Games -- RE: TV news question

[Thouny]

Thank you for the precision. I was only using the
opposition PS2 and XBox as an example to illustrate my
(theoretical) point, without really wanting to address the
issue of the financial success of PS2 and XBox as such. Yet
I do believe the issue of realism and artificiality is
relevant in the reception of games in Japan and America.
And actually, American games for PS2 are gettin more and
more popular here (I am thinking of games based on movies
like Harry Potter) among youngers.

 --- Jean Pierre Kellams <tetsuo at technolustomega.net>
wrote: 
> "Without falling into some kind of cultural essentialism,
> one could link that, maybe, to the taste for
> artificiality
> vs realism, as can be seen among young Japanese with the
> use of 2D cell-animation structure in both animation
> (mixed-up with 3D state-of-the-art animation) and video
> games (PS2 vs XBox)."
> 
> I'd like to quickly address a point on your thought about
> video games. I
> think the PS2 vs X-Box may very well be valid, but it is
> clouded a great
> deal by the fact that very few Japanese developers create
> games for the
> X-Box. Outside of Tecmo and Sega, very few developers
> wanted anything to
> do with the X-Box, and thus a vicious cycle was created
> in which a
> limited userbase was not attractive to Japanese
> developers, and the
> userbase would not expand without Japanese developed
> games. The perfect
> example of this would be the fiasco involving True
> Fantasy Online Live
> developed by Dragon Quest 8/Dark Cloud developer Level 5.
> They were
> funded a great deal of money to develop a very Japanese
> online RPG, only
> to have the limited user base in Japan make releasing the
> game a
> financial mistake. So maybe the choice is not between
> artificiality and
> realism, but between Japanese developed games and
> American developer
> ones. 
> 
> I would invite members of the list interested in this
> subject (Japanese
> video games) to check out a recent book published by
> Prima called Power
> Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life
> by Chris
> Kohler. It has been clearanced by the GameStop chain of
> video game
> retailers and you may actually be able to pick one up for
> $0.01 if you
> wish to put in legwork beyond Amazon.com. You may also
> want to check out
> http://www.tokyopia.com, a site populated by British and
> American
> citizens working in the game industry in Japan. 
> 
> 
>  

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