And yet note that Final Fantasy XI is considered a terrible flop in Japan. Sure, it's a successful MMORPG, but sales (and even income taking into account monthly fees) are horrible for a Final Fantasy game.
Speaking as someone who has played Hitman II and Hitman Contracts, but not the original Hitman:
1) No door sticking (but I'm playing on XBox, and I've noticed "sticking to the scenery" seems more frequent in PC games. Not trolling, as I love my PC games. Just an observation)
2) You can save up to 5 times per level (6? I forget), which is enough to make it clearable, but not so many as to make the FPS quick-save-marathon approach work.
3) I don't remember many illogical situations.
4) The guards only kinda have eyes in the back of their head. If they hear you, they'll probably call for backup, but they don't call out "weapon" for unseen weapons, etc. Plus, disguises work very very well.
5) I can't remember anything that rendered missions plain impossible, but I may have just been lucky.
That said, the frequent complaint is that, in addressing everyone's problems, they made a pretty unpopular change: it's possible to clear the whole game with no stealth whatsoever. You get a rating at the end of each level for stealth, from Silent Assassin to Psychopath or Butcher or something. So, if you have the self control to try to get Silent Assassin, it's hella fun, but if you just go guns blazing, it's a very subpar FPS. Why anyone would play it that way is beyond me, but, you know, kids today...
Before too many people get into a tizzy, I just want to point out two things about the PSX in Japan.
First, the Playstation was never called the PSX in Japan. The internal prototype name was apparently picked up and carried by foreign game magazines / sites, but in Japan, the Playstation was always called the Playstation (or Puresute for short, as PlayStation is Pureisuteshon in Japanese).
Second, while the PSX is damn expensive, it's actually not poorly priced for Japan. Sure, you can get a Tivo for a lot cheaper in America, but there is no Tivo in Japan. The average hard disk TV recorder thingy starts at $500 and goes up here, so the PSX is about the price of buying a PS2 and a hard disk recorder anyway, if not a bit cheaper.
That said, it's tacitly clear why the PSX is not appealing to the US market: it costs more than a Tivo and a PS2 combined, by a good margin.
Dunno how you define "better". But I have made other comments in the thread, so look around for them.
And, on reflection, your quote ("We have no national distinction whatsoever, no national identity that is truly separate from any other.") may be true, within America. But it's true within any country. National identity may be decided by the average of the country, or by the view seen from the outside. Seen from outside America, America has a very very strong national identity. The same is probably true of every other country, and, just like America, it's probably hard to determine whether this perceived "national identity" is representative of the majority or just the sum average.
So, I take back my invective. Living in America, it may be true to say there is no "national identity" that applies to most individuals. However, living outside America, it is clear that there is a "national identity" that applies to America as a whole.
I mean I get the impression that if any of these things actually happened (for example: *gasp* an unwed couple living together), those involved would be run out of town faster than a Southern Babtist preacher can say "Praise the Lord".
Admittedly, my analysis of Japanese culture *may be* rather flawed (seeing as how I've never actually *been* to Japan), and my *entire* analysis is based on the anime I have watched.
Sorry, but you're right, your analysis seems pretty darn flawed. Nothing at all wrong with unmarried couples. Definitely less of a fixation on remaining a virgin until marriage than in America (not that anyone in America is a virgin at marriage, but at least the expectation exists). Cheating on your mate is also far less stigmatised than in America. There are parts of Japan that are more straightlaced than America (office politics, relations with in-laws, etc.), but there are other parts that make up for it with a lot more freedom than there is in America. So it's a draw overall.
Syndicated show VS 13 to 26 episode story that ends. It's hard to like a TV show that just keeps going and going and going... well, at least it is for me, anyway. So, yes, I do believe that the average story found in Japanese anime is far better than the average story found in American TV.
As much as it kinda sorta pains me to do so, I agree. Anime does not generally have better stories than movies/books, but it does have better than TV, precisely because it (generally) has a fricking ending!
Still, we're basically comparing skunk poo to cow poo. Sure, the skunk poo may smell worse, but they both smell bad. It's only on the rare occassion, for either country, that the cow (or skunk) shits out a 24K gold brick instead.
I agree with what you're saying (I'm an American, been living in Japan almost a decade, and while there are a few good Japanese anime and Japanese movies out there, I don't fool myself into thinking that Japanese value story any more or less than Americans).
Besides which, I think people are losing track of shifting objects of discussion. The average Japanese dating sim player is probably more interested in the story than the average American porn watcher. But we're comparing apples and oranges. When we compare apples and apples, we find that the average Japanese porn watcher has no more interest in story than the average American porn watcher.
