Why is the Japanese gaming industry not lagging?

Tram Ho

In 1983, the video game bubble exploded, making the gaming industry wobble. At that time, the Americans saw the fall of Atari, and Japan, with Nintendo or Sony, had grown into global influences.

From here on, the golden age of the Japanese gaming industry was opened, and lasted until the 2000s. When the 2007 global financial crisis broke out, the Japanese gaming industry continued to stand firm against the The movement of the game market from offline to online, from console to mobile, has all its reasons.

A very Japanese style

The Japanese discipline and discipline have been of great help to the gaming industry. Thanks to that, the output game products are always guaranteed with Japanese quality, like electronic refrigeration products originating in the country of the rising sun.

The working culture of the Japanese is a smooth flow to create seamless and timely game products. Indeed, a studio like Ubisoft Montreal in Canada has over 3,500 people working on blockbuster projects like Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, or Watch Dogs. With Level-5 or Japan’s FromSoftware, this number is only 300 people and still has famous games like Professor Layton or Souls series.

Vì sao ngành game Nhật Bản không bị tụt hậu? - Ảnh 1.

Japan has many products with its own colors unlike any other game in the world

And in order to compete on the quantity with the sheer number of Chinese games, the Japanese chose to persistently make low-quality, low-quality products. Japan even knows very well to take advantage of the strategy of remake, reboot or remastered, which implies the renewal of an old game. Thanks to that, Japanese games are always attractive and fresh for all ages.

Level-5 President Akihiro Hino once admitted: “ I think what contributes to the change that everyone sees is that instead of competing with AAA games on the big stage, we have shifted our focus to creating something Japanese. I think that’s what touches gamers’ hearts ”.

Atsushi project director Hashimoto at Tokyo RPG Factory (a sub-studio of Square Enix) agrees, saying: “ The way Japanese developers create games is fundamentally not different from the past. . If there is any change, I think it is because we have grasped the tastes of Western customers. At the core, we still make games with the same idea ”.

As a result of this shift, the Japanese gaming industry has seen a return in the second half of 2010. Statistics from Newzoo or Sensor Tower show that Japan is currently in the Top 3 markets with the largest revenue in the world. , after America and China.

Strange brains

Unlike stereotypes in any industry, the Japanese gaming industry has a lot of geniuses, monstrous brains with products that are not like anyone, but only a few typical names like Shigeru Miyamoto (father Mario) or Hideo Kojima (the father of Metal Gear) is also a huge flaw.

There are also geniuses in this era with extremely difficult video games from FromSoftware to billion-dollar mobile games of Mixi and GungHo. There are even Japanese-branded genres like JRPG, short for Japanese role-playing game (referring to the Japanese-style turn-based combat role-playing game genre).

The Japanese genius brains are also very transformative. Instead of lengthy conversations, complicated features, messy menus, Japanese games nowadays are simpler, more action to suit foreign tastes. The results have seen the Japanese game industry rise back strongly with series of tens of millions of copies such as Pokemon, Kingdom Hearts, Monster Hunter or Resident Evil …

Vì sao ngành game Nhật Bản không bị tụt hậu? - Ảnh 2.

Japan still contributes an average of 26.2% to the total revenue of the entire mobile game market in the era of video game change (source: SensorTower).

Under the rising trend of MOBA and battle royale, Japan is persisting with its own path and this is the foundation for the Japanese to hold an unshakable position in the global gaming industry, as the author of Two best-selling books about the game industry, Blake J. Harris once commented:

Without the Japanese contribution, we wouldn’t have a video game industry, or at least not like what we have today. From hardware to software, from controller to gaming culture, no country has a greater influence on home gaming consoles like Japan .

Share the news now

Source : Genk