Analyst Insists That Japanese Games Are Irrelevant

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Despite the fact that some of this year’s highest-rated and best-selling games are Japanese, analyst Michael Pachter doesn’t think they matter and considers them irrelevant to the larger market. He suggests that games can only be successful nowadays if they have “western appeal,” implying that Japanese games are merely a niche. He does admit that Nintendo is a big exception, however.

“Persona 5 was really, seriously, the first Japanese game that I liked in years, outside of Kojima and Nintendo stuff. But no, I don’t think it matters. There’s going to be the occasional Final Fantasy that will sell like 8 or 10 or 20 million games, but the Japanese games that ultimately work are games like Metal Gear, the ones that have a western appeal to them, those are the ones that have mass appeal. The ones that have Japanese appeal, don’t have mass appeal, and they don’t translate well to other cultures.”
 
Seconded. Japanese games, while relevant to Japan and Japanophiles everywhere, kind of just means "You'll hate the controls and the story will essentially translate to a Mad Lib, also, hope you like games centered around pattern-memorizing boss fights like you hated back in 1988!".......yeah so, you know, bias.

Call of Duty you expect sales in the tens of millions, any japanese-developed property you could probably just sell the "LE with Statue and Card Game included" versions for $120 and sell the same amount of copies...
 
This isn't the SNES day. Japanese games became pretty niche after the PS2 era.
 
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From the blurb, I agree. Most of the games out of Japan these days are niche or smaller titles. There is nothing wrong with that though and it does not make them "irrelevant" to the mass market. The COD bros or whatnot might not be buying these games, but they still have a ton of influence on the market as a whole. Japanese devs play western games and Western devs play Japanese games, you can see the influences from both parts of the world intermingle in games and change the way they're made and what each studio takes away from their experiences. There is a danger in telling Japanese studios to be more "Western" it ends up stuff like RE6 or DmC.

Edit: Also, Patcher is the idiot that said PC gaming is dead a few years ago when he had a show on GameTrailers, so his word doesn't mean much.
 
Directed - Hideo Kojima
Produced - Hideo Kojima
Written - Hideo Kojima
Level Design - Hideo Kojima
Lead Planner - Hideo Kojima
Project Manager - Hideo Kojima
Created - Hideo Kojima
Technical Director - Hideo Kojima
Lead Animator - Hideo Kojima
Sound Design - Hideo Kojima
Best Boy - Hideo Kojima
Grip - Hideo Kojima
Hideo Kojima - Hideo Kojima
 
More importantly, who is this Michael Pachter and why is he relevant?

I mean, I don't disagree with what he said about Japanese games but the article and the linked interview in the article prop him up as some type of gaming Nostradamus. Never heard of him.
 
It's true for me. I greatly dislike the prevalent art style and character archetypes, didn't grow up with a Playstation OR Nintendo so I have no nostalgia or connection with Japanese franchises. They may as well not exist as far as I'm personally concerned as a consumer.

Since I make video games for a living, I do have to wade into the Japanese gaming muck just to keep relevant and not get outed by my otaku co-workers as a heretic. But I don't buy them.
 
Sonicks said:
More importantly, who is this Michael Pachter and why is he relevant?

I mean, I don't disagree with what he said about Japanese games but the article and the linked interview in the article prop him up as some type of gaming Nostradamus. Never heard of him.
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He is infact irrelevant, he's been spouting off stupid shit for the past decade or so about consoles. If I recall rightly he always came off as a bit of an Xbox shill.


Overtly Japanese games, the type meant to appeal to the Japanese, he's right they aren't mass market appeal. His dumbass though wants to write off basically all Japanese studios from the quote. There are a lot of Japanese games that appeal wonderfully to the western market. Capcom has been doing it for years with mixed success.
 
So, 'games that don't appeal to The West won't appeal to The West'? Thanks, Captain Bumblefuck; without your marketing acumen, the gaming world might have wasted its time on something that wasn't CoD or Skyrim.