Basically, we haven't, in America, historically had a market of "dating sims". Which means we're dealing with an extremely small sample set from which to draw our conclusions. However, if we expand the sample to include all ero stuff, you'll find that there are similar amounts of hardcore and softcore in both countries, and the emphasis on story (or lack thereof) is the same for both countries.
I am an American. My country is a melting pot of every nation that has ever had it's people immigrate here. We have no national distinction whatsoever, no national identity that is truly separate from any other.
I am also an American. And you are clearly insane if you believe what you just wrote.
Thanks. Question about number 1, though: what is it about hourly work that makes it inflexible? Or rather, if your company doesn't have flex time, doesn't salaried work and hourly work have the same lack of flexibility?
Now, I may be missing the point, but why in God's name are they trying to encourage a market in which one popular arcade title consists of sticking a plastic Finger up someone's digital ass?
We're talking about Japan. Boonga Boonga is a Korean game. Only 200 units were sold to Japanese arcades, which is absolutely nothing (one unit for every 20 towns or so in Japan, if that).
You're right. Living in Japan, I can see that the economy is indeed on the rebound. People are no longer losing their jobs, you don't hear the word "restructuring" whispered in the hallways anymore, and, whether or not the economic upturn is "real", the feeling among Japanese is that things are getting better.
This is ultimately what affects retail sales. While underlying economic conditions in a country may be good or bad, it's the feelings of consumers that determine their purchasing habits. A country badly in debt with a happy, secure consumer base will still spend more money on luxuries, while a positive economy where people are scared (for whatever reason) about their finances will result in less spending on luxuries.
To tell you the truth, I don't know why sales are slipping. But I do know that it isn't because of the state of the economy.
Since forever. Hell, I've seen Japanese managers tell it to gaijin workers simply as friendly advice.
Hell, even as a non-Japanese, I'd tell it to gaijin workers, because so many of them seem to think that being obnoxious is a positive trait. The nail that sticks out is not hammered down; the asshole is.
Unruly during set hours? Since when?
Since forever. During the working day, you keep your head down and you do as your told. Then, after hours, you go out for drinks with the boss, and you're officially allowed to get 'drunk,' say bad things about them, and make an asshole of yourself. The next day, nothing will be said of it.
I think I sense where these comments are coming from. What people may forget is that Japan has changed a LOT since the bubble burst. All the stuff you say was once very, very true. However, now they only really apply to seishain (people who work directly for the companies they work at). People who work for a company directly. Fact of the matter is, though, that this type of employment is no longer the rule. Many many young people now work as independent contractors / subcontractors, and don't get subjected to the same deal.
Living in Japan is different from living Japan.
Well, if living here 10 years, working in a high school for three of those, and a major Japanese company for the rest, having friends from university working at a variety of completely different companies, having friends met at clubs and other (non-Roppongi) recreational places, and knowing friends of friends of further friends, none of whom (with one exception) face this 1980's Japanese nightmare, is not enough to see the real Japan, then we're talking about a real Japan so small that it isn't worth it to discuss. We may as well say that in America women stay home and birth babies, while the blacks sit in the back of the bus and dad smokes a pipe, and if you see anything else, you're not seeing the real America.
On a side note, it's interesting to note that, while I say "these things don't happen", what I really mean is "these things don't happen any more than they do in America" (it's the only place I'm knowledgable to compare). Sure, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down sometimes. The same is true in American companies. Sure, you can't talk smack about your boss to his face and expect work to go smoothly. But you can't in America either. In the 1980's, these were taken to extremes (I gather. I wasn't living here then, so my knowledge of the period comes from textbooks). But now they are reduced to a sane level. Hell, at least in a very traditional Japanese company, you can call your boss a dickwad if you're plastered. Try doing that in America and still getting your next promotion.
Yes. The exam system is cutthroat. The educational system itself is not. At best, we can say it's preparation for a cutthroat system, but that's no different from high schools in any country that I know of. High school students in America don't get into MIT on good intentions, they get in with good grades and hard work in high school. The same is true in Japan.
What I will concede is that Japan adds another level by having this happen first at high school entrance.
And while exam hell is hell, that does not mean that school is cutthroat. Entrance exams are cutthroat. School is just fucking hard.
My implication was that since some people prefer to play games on their consoles, and some people only have an XBox, it would be a big deal for them. Obviously, not a big deal for PS2 owners. I should have been more explicit.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the article isn't talking about the content creators, but the grunt work that draws the cels that fit in between the key slides.
It's more analogous to the musicians in a band getting paid a lot, but their roadies making minimum wage.
