Capcom’s Inafune Gets Sour at TGS

With the Tokyo Game Show wrapping up, it’s a time for all the games journalists of the world to remember the awesome things they’ve seen, like Peace Walker and everything Final Fantasy. For others, it’s a time to bemoan the fall of the Japanese game industry. One such sour-puss is Capcom’s Keiji Inafune, creator of Mega Man and my personal favorite, Dead Rising.

Where others looked around the TGS show floor and saw hope for Japan’s flagging creative teams, Inafune saw only despair and darkness. Quoth the raven:

“Personally when I looked around [at] all the different games at the TGS floor, I said, ‘Man, Japan is over. We’re done. Our game industry is finished.'”

Harsh words, Mr. Inafune. While the games industry has kind of turned on its heel in the last decade or so, being predominantly a Western enterprise, I don’t really think that Japan is “finished”. Sure, they’re hitting a rough patch, but things will turn around. Right?

Of course, Inafune shouldn’t be taken at face value: he left Capcom out of the list of dismal failures of TGS ’09, and as Destructoid pointed out, avoided mentioning the irony of handing off Dead Rising 2 to a Western company (Canada-based Blue Castle Games).

The decline of the Japanese game industry has been a hot button issue for a while, but I think this is the first time that anyone from inside the the industry has come out and said that we’re looking at the end. What do you guys think? Is Mr. Inafune exaggerating, or will we see the end of Japanese-made games in our lifetime?

Source: 1up

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mitch@gamersushi.com Twitter: @mi7ch Gamertag: Lubeius PSN ID: Lubeius SteamID: Mister_L Origin/EA:Lube182 Currently Playing: PUBG, Rainbow 6: Siege, Assassin's Creed: Origins, Total War: Warhammer 2

8 thoughts on “Capcom’s Inafune Gets Sour at TGS”

  1. I have a feeling Japan will never leave games. I mean come on! Godzilla could rampage through Tokyo seven times a week and they’d still make games and anime and…hentai…ahem AND POCKY! Definitely, Japan is not getting as much glory as Western folks, and that’s because the current generation of gamers (I’d say around my age and you guys’, SFF, age) are interested in simpler genres FPS’s and MMO’s and whatnot, and Western and Korean developers are delivering for this market that happens to include casual gamers who like playing simple games and hardcore gamers who can’t get through to the hardcore games. Japan is sticking to their RPG and Fighter guns, and I say good for ’em! I have a feeling that Japan will be able to get a new wave of gamers and give them a substantial foundation of RPG’s and Adventure games like we had. At the very least, I want to bring my kids up with RPG’s and Adventure games because there’s a direct link for me with childhood and fun Adventure games and RPG’s that can last months because there’s so much story to see. So I hope Japan stays strong, as well as the RPG genre. I just haven’t seen enough RPG’s and Adventure games that can bring me back to the old days. For now, things have changed, Dmitri. Now it is our land. Our people. Our games.

  2. I don’t think it will die, It might slip of the radar for awhile but it will come back. look at westerns or post apocalyptic movies, there was a huge gap of time where we only saw a handful being made, but in the last year or two there have been a number of both western and post apocalyptic films. We have also seen a huge decrees in side scroller games like commander keen or, my personal favorite, cosmos cosmic adventures. This Genre has also seen a number of releases in the last year or to, splosion man comes to mind. Japanese-made games wont die off, they just might take a leave of absence for a few years.

  3. I doubt that it’s over. Yes they’ve fallen VERY behind in terms of, say, online facilities but there are too many popular Japan-made-IPs to mention so he’s definitely exaggeratin.

  4. I think it’s just about done as well. Then I again I don’t care about very many Japanese games, at least these days. They are almost all generic and unoriginal.

  5. look at westerns

    what westerns are you talking about cause I dont remember many good ones for a long while.

    As for the Japanese game industry, I have to say that I never really liked japanese games, so I dont care either way if they go under or not.

  6. Well, I agree, oddly enough. Western game companies have taken over the newest kid on the block, sandbox games. Meanwhile over in Japanland, they’re still working with the tired, decrepit JRPG formula. We get that androgynous teenagers are appealing to both sexes, but please. Stop the level grinding. In today’s fast-paced world, we don’t want to have to fight hordes of slimes in order to advance a story, no matter how good that story, or the graphics driving it, get.

    In their defense, there are some good JRPGS, such as TWEWY, but those are the few that actually make a solid effort to innovate, and keep the deeper customization options optional, to appeal to the more casual gamer. These days, there are two demographics to appeal to; the twitchy trigger-fingered gamer, and the casual gamer. RPGs are a dying breed in general, unfortunately.

    …That’s my two cents worth, at least.

  7. I disagree that RPGs are dying. They are actually innovating IMO. Look at Fallout 3. Its like and RPG-FPS, unless you play with VATS, were it becomes more of a traditional turn-based RPG. And Mass Effect sold well, didnt it? It certainly wouldnt appeal to “twitchy trigger-fingered gamers” or casual games

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