Pride holding back Japanese devs, says Inafune

Japanese developers are still struggling to compete with their Western counterparts, says Keiji Inafune.

Speaking to IGN, the industry veteran said that pride was a major factor in preventing the once dominant development hub from making a comeback and learning lessons from overseas developers, and has ended up stuck in a domestic market rather than branching out to a global audience.

He stated that although many Japanese developers were becoming increasingly aware of the problems faced by the industry and its approach to development, many still did not know what to do to change things.

“I hope Japanese game developers are breaking through the stagnation,” said Infaune.

“However, the reality isn’t as good as I want it to be. I see they’re starting to be aware of the problem and that they have to do something. They know they have to learn more from western games and create games that’ll sell more in the western market. However, they don’t know what to do or how to do it.”

He added: “Even worse, their pride gets in the way, preventing them from learning from overseas developers. As a result, they end up staying in the domestic market rather than going global."

Keiji Inafune has previously worked on titles such as the Dead Rising series, Mega Man, Resident Evil and Onimusha, and is currently set to collaborate on Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z as producer with Team Ninja and publisher Tecmo Koei.