Tencent & Netease say Japan doesn't produce enough hit games and are thinking of pulling their investments

[mibu no ookami]

Well, aside from Square-Enix and maybe Sega I would have said that Japanesegames were doing pretty well recently.

At the end of the day it is about return on investment and it's hard to argue that there's been enough return from Japan.

Easier for these companies to pump resources into more Chinese companies or do what Sony is doing with their various hero projects around the world.

You can't come to icon-era without seeing people lambast Sony for a lack of Japanese investment, but it seems as though Sony has largely done the right thing with its resources in Japan.

• Gran Turismo 7 is the most successful GT game in a long time
• Astro Bot might be a smash hit developed by only 65 people

Where I would criticize them though was the investment in Rise of the Ronin, Final Fantasy 16, and Final Fantasy Rebirth. Ultimately, these were probably not funds that delivered on their investment and my guess is that Sony will shy away from repeating these types of deals (publishing/exclusivity).

But context always matters. Rise of the Ronin development started in 2015. I'm not sure when Sony and xdev got involved or when if this game was originally slated to hit PS4 or be cross-gen, but it's not generally a recipe for success.

Putting money into internal development is always going to be a better bet to me, especially since you'll own the rights to the final product.

 

[shrike0fth0rns]

They only started buying Japanese studios in 2021, and 2; what did they expect in two years?

They aren't just looking at their output. They are looking at other Japanese publishers and studios. People praise Japanese devs and publishers, but objectively speaking, the Japanese industry plays very well and makes very few new IPs that become big, successful hits. Just look at Nintendo milking the same garbage for nearly four decades. When was the last time they created an entirely new IP? Look at Sega. They've taken hundreds of millions in investment from China, but what have they produced? The same safe-ass crap they have for decades; Bandaid just milks DB and releases another lazy-ass arena fighter for whatever time happens to be a famous arm. Capcom remade and remastered up the ass with no big successful hit ip. Many iconic Japanese directors are working on small projects that won't be hit or give a significant return on investment. The former critical people at Japan studio are making Slither Head a game that looks bad. If Japan Studio still existed, this is the kind of crap they would be trying to push Sony to publish. Great to see sony spotlighting creativity in other regions because Japanese game development has gotten stale in a lot of ways and isn't really pushing gaming forward anymore.

 

[Yurinka]

Ok Tencent, how about if you sell your FromSoft and Kadokawa stakes to Sony?

They only really started buying Japanese studios in 2021 and 2, what did they expect in two years?

They are talking about investments, not about acquisitions only. And they started to invest way more than two years ago.

Outside street fighter & monster hunter there’s not any major japanese live service.

Not true, some examples:

• Final Fantasy XIV is the biggest MMORPG in the world.
• Gran Turismo 7 is the most successful game in the series, or at least was in track in its launch window
• Tekken 8 had the most successful launch for the series and in Steam has better CCU than Tekken 7
• Dragon Ball Fighterz was the best selling ARC System Works ever
• Guilty Gear Strive is the best selling title in the series
• Mario Kart 8 is the most successful game in the series and the best selling Switch game (and depending how you count it is the best selling Nintendo game ever)
• Animal Crossing New Horizons is the most successful game in the series and the best selling Switch game
• Super Smash Bros Ultimate is the best selling game in the series and the top 3 best selling Switch game
• Splatoon 2/3 were also very successful

Their GaaS is more focused on mobile, a market that I didn't follow closely in recent years but I know they have/had several huge success cases there like Monster Strike or Sony's Fate/Grand Order

Oh man what? Why'd they close down the visions of Mana studio?

I assume its owner Netease expected better revenue/profit from the potential they saw in preorders and so on in Visions of Mana, and maybe the development wasn't as smooth as they expected and maybe needed way more money than they wanted to spend on it. If they shut down the studio and put their investment somewhere else is because aren't happy at all with the results of the studio and its potential (in terms of revenue and profit). But on top of this there's also the big picture:

We're in a context of huge inflation and an economic war between USA (+UK+Israel+minions) vs BRICS, while at the same time currencies like dollar or euro and related economies nearing collapse after decades of stupidly printing money as if it was confetti, and also while after its first 50 years growing the global gaming revenue did stop growing (which may mean that the gaming market peaked and may not grow anymore or decrease from there).

Meaning, the huge gaming companies have to be more conservative and careful with their investments trying to ensure the highest profitability possible specially for the short term because if not the inflation will eat that money.

