Hooligans of the Night

TOKYO -- This year's Tokyo Game Show was defined not only by what was on the expo floor as what was conspicuous by its near-absence: High-definition, next-generation videogames.

Oh, sure, there were some. Microsoft's booth was full of them. Sony's had a few. But PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 software only accounted for about 10% of the games on show at TGS 2008. And most of these were games that we'd been hearing about forever and ever, games that Japan's publishers were just trying to get out the door already: Resident Evil 5. The Last Remnant. Final Fantasy XIII (a video of it, anyway).

And of course there were plenty of American games, games that wouldn't have been released in Japan but for the sheer lack of content on the Xbox 360 shelves there -- Fallout 3, Fable II, Tom Clancy's Everything.

But brand-new, Japan-made next-gen games? Few and far between. Why? To hear some developers tell it, there's no money. Others say it's because Japanese developers are too fixated on making games for Japan while the rest of the market goes global. Whatever the reason, it's foolish to expect Japan to start churning out hi-def games with any regularity, anytime soon.

On the first day of Tokyo Game Show, the press received a packet of information that contained, among other things, a breakdown by percentage of how many games for each console were on the show floor. Nintendo DS was dominant, accounting for nearly 20% of the games. Wii and PSP had about 7% each. (That was a pretty big jump for PSP, owing to its newfound if belated popularity in Japan.)

Xbox 360 also snared about 7% of the total, but PlayStation 3 only 3.5%. This isn't something that anyone would have predicted a few years ago. And even if they had, they would have reversed those two numbers -- how on earth could Japan's own PS3 be overshadowed by Xbox 360, the giant American box from hell, the laughingstock of Tokyo gamer circles?

I'm certainly not about to say that Xbox 360 is "making a comeback" in Japan. That phrase would imply that it is actually possible to win. Ditto PSP: It is never going to be the dominant portable gaming console in any territory. But it is finally a much more attractive platform for publishers in Japan, and the Xbox 360 may very well find itself there too if the trend continues.

And you cannot deny the trend. Xbox 360 has outsold PlayStation 3 in Japan by significant amounts for the last six weeks. Last week, Xbox 360 sold 7,856 units to PS3's 4,725 -- which was PS3's lowest sales week ever. 360 has outsold PS3 before, yes -- but in weeks with a huge software release. Yes, the spike in 360's popularity began with the release of the popular game Tales of Vesperia. But the fact that it's been continuing with no other reason than the new lower price points to a permanent boost.

This disparity needn't last forever, of course. Sony could lower PlayStation 3's price to the 360 and Wii's level, but they're not going to be able to afford to do that for a long time. Certainly games like Final Fantasy XIII will help, but the only permanent boost to a console's fortunes comes with either a price drop or an explosive killer app like Nintendogs or Brain Age -- of which zero are on the horizon.

But this really isn't about PlayStation 3 versus Xbox 360. It's about PS3 and 360 versus everything else. The 360's recent relative success versus PlayStation 3, I believe, is not attributable to the fact that Microsoft understands the Japanese market better than Sony. (How could they?) It is attributable to the sheer cost of next-gen game development and the lack of interest in next-gen, in general, among Japanese consumers.

Why are all of these huge Japanese games coming out on Xbox 360? Why would Namco Bandai make Vesperia for Xbox 360 instead of PS3? Why would Square Enix be releasing an avalanche of role-playing games for Xbox 360 -- Infinite Undiscovery, The Last Remnant, Star Ocean 4 -- before even releasing a single PlayStation 3 title?

Japanese gamemakers, like everyone else, are still coming to grips with the realities of next-gen game development. They knew it would be expensive, labor-intensive, time-consuming, and difficult -- but like everyone else they underestimated to what extent. Certainly we saw a lot of cases early on in the U.S. where the PlayStation 3 versions of games were released after the Xbox versions, or never released at all, just because it was easier to get the game finished for Xbox 360. The Last Remnant was supposed to be multiplatform; now it's 360-only with a PS3 version off somewhere in the unspecified future.

But besides this, publishers are adopting an increasingly more global outlook. And though Xbox 360 might have tanked in Japan, it's doing just fine in North America and Europe. And these days, Western gamers are just as interested in big-name Japanese role-playing games as their counterparts in Tokyo are. It used to be the case that Japanese gamemakers could create games just for Japan, make their money back on domestic sales, then go after overseas markets for the gravy. Not so anymore.

That's why we're seeing so many Japanese games end up on 360. And Japanese hard-core gamers were only going to hold out for so long, with Xbox getting so much content that they crave and PlayStation 3 having not much of anything. There was bound to be some point at which the 360's lower price and better game lineup would make it significantly more appealing. (Relatively speaking. Both consoles are in a desperate fight just to stay out of last place, down in Wonderswan territory.)

The global market is exactly what Resident Evil producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi had in mind when I interviewed him following the premiere of the Resident Evil CG movie. With the DS and PSP dominating the mindshare, I asked, didn't the future look a bit bleak for game consoles?

"I don't see game consoles disappearing," he said. "They'll always be around -- but for videogames that appeal globally. I don't think consoles will be around for games that are in certain markets only."

But, he noted, "many of the companies here in Japan create games only for Japan." That's why they're gravitating towards Wii, PSP, and Nintendo DS -- lower-powered hardware and smaller budgets means that they can create games just for Japan, follow the traditional model, and make money.

