Why Are Japanese-Developed Games Less Popular?

Thanks to GameSpy for their 'Sole Food' editorial discussing the decline of the Japanese-developed videogame in the U.S. console charts. The article doesn't deny there are still big Japanese-developed hits in the West, but suggests: "It's not uncommon for there to be only two or three Japanese games among the top 20 sellers each month; this would have been unheard of less than ten years ago." As for explanations, it's argued that "Western developers are doing a better job of servicing core genres that are popular in the U.S.", but a "financial and creative slump" in the Japanese games industry is also blamed - "A quick glance through the games shown at last weekend's Tokyo Game Show reveals little that is truly new."

Comments

Isn't it obvious?

[Tom Courtenay]

Perhaps it's for the same reason that US developed consoles aren't popular in Japan:
It's cultural

Re:Isn't it obvious?

[Kalak]

In other news, Chinese developed video games sell poorly in Africa and someone in Tibet eats a pizza for the first time and declares: "What is this s^&t?"

What you say?!

[Rayonic]

Gamers being U.S. are of not text liking schoolchildren by translated?!

MOVE ZIG!

hmm...

[PainKilleR-CE]

"It's not uncommon for there to be only two or three Japanese games among the top 20 sellers each month; this would have been unheard of less than ten years ago."

I'm not even sure if this is completely true. Maybe we're questioning the fact that more western games are in the charts than before, but the last charts I saw showed more like 9 Japanese games in the top 20 (though 3 were the different versions of Soul Calibur 2, 3 US titles were the different versions of Madden NFL 2004).

As for questioning matters like originality in the titles, there are problems on this front on both sides. After all, 4 of the top 11 games are football games (Madden for GC was #11, NCAA Football was #5), and who would you get to develop an American football game outside of the US? 5 of the top 20 are US-centric sports games (the above 4 and NBA Street), with Mario Golf making 6 sports games in the list (though obviously not in the same realm of sports games as the others). The best selling soccer (football for the non-US people) game in Japan is a game made by a Japanese company, while the best selling soccer game in Europe is an EA title. Would anyone in the US be likely to play a Japanese-developed baseball game today? Well the Japanese certainly are, and it's right up there in the Japanese top 10, too.

Something else to note would be the longevity of titles on the US charts. Games rise and fall on the Japanese charts in a matter of weeks. In the US, we still have Vice City and Halo in the top 20. Pokemon Ruby & Saphire's combined sales keep it in the top 20 in Japan, while in the US they're listed individually and both still on the top 20.

The article's author even takes the time to say that Nintendo's part of the problem, even though Nintendo has 4 games in the US top 20, surpassed only by EA's 5. The only other company with more than 1 is Namco, and that's the 3 listings for SC2 (as EA's listing is for 2 games + 3 listings for Madden).