games both as a hobby, and as what I consider a genuine form of art in many ways (argument for another time). I will also say that the majority of my favorite franchises and games come largely from Japanese developers.
Almost every major game conference, or expo I have seen over the past few years I’ve noticed something that gets vastly overlooked by many people covering games, and that’s the fact that western developers make first person shooters more than any other genre in the gaming landscape. Obviously have do have some western developers who make other genre games, like Bioware and Bethesda who focus on RPGS ( although Fallout 3 is a FPS as well), Criterion who makes racers, Media Molecule (probably the most creative western developer) making LBP ,and a few others but I can name about 20 First person shooters hitting shelves between now and the end of next year.
How many times can we play the Space Marine, or Foot solider before we see that just as much as in the east, the west has found their niche and they stick to it just as much.The eastern market right now is making games like Last Guardian, Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom, Demon’s Soul’s Vanquish, Disgaea, Catherine, Gran Turismo, Atelier Rorona: The Alchemists Of Arland, and Metal Gear Rising all being games that are very different from each other.
Developers in the west are making games like Call of Duty, Halo, Medal of Honor, Fallout New Vegas, Brink, Killzone, Bullet Storm, Resistance, Socom, Ghost Recon, etc. Yes there are western developers not making shooters, but more of them are than are not. In fact even when you take a game like Vanquish although it is a third person shooter when you begin to understand and use the systems within the game it has a very unique feel to it, where as almost all of the western games I named will feel fairly similar to each other with different paint jobs (all shades of grey or brown).
It’s seems mostly that the biggest advantage that western games have over eastern is the budget for things like graphics, lighting, and marketing, because quite frankely it seems to me that creativity in large quanities is still an advantage that Japanese developers continue to have over western.
Keep in mind that this is not me saying any of the above games will be bad, I’m actually looking forward to quite a few of them. Just trying to balance the argument when it’s really not as open and shut as some might have you believe, and for the record in my opinion there really are not many developers I would hold above Team Ico.
Do you believe that western devs have greatly surpassed their eastern peers, if so, or not feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
It's kind of hard to say. Up to a good few years ago Eastern devs led the line, but they seemed to lose their way a bit (I remember Hideo Kojima saying something about their creativity and originality of before seemingly disappearing even though they have proven (and many Japanese devs in particular still are) what they can do.
Western developers are indeed leading at the moment, and by quite a bit I'd say, but I'd never count out the Eastern market of developers. Like you mentioned, series like Gran Turismo, Disgaea, ICO/SoTC, MGS, Final Fantasy, etc. are works of art and all have originality in their own ways, while we here in the West just seem addicted to shooters and never grow bored of having the same flashy things being given to us even though most of them aren't as creative as they could and should be.
Personally I can see the East coming back into it soon but they have a long way to go to catch up.
The western market buys shooters -- it has nothing to do with the creativity (or lack thereof) of the developers. I think most of the "West has passed the East" posts lately have basically boiled down to western game budgets simply being much larger than eastern budgets, and hence, yes, the tech is better.
You get what you pay for, as it were. That said, eastern devs have always made the most of what they have at hand, and, IMO, continue to do so.
The only eastern game budgets of serious "wow" note are games which, correspondingly, have good-sized budgets, like MGS4, and to a lesser extent, FF13. Yet if you compare games like DMC4 and Bayonetta to games like God of War 3 and Darksiders, you can see there's a clear tech advantage in the west, despite the gameplay innovations, and effective budget use (okay, not on the PS3 Bayonetta) in the east.
It just boils down to money. Western devs have more of it, or rather, are willing to risk more. When GT5 comes out, it'll be obvious what investment can do for a game, no matter where it's from.
i still prefer Japanese video games.
japan - kh,ff,resident evil,Mario games,Zelda,Kirby,atlus games,yakuza games,mega man,jrpgs,metroid style castlevaina games,blazblue,etc.
America - anybody under sony computer entertainment America and a few western developers here and there lol.
i say japan still wins in my game library that's all i have to say
yes many western games involve either 'realistic' soldiers or scifi spacemarine-style soldiers, with HEAVY doses of machismo. but many eastern games involve moody, long-haired femboys (mostly to the point of just plain ridiculous). hopefully we realize there are exceptions to either rule.
I like Western developers, their games have more variety.