Don't Japanese gamers, though, want the same kinds of amazing experiences that the rest of us are getting with our PlayStation 3s and Xbox 360s? The widescreen, high-def graphics, the cinematic presentations, the hard drives full of content? Um, apparently not. You could probably write a master's thesis about why and still not cover all of the variables. For purposes of this discussion, I don't think it's too much of a simplification to note that Japanese pop culture has never trended too close to the realistic, that not only can the cartoon-style graphics that Wii and PSP generate be good enough, they could be preferable.

And yet, this disparity might end up giving Japan a window of opportunity, all over again. When Japanese game publishers first made major headway into the U.S. console market, it was all thanks to the success of the Nintendo Entertainment System. American publishers, following the 1983 shakeout, had by and large moved to making game software for personal computers -- well, the ones of them that were left, anyway.

This, too, could have been read as a potential weak moment for Japanese gamemakers, whose area of expertise, arcade-style games, was on the decline. But the big software publishers like Capcom and Konami quickly established major presences in the U.S. on the strength of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Sure, American publishers like Acclaim got in on the game early on, but their early product was so terrible that it opened a door for Japanese games to catch on in a big way with American audiences.

I'm certainly not about to label all Western-developed Wii games as poor and all Japanese ones as excellent, but if Wii is the decisive winner in Japan in terms of software sales, you'll see the full force of these publishers being applied to the creation of (relatively) big-budget Wii games with solid gameplay value. Meanwhile, Western publishers will still be concentrating on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 -- and why wouldn't they, as they sell more games that way. For now.

Some of Japan's game publishers seem to get it. Look at Marvelous. Its entire booth was filled with games for Wii and Nintendo DS, from a No More Heroes sequel to Wii versions of its DS role-playing games. Marvelous thinks it's on to something. Capcom, while it had globally-oriented next-gen product like Resident Evil 5 and Bionic Commando, also seemed to have cottoned on to Wii's success and was throwing its weight behind big games like the new Dead Rising and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom... not to mention the latest in the Monster Hunter series, which drew the longest lines at the show and will almost certainly be the first million-selling third-party Wii game in Japan.

But not everyone is so prepared. These are the odd, awkward years for Wii -- it's become eminently clear that Nintendo's platform will win the console wars in a Reaganesque landslide, and that only the most promising, globally appealing Japanese PS3 and 360 projects will see the light of day. But even if Tecmo, Konami, and other latecomers to the Mario party can see the writing on the wall, it'll take a while before they actually get seriously good games on shelves. For the time being, all they had on show were half-assed ports (Tecmo's Rygar) or half-baked spin-offs (Konami's Castlevania Judgment).

But what of those developers who don't want to follow the leader, and want to create big next-gen projects? Well, this could herald another major shift in how the Japanese game industry works. Indie Japanese devs could begin partnering more and more with Western game publishers, who will give them the resources (read: cash) they need to produce their games.

Recall ex-Capcom creator Shinji Mikami, on the reason behind his deal with Electronic Arts: "Because there were no publishers in Japan willing to put up the money for this big a project."

But this project is hardly the only example: Look at Elite Beat Agents maker Inis, partnering with Microsoft to produce Lips, a game that's currently only scheduled for release in the U.S. and Europe. Or how the makers of Cooking Mama and Parappa the Rapper are now working directly with U.S. publisher Majesco.

Other publishers are deliberately pursuing American audiences over their own countrymen -- see Tecmo's announcement of Quantum Theory, a third-person shooter for PlayStation 3 that looks like nothing so much as Gears of War.

And there's something else that really should not go without mention. Electronic Gaming Monthly recently devoted an entire issue to Japan, with an article that had a great deal of head-scratching about the decline in quality of Japanese games and of their importance in overseas markets. But what no one thought to mention is that Japanese games are all over the U.S. NPD reports right now. Mario Kart Wii. Wii Fit. Wii Play. Made by Japanese people, in Japan.

The single defining videogame of the last few years, the one that changed the face of the entire industry, is Japanese: Wii Sports. Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking:

"Oh, come on now -- those aren't real videogames."

But they are proof that Japan has not lost its ability to create videogames that capture the imaginations of a worldwide audience while raking in millions. Nintendo saw the writing on the wall -- people called them crazy for it, but they saw the dead end represented by business as usual. Game publishers just need to figure out how to turn Japan's next-gen worries into an advantage.

Japanese gamemakers, like everyone else, are still coming to grips with the realities of next-gen game development. They knew it would be expensive, labor-intensive, time-consuming, and difficult -- but like everyone else they underestimated to what extent. Certainly we saw a lot of cases early on in the U.S. where the PlayStation 3 versions of games were released after the Xbox versions, or never released at all, just because it was easier to get the game finished for Xbox 360. The Last Remnant was supposed to be multiplatform; now it's 360-only with a PS3 version off somewhere in the unspecified future.

. And these days, Western gamers are just as interested in big-name Japanese role-playing games as their counterparts in Tokyo are. It used to be the case that Japanese gamemakers could create games just for Japan, make their money back on domestic sales, then go after overseas markets for the gravy. Not so anymore.

Either way, I'm not averse to playing games on Wii, in fact I'd be happy as a pig in shit if developers would start putting games on Wii and allow use for the classic controller. It's not the graphics that I hate about the Wii, it's that they seem compelled to throw annoying controls in games that don't need them.

This article pretty much confirms that in the future we get more Wii Sports, Fit, Music, etc type games and less games like MGS, RE, etc.