Let us now throw out all the failed Japanese experiments that never sold or influenced anything:
  • Most Action RPGs (No one cares about the SoulsBorne games. Or Monster Hunter.)
  • Anything JRPG (Pokemon doesn't count, because 'Nintendo'! Final Fantasy doesn't count, because 'my narrative'!)
  • Almost all Fighting Games (Street Fighter never amounted to anything. Nor did half of the Neo-Geo catalog.)
  • Survival Horror (Not like anyone would care if a Silent Hill game were canceled. And the genre is clearly never coming back.)
  • Visual Novels (No one has time for reading. And it's not like the genre is in the middle of a massive resurgence in the indie scene.)
  • 'Bullet Hell' Shooters
  • A whole mess of Puzzle Games
  • Might as well just lump the PS4 as a whole on top of the pile before we set it on fire. Not like anyone ever bought the thing.
Or, maybe we could accept that not everything that's made in Japan is weeaboo bullshit. That said 'weeabullshit' is a specific niche genre made for a specific niche market. And that the Japanese game industry has produced a broad range of popular and influential games, and will continue to do so.
 
Were they ever ?

XenIneX said:
So, 'games that don't appeal to The West won't appeal to The West'? Thanks, Captain Bumblefuck; without your marketing acumen, the gaming world might have wasted its time on something that wasn't CoD or Skyrim.

Let us now throw out all the failed Japanese experiments that never sold or influenced anything:
  • Most Action RPGs (No one cares about the SoulsBorne games. Or Monster Hunter.)
  • Anything JRPG (Pokemon doesn't count, because 'Nintendo'! Final Fantasy doesn't count, because 'my narrative'!)
  • Almost all Fighting Games (Street Fighter never amounted to anything. Nor did half of the Neo-Geo catalog.)
  • Survival Horror (Not like anyone would care if a Silent Hill game were canceled. And the genre is clearly never coming back.)
  • Visual Novels (No one has time for reading. And it's not like the genre is in the middle of a massive resurgence in the indie scene.)
  • 'Bullet Hell' Shooters
  • A whole mess of Puzzle Games
  • Might as well just lump the PS4 as a whole on top of the pile before we set it on fire. Not like anyone ever bought the thing.
Or, maybe we could accept that not everything that's made in Japan is weeaboo bullshit. That said 'weeabullshit' is a specific niche genre made for a specific niche market. And that the Japanese game industry has produced a broad range of popular and influential games, and will continue to do so.
Click to expand...
None of those mean anything to me. Well actually the only one that i know is Street Fighter, but Mortal Kombat was always better by no small margin.

And before you start Call of Duty means nothing to me as well.
 
It's true but even more so I think for PC gamers. Japanese games haven't been relevant to me since I was a kid playing SNES and Genesis. They may as well not exist for all I care.
 
HeadRusch said:
Seconded. Japanese games, while relevant to Japan and Japanophiles everywhere, kind of just means "You'll hate the controls and the story will essentially translate to a Mad Lib, also, hope you like games centered around pattern-memorizing boss fights like you hated back in 1988!".......yeah so, you know, bias.

Call of Duty you expect sales in the tens of millions, any japanese-developed property you could probably just sell the "LE with Statue and Card Game included" versions for $120 and sell the same amount of copies...
Click to expand...

You took the thoughts out of my head.

New Zelda was great... the only negatives are the freaking Japanesey parts. No need to do a stupid dance, just give me more elfin inventory slots.
 
Whether this is true or not, it couldn't come from a more useless source:

http://segmentnext.com/2015/12/10/a-visionary-history-of-michael-pachters-bold-predictions/

Some of his past amazing predictions:

-The Wii wouldn't be able to compete against the Xbox 360 and PS3
-The PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii would be the last consoles
-The Xbox One will outsell the PS4
-GTA IV would sell a lot of copies (guess he called that one, a visionary)

He's literally wrong about more things that he is right. I think I read before the ration is about 75%. He DID call PC gamers arrogant twits who are like racists however:

http://wccftech.com/pachter-pc-gamers-racists-arrogant/

I guess that's why news outlets keep publishing what he says.
 