While I don't directly disagree with what you're saying overall, outsourcing can often be disastrous because it isn't good quality at the lowest prices, it's just offering things at the lowest prices, period.
As for "strictness", your examples are "cut-throat schooling", which, I confess, I don't really understand. Japanese schools are not based on a bell curve. If everyone does well on an exam, everyone does well. There is no competition between students, except in the case of high school entrance and college entrance exams. I fail to see what is cutthroat.
As for getting them ready for the same pace at work blah blah blah stuff from books about Japan written in the 1980s...You recommended reading some books instead of listening to high school friends. I recommend talking to an actual Japanese person, or visiting Japan, instead of using 20 year old information.
I work in the granddaddy of Japanese companies. We have no calisthenics. We have no enforced drinking with the boss. The most draconic thing is that we have to wear suits, even though we don't meet with clients. That's it.
And as far as outside of the company, there is a lot more freedom here in Japan than I ever experienced in the US. Talking to other Americans living here, the feeling is apparently fairly common.
The only surprise here is that there were any animators doing cel work in Japan at all. As in the case of American animation, one would think that all of the cel work would have gone to South Korea by now.
Talking to a coworker here (I work in Tokyo), this probably goes back to a pretty famous episode of a pretty unfamous show (coworker has gone home, so I don't have the name of the show), which was sent to Korea for animation. When it came back, it was a horribly slipshod, barely animated product (sounds like most TV anime to me, but he said it was far worse than usual), but they had to either show it or nothing, so they showed it, and it became apparently famous for being so bad.
When watching the Simpsons DVDs, the commentary track mentions Korean animation a lot, and the basic idea I got was that you had to persevere, send bits back to be reanimated, and really ride the animators to get them to make a good product, but once they were "broken in", they did OK. Japan has a much, MUCH, MUCH bigger emphasis on quality control, so I'm not surprised that they are avoiding sending stuff to Korea to be animated. And what they are sending over, they're being very very quiet about.
Slashdot Mirror
And yet note that Final Fantasy XI is considered a terrible flop in Japan. Sure, it's a successful MMORPG, but sales (and even income taking into account monthly fees) are horrible for a Final Fantasy game.
Well stated.
Speaking as someone who has played Hitman II and Hitman Contracts, but not the original Hitman:
1) No door sticking (but I'm playing on XBox, and I've noticed "sticking to the scenery" seems more frequent in PC games. Not trolling, as I love my PC games. Just an observation)
2) You can save up to 5 times per level (6? I forget), which is enough to make it clearable, but not so many as to make the FPS quick-save-marathon approach work.
3) I don't remember many illogical situations.
4) The guards only kinda have eyes in the back of their head. If they hear you, they'll probably call for backup, but they don't call out "weapon" for unseen weapons, etc. Plus, disguises work very very well.
5) I can't remember anything that rendered missions plain impossible, but I may have just been lucky.
That said, the frequent complaint is that, in addressing everyone's problems, they made a pretty unpopular change: it's possible to clear the whole game with no stealth whatsoever. You get a rating at the end of each level for stealth, from Silent Assassin to Psychopath or Butcher or something. So, if you have the self control to try to get Silent Assassin, it's hella fun, but if you just go guns blazing, it's a very subpar FPS. Why anyone would play it that way is beyond me, but, you know, kids today...
Before too many people get into a tizzy, I just want to point out two things about the PSX in Japan.
First, the Playstation was never called the PSX in Japan. The internal prototype name was apparently picked up and carried by foreign game magazines / sites, but in Japan, the Playstation was always called the Playstation (or Puresute for short, as PlayStation is Pureisuteshon in Japanese).
Second, while the PSX is damn expensive, it's actually not poorly priced for Japan. Sure, you can get a Tivo for a lot cheaper in America, but there is no Tivo in Japan. The average hard disk TV recorder thingy starts at $500 and goes up here, so the PSX is about the price of buying a PS2 and a hard disk recorder anyway, if not a bit cheaper.
That said, it's tacitly clear why the PSX is not appealing to the US market: it costs more than a Tivo and a PS2 combined, by a good margin.
Dunno how you define "better". But I have made other comments in the thread, so look around for them.
And, on reflection, your quote ("We have no national distinction whatsoever, no national identity that is truly separate from any other.") may be true, within America. But it's true within any country. National identity may be decided by the average of the country, or by the view seen from the outside. Seen from outside America, America has a very very strong national identity. The same is probably true of every other country, and, just like America, it's probably hard to determine whether this perceived "national identity" is representative of the majority or just the sum average.
So, I take back my invective. Living in America, it may be true to say there is no "national identity" that applies to most individuals. However, living outside America, it is clear that there is a "national identity" that applies to America as a whole.
