by Zubon » Mon Apr 18, 2005 4:30 am
You seem too hung up on the system. I don't care how the plastic box is designed, I care what games it has.<p>And Sony didn't ruin the videogames industry. If it's ruined, then what ruined it is the Japanese being so insular while everyone else moved ahead. Most Japanese companies have realised their mistake now and are licensing foreign games. That isn't my little theory, it's a widely publisised crisis in Japan. A Japanese game journalist likened it to the early Godzilla films; he said that at the time no one else could compete with Japan for special effects as the Japanese seemed to have more skilled craftsmen working in movies at the time, and Hollywood was pretty disorganised besides.<p>As time went on Japan kept making the same sorts of movies over and over again, and then the west, which had been experimenting and advancing, began to make stuff like Star Wars. The movie industry of Japan couldn't compete, and special effects studios like Industrial Light and Magic sprang up all over the place in the west.<p>The Japanese journalist continues by saying; It's the same now with videogames. On lower-spec consoles the Japanese could dominate, because they had the right skills for those machines - just like how they were best at making old-school special effects for Godzilla. Now that platforms have advanced and more possibilities, both graphical and otherwise, are available, the Japanese developers keep on trying to make the same old games and everyone apart from small hardcore groups are losing interest. In Japan itself gaming is on a very low ebb. He ends by saying that rather than be proud and keep on making cookie-cutter RPGs and 3rd Person Action games, Japan needs to evolve like every other country. Apparently, a studio still makes Japanese Godzilla films in the old way, and they all stink. His words, not mine.<p>Anyway, as an example of Japanese companies realising their error and looking elsewhere: Capcom are now the publisher of Circle Studios' upcoming game. Circle Studios are a UK company. Japanese companies wouldn't have done that sort of thing when Japanese games dominated the market, but now that games like Splinter Cell can do stealth better than MGS (but not story, though) the Japanese companies are looking elsewhere for games.<br>Also, Sega have bought the UK company that made the Total War games for the PC.<p>Some of the most underground and brilliant games that exist are only on PS2, it's not like some turgid corporate box that just sucks on money and trickles out lame games... That'll be the Xbox.