Almost Too Late

Game Republic's Yoshiki Okamoto today offered a pessimistic assessment of whether or not Japanese developers will ever catch back up with Western developers. He echoes the sentiments of Silent Hill: Homecoming producer Akira Yamaoka, who said late last year, 'Japan is in trouble' and Hideo Kojima who commented that Japan's leadership in the gaming sphere was 'becoming a thing of the past.'

"It's almost too late," said Okamoto according to a Kotaku translation. "During the Famicom (NES) era, Japanese video games comprised 70 percent of all video games. And currently, it's like 15 or 20 percent, isn't it? Now, Western games are more advanced. For games like GTA IV, those guys are spending something like 5 or 10 years to make them. Even if we thought about catching up with them now, they'd still be making progress. But, not necessarily giving up, it's just not possible to catch up in a single lifetime."