Why do i always feel this kind of debate always end down in i. "I more right to love my favorit kind of games than you are right to love your favorite kind of games"
 
I don't disagree with this sentiment even though it makes me quite sad. Having worked in some of these companies I have to agree that the majority of development dollars are going to less expensive studios, often in Europe to develop actual major titles because the cost of internally developing in Japan for console became prohibitive except for the otaku niche where you can't export the work. They can push all the risk to the studios if dev goes south, whereas they'd have to take on significantly more risk with an internal team. If there is a breakout hit great but that's frosting, not meat. Besides all the big money is from mobile games within Japan these days.
 
XenIneX said:
So, 'games that don't appeal to The West won't appeal to The West'? Thanks, Captain Bumblefuck; without your marketing acumen, the gaming world might have wasted its time on something that wasn't CoD or Skyrim.

Let us now throw out all the failed Japanese experiments that never sold or influenced anything:
  • Most Action RPGs (No one cares about the SoulsBorne games. Or Monster Hunter.)
  • Anything JRPG (Pokemon doesn't count, because 'Nintendo'! Final Fantasy doesn't count, because 'my narrative'!)
  • Almost all Fighting Games (Street Fighter never amounted to anything. Nor did half of the Neo-Geo catalog.)
  • Survival Horror (Not like anyone would care if a Silent Hill game were canceled. And the genre is clearly never coming back.)
  • Visual Novels (No one has time for reading. And it's not like the genre is in the middle of a massive resurgence in the indie scene.)
  • 'Bullet Hell' Shooters
  • A whole mess of Puzzle Games
  • Might as well just lump the PS4 as a whole on top of the pile before we set it on fire. Not like anyone ever bought the thing.
Or, maybe we could accept that not everything that's made in Japan is weeaboo bullshit. That said 'weeabullshit' is a specific niche genre made for a specific niche market. And that the Japanese game industry has produced a broad range of popular and influential games, and will continue to do so.
Click to expand...


the problem is none of those made it to the PC when PC gaming was popular...
 
This guy is a moron who doesn't know shit. I'll put him in the same category as those decrying the loss of the PC.
 
Japanese games may be a niche, but it doesn't make them any less relevant, IMO.

And I'm glad that many Japanese developers continue to port their titles over to western/English market.

Would be boring if the market is only filled with western style games.
 
This is a pretty one sided opinion based article. There are only a few studios pumping out 10 million sellers these days so i'm not sure how he could consider only games of that caliber as being relevant. There are plenty of japanese games that sell good numbers for their respective studios, enough to continue warranting sequels year after year. If a game is good, there is enough internet out there that their will be an audience that finds it. Articles like this that should have started and ended in a tweet, are seeking the same mass market sheeple that buy the games he says can only be relevant.
 
tetris42 said:
Whether this is true or not, it couldn't come from a more useless source:

http://segmentnext.com/2015/12/10/a-visionary-history-of-michael-pachters-bold-predictions/

Some of his past amazing predictions:

-The Wii wouldn't be able to compete against the Xbox 360 and PS3
-The PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii would be the last consoles
-The Xbox One will outsell the PS4
-GTA IV would sell a lot of copies (guess he called that one, a visionary)

He's literally wrong about more things that he is right. I think I read before the ration is about 75%. He DID call PC gamers arrogant twits who are like racists however:

http://wccftech.com/pachter-pc-gamers-racists-arrogant/

I guess that's why news outlets keep publishing what he says.
Click to expand...

Accurate predictions don't get clicks.

Clicks make money.

The media is after money.

The media makes ludicrous and fantastical predictions.
 
And those weird cartoons too.....you can't tell a serious story with cartoons! They will NEVER catch on in the West!
 
oldmanbal said:
This is a pretty one sided opinion based article. There are only a few studios pumping out 10 million sellers these days so i'm not sure how he could consider only games of that caliber as being relevant. There are plenty of japanese games that sell good numbers for their respective studios, enough to continue warranting sequels year after year.
Click to expand...