Here (in Japan), we understandably don't get Adult Swim, but those were fucking hilarious. Any others?
I mean I get the impression that if any of these things actually happened (for example: *gasp* an unwed couple living together), those involved would be run out of town faster than a Southern Babtist preacher can say "Praise the Lord".
Admittedly, my analysis of Japanese culture *may be* rather flawed (seeing as how I've never actually *been* to Japan), and my *entire* analysis is based on the anime I have watched.
Sorry, but you're right, your analysis seems pretty darn flawed. Nothing at all wrong with unmarried couples. Definitely less of a fixation on remaining a virgin until marriage than in America (not that anyone in America is a virgin at marriage, but at least the expectation exists). Cheating on your mate is also far less stigmatised than in America. There are parts of Japan that are more straightlaced than America (office politics, relations with in-laws, etc.), but there are other parts that make up for it with a lot more freedom than there is in America. So it's a draw overall.
Syndicated show VS 13 to 26 episode story that ends. It's hard to like a TV show that just keeps going and going and going... well, at least it is for me, anyway. So, yes, I do believe that the average story found in Japanese anime is far better than the average story found in American TV.
As much as it kinda sorta pains me to do so, I agree. Anime does not generally have better stories than movies/books, but it does have better than TV, precisely because it (generally) has a fricking ending!
Still, we're basically comparing skunk poo to cow poo. Sure, the skunk poo may smell worse, but they both smell bad. It's only on the rare occassion, for either country, that the cow (or skunk) shits out a 24K gold brick instead.
Foidulus:
I agree with what you're saying (I'm an American, been living in Japan almost a decade, and while there are a few good Japanese anime and Japanese movies out there, I don't fool myself into thinking that Japanese value story any more or less than Americans).
Besides which, I think people are losing track of shifting objects of discussion. The average Japanese dating sim player is probably more interested in the story than the average American porn watcher. But we're comparing apples and oranges. When we compare apples and apples, we find that the average Japanese porn watcher has no more interest in story than the average American porn watcher.
Basically, we haven't, in America, historically had a market of "dating sims". Which means we're dealing with an extremely small sample set from which to draw our conclusions. However, if we expand the sample to include all ero stuff, you'll find that there are similar amounts of hardcore and softcore in both countries, and the emphasis on story (or lack thereof) is the same for both countries.
I am an American. My country is a melting pot of every nation that has ever had it's people immigrate here. We have no national distinction whatsoever, no national identity that is truly separate from any other.
I am also an American. And you are clearly insane if you believe what you just wrote.
Thanks. Question about number 1, though: what is it about hourly work that makes it inflexible? Or rather, if your company doesn't have flex time, doesn't salaried work and hourly work have the same lack of flexibility?
I used to be an hourly employee, and was switched (kinda) to salaried. I would like to go back to hourly.
Rather, a legitimate question: what's wrong with hourly?
Now, I may be missing the point, but why in God's name are they trying to encourage a market in which one popular arcade title consists of sticking a plastic Finger up someone's digital ass?
We're talking about Japan. Boonga Boonga is a Korean game. Only 200 units were sold to Japanese arcades, which is absolutely nothing (one unit for every 20 towns or so in Japan, if that).
You're right. Living in Japan, I can see that the economy is indeed on the rebound. People are no longer losing their jobs, you don't hear the word "restructuring" whispered in the hallways anymore, and, whether or not the economic upturn is "real", the feeling among Japanese is that things are getting better.
This is ultimately what affects retail sales. While underlying economic conditions in a country may be good or bad, it's the feelings of consumers that determine their purchasing habits. A country badly in debt with a happy, secure consumer base will still spend more money on luxuries, while a positive economy where people are scared (for whatever reason) about their finances will result in less spending on luxuries.
To tell you the truth, I don't know why sales are slipping. But I do know that it isn't because of the state of the economy.
Plus, keep in mind that an equivalent Tivo in Japan costs $500 or more, not the $200 you can get them for in America.
Agreed.
National motto? Since when?
Since forever. Hell, I've seen Japanese managers tell it to gaijin workers simply as friendly advice.
Hell, even as a non-Japanese, I'd tell it to gaijin workers, because so many of them seem to think that being obnoxious is a positive trait. The nail that sticks out is not hammered down; the asshole is.
Unruly during set hours? Since when?
Since forever. During the working day, you keep your head down and you do as your told. Then, after hours, you go out for drinks with the boss, and you're officially allowed to get 'drunk,' say bad things about them, and make an asshole of yourself. The next day, nothing will be said of it.
