Past creating the DmC page and seeing that Radiant Silvergun was (OMG!) getting a release on XBOX Live Arcade, I didn't really have the fortune of paying much attention to TGS last week, so I went to various websites to get my fill of information. Among the various news stories, game announcements and interviews as a little bit where Keiji Inafune, Lord of Awesome at Capcom, mentions that he believes that Japan is "5 years behind" the times when it comes to game making. 
 
The main reasons? 
 
1) Japanese developers stick to tried-and-true formulae. 
2) From the business side, Japanese companies aren't willing to make the proper investments towards development and marketing. 
3) Many Japanese aren't taking "globalization" seriously, specifically in terms of understanding foreign tastes (probably closely related to item 1). 
 
Last week on the podcast (for which I was absent), Pete mentioned that he felt that TGS just wasn't as big of a deal in recent years. Either last year or the year before, this similar type of conversation occurred on the erstwhile 1up Yours a.k.a. 4 Guys 1up (I believe it was Mark MacDonald specifically who spurred this discussion). Year after year, it seems as if there's always some conversation about Japan becoming either less relevant, less in touch, or just... less, period, in the realm of gaming, with noted exception towards Nintendo and Sony's in-house development. 
 
Personally, I find it interesting that taking a formulaic approach is cited by Inafune as a prime reason for Japan's supposed lagging status. Over here in the States, we've got Activision pumping out Guitar Hero after Guitar Hero with little being implemented to shake things up. There's always a first person shooter here, a cover-based shooter there, and some open-world sandbox game in the middle. People here eat that shit up. Over in Japan, people eat Monster Hunter up. They will flock to any Dragon Quest release, day one. Yet, like our shooters and Madden and Guitar Hero, those games barely change. Maybe it's just that the formula works for only very well-revered franchises, just like over here, but still, the first two reasons seem like reasons that plague struggling developers over here as well. 
 
The third reason is the one I find most interesting. I was perusing Gamespot's TGS coverage when I saw that it had posted an interview with Deus Ex: Human Revolution's producer. The blurb for the blog post was this: " Deus Ex: Human Revolution has been a big hit at TGS 2010..." 
 
Oro? A decidedly "western" game being a huge hit in Japan? 
 
Now, I have no idea if they were referring to the press only, or also the public (TGS is traditionally open to the public after a few press-only days), but can anyone help refresh my memory with how well games like Oblivion, Fallout 3, and other similar games were received? I hear many people saying that the "balance of power" has shifted westward and that Japanese developers could learn a thing or two from western devs, but I never thought that the general gaming public would be ready to accept it. Is Japan finally ready for one-man, open-world RPG's with more action and fewer menu commands? Will games like Vanquish (which I am absolutely dying to try) succeed on both shores? And whether or not they do, is it time for Japan to stimulate its own indie games market such that it hopefully sees a boon in that area like we've been seeing here in the states? 
 
I truly hope Japan "catches up" or does whatever it needs to do for Inafune to deem it "in touch" with games today in general. It and its culture have given us too many great things for me to see its own developers chastise its status without feeling sad about its state of affairs. 
 
What do you guys think?