Behind the continuous decline of the Japanese gaming industry: the hardware design is unreasonable

Intermediary transaction SEO diagnosis Taobao guest Cloud host technology Hall

[Abstract] The hardware structure is special, the deviation from the mainstream game and the brain drain led to the decline of the Japanese gaming industry.

Tencent Digital Message (compiled: Denver) If you're a video game player from the time of the red-white machine, you might be more interested in Sony PS4 than Microsoft's Xbox One. But you may have noticed that since PS3 began, the traditional Japanese games such as "Final Fantasy" and "biochemical crisis" began to decline, replaced by "Call of Duty" and "Grand Theft rook" and other European and American writings. Clearly, the Japanese gaming industry seems to have completed its mission, the European and American Games began to rise.

Remember the "biochemical crisis" of the Father Rice boat to two? In a recent interview, he clearly expressed the "Japanese gaming industry" is dead. In fact, his own experience confirms this. In 2010, the rice boat to the second left the veteran game maker Capcom, founded its own independent game studio. Japan's mainstream gaming industry, he says, is like a tree that began to wither, though it has not yet completely collapsed, but barely stands. At the same time, emerging gaming markets such as India are developing at a high speed and are expected to become larger in the future.

Unreasonable hardware design

Game developer James Mielke says the reasons for the decline of the Japanese gaming industry are complex, but the underlying cause may come from hardware. For example, Sega and other companies, although once launched the most powerful game host, but the hardware structure of the special cause of game development difficulties, can not get a wide range of game manufacturers support. It all ended with Microsoft's introduction of Xbox,xbox using a common PC architecture that Western game makers are familiar with, and can easily develop game consoles pc Cross-platform games.

Compared with the same period of Japanese game host, Sony's PS2, PS3 have adopted a very unique hardware architecture, resulting in the development of difficulties, high cost and so on, which is why some once exclusive game such as "Final Fantasy", into a ps/xbox cross-platform game, Vendors need to spread high development costs across platforms.

Changes in mainstream game types and the rise of independent games

Not to overlook the decline in purchasing power of Japanese players. Basically, Japanese players are more willing to buy cheap hosts such as Nintendo DS and Wii, which have more innovative games, and this has led to a traditional unsalable. In addition, the Japanese host companies too trenchant market division, resulting in some of the most outstanding games are not listed in the Western market, which also affected sales revenue.

Obviously, Japanese players prefer RPG and other types of games, such as the National-level "Dragon Warrior" series, is basically "Japan's exclusive" type. But the world game market is undergoing change, the type of game such as FPS (first person shooter), action and sandbox (similar to "Grand Theft rook") is gradually becoming mainstream, creating sales records in world markets, and in the case of the Final Fantasy "Hollywood blockbuster" RPG, sales are falling, Then those low-cost traditional Japanese RPG, obviously more no market.

The leaders of the game industry are also changing. Once square, Capcom gradually decline, UBI, EA, Activision and other European and American game manufacturers through continuous efforts to create world-class game brands, such as "Call of Duty", "Assassin's Creed", and so on, these cross-platform masterpiece gradually swallowed the market share of Japanese games.

Can not ignore also has the independent game. The Xbox platform has a wealth of independent game content, they are low-cost development, the game is novel and interesting, the price is very low, by the consumer's welcome. But although Sony also encouraged independent developers to join in the latest PS4, they missed the first round of the rise.

One reason for this is also the form of Web downloads. Japanese players tend to prefer single games to internet gaming services, and people prefer to go to Akihabara to buy CDs instead of paying at home to download games. This buying habit has created the difficulty of promoting independent gaming in the Japanese market.

The loss of well-known game developers

Many well-known, Japan in some ways is a very traditional country, such as corporate system, usually a lifetime contract, seniority, this environment caused a certain innovation difficulties, so we see more and more famous game developers from large companies to exit from another portal, such as rice boat to two, Sakamoto Powerzinc and so on, The new partners they choose are often Microsoft, not Japanese.

Compared to large companies, game developers after independence can develop the game according to their own ideas and intentions, and no longer be limited to large companies and host manufacturers to sign the platform, can be Xbox, PS also can be iOS, Android platform, so as to gain complete control, we also see the " Galak-z, "Stratolith" and other creative new types of games appear. Obviously, after growing to a certain stage, Japan's gaming industry environment is no longer suitable for well-known developers, they are eager for more independent, more free creative space.

Some changes in the Japanese gaming industry

Of course, we believe that the Japanese game giants are more or less aware of this problem, so in Sony's latest mainframe PS4, we see a lot of changes, such as highlighting the PSN platform, netting independent game developers to join, game video sharing mechanism, which is aimed at the European and American and even the world market changes, PS4 is no longer a "Japanese game player" and its goal is worldwide.

But from the bottom, the Japanese gaming industry is still monopolized by large game software companies, cultural structure led to the management of the way in the short term will not be a drastic change, so the developer's creation bottleneck still exists. Of course, more and more well-known developers are independent, may be a good phenomenon, even because the resources, financial relationships can not be launched at the beginning of outstanding works, but the whole game industry has been positive impact.