I don't know how related their gaming industry is to their movie and music industry, but the Japanese music and movie industry just doesn't really seem to care if people outside Japan enjoy their product. If it hadn't been for Pixar's John Lasseter's personal interest, we probably wouldn't even have access to Japan’s most commercially successful filmmaker. And forget trying to buy Japanese soundtracks in America.
 
JRPGs maybe. I haven't really enjoyed a JRPG since the SNES days (outside of a few Final Fantasy games).
 
NeoNemesis said:
JRPGs maybe. I haven't really enjoyed a JRPG since the SNES days (outside of a few Final Fantasy games).
Click to expand...

This was the last one I played....I enjoyed it AND it had couch co-op (y)

Eternal_Sonata.jpg
 
westrock2000 said:
I don't know how related their gaming industry is to their movie and music industry, but the Japanese music and movie industry just doesn't really seem to care if people outside Japan enjoy their product. If it hadn't been for Pixar's John Lasseter's personal interest, we probably wouldn't even have access to Japan’s most commercially successful filmmaker. And forget trying to buy Japanese soundtracks in America.
Click to expand...

If it wasn't for fansub groups, I would have NEVER been able to watch virtually any of my favorite anime shows/movies all time. When they are available, they were almost impossible to get access to in the 90s and early 2000s. Now when available you can find them (at typically inflated prices), but at least have more access. Regardless, many excellent productions still don't grace the english market. Japan has always had a REMARKABLE STRONG market for Japanese only games when you compare it to how many people actually live there. Not everyone wants to make a cookie cutter AAA game pandering to the avg gamer. Some people prefer to follow their artistic passions and create projects of love and devotion. I probably wouldn't give a shit about my product if my boss kept telling me to make it more like call of duty every time we had a staff meeting.
 
To give the author SOME credit, I actually use, exclusively, the numbers of phones sold outside of its country of origin in order to actually judge its popularity, since if I didn't, most of the list would have been taken by Chinese brands (Mi, Huawei, etc) selling to Chinese people, which have a VERY large population (and makes me wonder why I never heard of any other populous countries, like India, selling phones anywhere near them), so I generally remove its local population sales. For Samsung, it's easy because Korea is a very small country, but Chinese phones tend to be near impossible to find out.

Back on topic, I play equal amounts of J games and W games. There are some genres that J does (or appeals to me) better, and some that W does better.

Essentially, if I want serious games, W games. If I want humorous games, I go J.
 
M76 said:
Were they ever ?


None of those mean anything to me. Well actually the only one that i know is Street Fighter, but Mortal Kombat was always better by no small margin.

And before you start Call of Duty means nothing to me as well.
Click to expand...
R_vXH6.gif

tetris42 said:
Whether this is true or not, it couldn't come from a more useless source:

http://segmentnext.com/2015/12/10/a-visionary-history-of-michael-pachters-bold-predictions/

Some of his past amazing predictions:

-The Wii wouldn't be able to compete against the Xbox 360 and PS3
-The PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii would be the last consoles
-The Xbox One will outsell the PS4
-GTA IV would sell a lot of copies (guess he called that one, a visionary)

He's literally wrong about more things that he is right. I think I read before the ration is about 75%. He DID call PC gamers arrogant twits who are like racists however:

http://wccftech.com/pachter-pc-gamers-racists-arrogant/

I guess that's why news outlets keep publishing what he says.
Click to expand...
While I agree, that first website is cancer. My memory usage shot up to 1GB from 200MB when I clicked on the link. That deserves an archive.

https://archive.is/zhIp6
Verge said:
Accurate predictions don't get clicks.

Clicks make money.

The media is after money.

The media makes ludicrous and fantastical predictions.
Click to expand...
More importantly, they make assertions that are guaranteed to be controversial, and Pachter is the master in this regard. I've ignored him like the troll he is for the past 10 years, though.
 
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