I think I sense where these comments are coming from. What people may forget is that Japan has changed a LOT since the bubble burst. All the stuff you say was once very, very true. However, now they only really apply to seishain (people who work directly for the companies they work at). People who work for a company directly. Fact of the matter is, though, that this type of employment is no longer the rule. Many many young people now work as independent contractors / subcontractors, and don't get subjected to the same deal.
Living in Japan is different from living Japan.
Well, if living here 10 years, working in a high school for three of those, and a major Japanese company for the rest, having friends from university working at a variety of completely different companies, having friends met at clubs and other (non-Roppongi) recreational places, and knowing friends of friends of further friends, none of whom (with one exception) face this 1980's Japanese nightmare, is not enough to see the real Japan, then we're talking about a real Japan so small that it isn't worth it to discuss. We may as well say that in America women stay home and birth babies, while the blacks sit in the back of the bus and dad smokes a pipe, and if you see anything else, you're not seeing the real America.
On a side note, it's interesting to note that, while I say "these things don't happen", what I really mean is "these things don't happen any more than they do in America" (it's the only place I'm knowledgable to compare). Sure, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down sometimes. The same is true in American companies. Sure, you can't talk smack about your boss to his face and expect work to go smoothly. But you can't in America either. In the 1980's, these were taken to extremes (I gather. I wasn't living here then, so my knowledge of the period comes from textbooks). But now they are reduced to a sane level. Hell, at least in a very traditional Japanese company, you can call your boss a dickwad if you're plastered. Try doing that in America and still getting your next promotion.
Yes. The exam system is cutthroat. The educational system itself is not. At best, we can say it's preparation for a cutthroat system, but that's no different from high schools in any country that I know of. High school students in America don't get into MIT on good intentions, they get in with good grades and hard work in high school. The same is true in Japan.
What I will concede is that Japan adds another level by having this happen first at high school entrance.
And while exam hell is hell, that does not mean that school is cutthroat. Entrance exams are cutthroat. School is just fucking hard.
Your semantics > my semantics.
My implication was that since some people prefer to play games on their consoles, and some people only have an XBox, it would be a big deal for them. Obviously, not a big deal for PS2 owners. I should have been more explicit.
...There are FFXI and Everquest on PS2 because TFLO would be the first MMORPG on the XBox?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the article isn't talking about the content creators, but the grunt work that draws the cels that fit in between the key slides.
It's more analogous to the musicians in a band getting paid a lot, but their roadies making minimum wage.
While I don't directly disagree with what you're saying overall, outsourcing can often be disastrous because it isn't good quality at the lowest prices, it's just offering things at the lowest prices, period.
National motto? Since when?
Unruly during set hours? Since when?
Drunk killings rarely prosecuted? Since when?
I've lived in Japan for a third of my life, but this is all news to me.
You'll pardon me if I'm a wee bit skeptical.
Trolls? Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, meet pot.
Yes, Japan's government is owned by big business.
As for "strictness", your examples are "cut-throat schooling", which, I confess, I don't really understand. Japanese schools are not based on a bell curve. If everyone does well on an exam, everyone does well. There is no competition between students, except in the case of high school entrance and college entrance exams. I fail to see what is cutthroat.
As for getting them ready for the same pace at work blah blah blah stuff from books about Japan written in the 1980s...You recommended reading some books instead of listening to high school friends. I recommend talking to an actual Japanese person, or visiting Japan, instead of using 20 year old information.
I work in the granddaddy of Japanese companies. We have no calisthenics. We have no enforced drinking with the boss. The most draconic thing is that we have to wear suits, even though we don't meet with clients. That's it.
And as far as outside of the company, there is a lot more freedom here in Japan than I ever experienced in the US. Talking to other Americans living here, the feeling is apparently fairly common.
The only surprise here is that there were any animators doing cel work in Japan at all. As in the case of American animation, one would think that all of the cel work would have gone to South Korea by now.
Talking to a coworker here (I work in Tokyo), this probably goes back to a pretty famous episode of a pretty unfamous show (coworker has gone home, so I don't have the name of the show), which was sent to Korea for animation. When it came back, it was a horribly slipshod, barely animated product (sounds like most TV anime to me, but he said it was far worse than usual), but they had to either show it or nothing, so they showed it, and it became apparently famous for being so bad.
When watching the Simpsons DVDs, the commentary track mentions Korean animation a lot, and the basic idea I got was that you had to persevere, send bits back to be reanimated, and really ride the animators to get them to make a good product, but once they were "broken in", they did OK. Japan has a much, MUCH, MUCH bigger emphasis on quality control, so I'm not surprised that they are avoiding sending stuff to Korea to be animated. And what they are sending over, they're being very very quiet about.