Ideas For Group Assignment

I think I would start with an introduction about the importance of Japanese game developers in the industry. I think I would start talking about Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto. Nintendo pretty much made lots of new innovations to the industry. Miyamoto's Donkey Kong was the first video game to actually include some sort of narrative or storyline. Video games before Donkey Kong were basic shooting games or sports titles where the "high score" was the main objective. Donkey Kong changed all that as Mario had to save his girlfriend who got kidnapped by Donkey Kong. Now every game nowadays has some type of single player mode that includes a storyline or narrative of some sort.

Next I might talk about how the original Nintendo console pretty much saved the video game industry from dying out. In 1983, there was the infamous video game crash. Unlike today where the only consoles available are from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, back then there were heaps of consoles released from several different companies. Supply of video games and video games console were clearly exceeding demand and consumers obviously couldn't afford to buy them all. A lot of video game makers went out of business during this time and it looked like the industry was doomed forever. Thankfully, Nintendo came to the rescue in 1985 to essentially save the entire industry.

I might also delve into the differences between Japanese games and Western ones. I remember reading someone's comment that "shooting" style of video games aren't popular in Japan. This is because the country and strict gun laws. This is a direct contrast to the US where FPS games are the most popular video game genre with the Call of Duty and Halo franchises shooting up the charts. Japanese games usually are more Fantasy based where the characters have big swords or use magic to overcome evil. Games that come to mind include the Final Fantasy series, Devil May Cry series, and the Legend of Zelda series just to name a few.

I might also look at the character design of Japanese games too. Japanese game developers are more creative with their character design than Western developers. Japanese games tend not to be "realistic" so you can get characters that look outrageous. Here is an example of some wacky characters that have been seen in Japanese video games.

Blanka - Street Fighter II:

Kimahri - Final Fantasy X

Mokujin - Tekken Series

Western game developers have not been so creative as of late. There has been some controversy about the lack of diversity and creativity recent games have with their main characters. Here's a look at some recent Western developed games and some of their main characters. Here you will see that they all look exactly the same.

Starkiller - Star Wars The Force Unleashed

Cole McGrath - InFamous Series

Captain Shepard - Mass Effect series 

If I am to make a conclusion on our whole presentation, it would be the state of the Japanese gaming industry and how it stands right now. I will obviously do a bit more research on the subject, but as far as I can tell (I'm already a gaming journalist) Japanese video games are not as popular as they used to be. I mean back in the Nintendo era, games like Super Mario and Legend of Zelda were in everyone's homes. Fast forward to the Super Nintendo/Megadrive era and games like Street Fighter and Sonic the Hedgehog were just as popular too. The Sony PlayStation continued to create popular Japanese gaming franchises with Resident Evil, Final Fantasy VII, Gran Turismo, Tekken and Metal Gear Solid. The PS2 was pretty much a sequel to the PSOne with most of those franchises dishing out popular sequels.

I think with the current console generation, the PS3 and Xbox 360 had more popular Western developed video games. With the exception of Gran Turismo 5 and Metal Gear Solid IV,  most of the best selling games this generation were developed outside of Japan and Asia. Some of the games that spring to mind include FIFA 13, Battlefield 3, Red Dead Redemption and of course the annual Call of Duty series.