CESA Boss Talks Japanese Gaming Problems

Thanks to GameSpy for its interview with CESA executive managing director Kazuya Watanabe, as the head of the "game industry's trade organization" in Japan discusses issues such as the Japanese games industry's dislike of the used videogame market: "Used software sales are now legal and covered by the law. Despite the fact that the court has passed judgment, the software manufacturers are still not satisfied with the outcome because of the high percentage of used sales in overall Japanese game sales." He also addresses the perception that many Japanese PC titles are adult-oriented: "They stand out. They do not have a large market, but they catch your eyes. If you look at that, you may think, 'Boy, these Japanese are very strange.' It is not the case."

Comments

Re:This guy knows his stuff.

[Colazar]

Actually, that particular statement was made by the interviewer, not Mr. Watanabe.

Most Japanese PC games aren't hentai?

[Pluvius]

I could've sworn that I read somewhere that a very high percentage of Japanese PC games are hentai due to the lack of popularity of PC gaming in Japan (i.e. consoles take care of the "real" gaming, so only the leftover crap makes it to the PC). Maybe it was a bad source?

Rob

Re:Most Japanese PC games aren't hentai?

[dancingmad]

Actually, my girlfriend has worked on translating U.S. PC games to Japanese (Deus Ex and Northland). Nearly everything we get comes out there, eventually. It's not lack of quality per se, but Japanese don't like playing those type of games (a sentiment I share).

Re:Used games

[MMaestro]

No pc games, and only a single bin of used XBox and Playstation games.

First, I assume you mean PS2 games just for clarification. Secondly, most retailers are reluctant to take PC games on a used basis because it is extremely risky (I'll get back to that later). Thirdly, retailers give very little money on trade-ins because thats largely how they make a profit. The most money you can get on a trade-in without using any special deals? $25, and thats only if the game is a new release/still highly priced. What happens after that? Simple, the store sells it pre-owned for $45 (yes, only $5 off). Profit : $20 for the store.

Now regarding the PC games issue, most retailers won't take them back in fear of piracy. Face it, every geek, gamer, and grandma has a CD-burner these days. A few hours/minutes surfing the net can get you some CD burning programs which will bypass copy protection systems. So what do retailers fear? They fear that Sam Surfer will buy PC games, illegally burn himself, his friends, and his neighbors copies, and then sell it back to the store... with the manuals missing. Probably the reason why they don't fear the same things with console games is because they require a mod chip in order to play copied games. (Course for the wise and in the long run modding a system saves a bundle.)

Re:Japanese? Weird??

[DeadScreenSky]

My (limited) understanding is that most, if not all, of these porn laws were created by the Americans in charge of rebuilding the country after WWII. Extremely sexually explicit Japanese art goes back at least a few hundred years, if not much longer. The American occupation was the first thing to really dampen that tradition at all, AFAIK. Doing some brief googling, an article describing some of this art is here, and a (pretty explicit) example can be found here.

Not sure I would really say the they 'screwed them up', per se, but the laws are unfortunate, and obviously did nothing to reduce the impact or prevelance of porn there.