And particularly the ones from China/BRICS, because at any moment USA may make another dumb move as they did with the sanctions to Russia shooting themselves (specially Europe) in the feet, but this time trying to block China. That would fuck all the inversions Chinese companies have outside the BRICS countries, and would also fuck the NA/EU/JP companies where these Chinese companies invested. So for Chinese companies is safer to move their investments in USA & their minion contries like Japan to BRICS countries, China itself if possible to be even safer from external economical attacks or economical collapses.

We're also now in a moment where several Chinese companies like Hoyoverse or Game Science recently had big hits, so for them it's a good moment to invest in Chinese devs.

Before shutting donw a AAA studio companies try to sell it. If they are shutting it down it's because nobody else was insterested on it, didn't want to -or couldn't- pay what it did cost, or they are not in a good moment for acquisitions of a certain size because as mentioned before all the big gaming companies are in conservative mode trying to reduce costs and maximize profits because seems that the winter is coming.

Well, aside from Square-Enix and maybe Sega I would have said that Japanesegames were doing pretty well recently.

Square Enix is doing very well, their games make almost 3X the money they did 10 years ago.

Almost the same can be said about Sega:

Yes, most AAA Japanese development studios or publishers are performing great in recent years. But seems that isn't the case of this Ouka Studios.

 

[AllBizness]

Lots of people blame PlayStation for not investing more into AAA Japanese game development and I think the article lays out a reason why. If Tencent cant even get it popping in Japan on AAA games no one can. The only successful AAA Japanese devs are Polyphony Digital, From Software, and the Monster Hunter devs. And I'm not convinced the next Monster Hunter will do as well as the PS4 game. I think Horizon Online will crush Monster Hunter as it's in the same genre. How can taking down robot dinosaurs in coop not be fun?

 

[Yurinka]

The only successful AAA Japanese devs are Polyphony Digital, From Software, and the Monster Hunter devs.

No. Many AAA Japanese devs are successful: From Software, Kojipro, Bandai Namco, Square Enix, Nintendo, Sega and Konami (plus in case of Capcom other games like DMC, Resident Evil and Street Fighter) are also Japanese.

 

[Neversummer]

Ok Tencent, how about if you sell your FromSoft and Kadokawa stakes to Sony?


They are talking about investments, not about acquisitions only. And they started to invest way more than two years ago.


Not true, some examples:

• Final Fantasy XIV is the biggest MMORPG in the world.
• Gran Turismo 7 is the most successful game in the series, or at least was in track in its launch window
• Tekken 8 had the most successful launch for the series and in Steam has better CCU than Tekken 7
• Dragon Ball Fighterz was the best selling ARC System Works ever
• Guilty Gear Strive is the best selling title in the series
• Mario Kart 8 is the most successful game in the series and the best selling Switch game (and depending how you count it is the best selling Nintendo game ever)
• Animal Crossing New Horizons is the most successful game in the series and the best selling Switch game
• Super Smash Bros Ultimate is the best selling game in the series and the top 3 best selling Switch game
• Splatoon 2/3 were also very successful

Their GaaS is more focused on mobile, a market that I didn't follow closely in recent years but I know they have/had several huge success cases there like Monster Strike or Sony's Fate/Grand Order


I assume its owner Netease expected better revenue/profit from the potential they saw in preorders and so on in Visions of Mana, and maybe the development wasn't as smooth as they expected and maybe needed way more money than they wanted to spend on it. If they shut down the studio and put their investment somewhere else is because aren't happy at all with the results of the studio and its potential (in terms of revenue and profit). But on top of this there's also the big picture:

We're in a context of huge inflation and an economic war between USA (+UK+Israel+minions) vs BRICS, while at the same time currencies like dollar or euro and related economies nearing collapse after decades of stupidly printing money as if it was confetti, and also while after its first 50 years growing the global gaming revenue did stop growing (which may mean that the gaming market peaked and may not grow anymore or decrease from there).

Meaning, the huge gaming companies have to be more conservative and careful with their investments trying to ensure the highest profitability possible specially for the short term because if not the inflation will eat that money.

And particularly the ones from China/BRICS, because at any moment USA may make another dumb move as they did with the sanctions to Russia shooting themselves (specially Europe) in the feet, but this time trying to block China. That would fuck all the inversions Chinese companies have outside the BRICS countries, and would also fuck the NA/EU/JP companies where these Chinese companies invested. So for Chinese companies is safer to move their investments in USA & their minion contries like Japan to BRICS countries, China itself if possible to be even safer from external economical attacks or economical collapses.

We're also now in a moment where several Chinese companies like Hoyoverse or Game Science recently had big hits, so for them it's a good moment to invest in Chinese devs.

Before shutting donw a AAA studio companies try to sell it. If they are shutting it down it's because nobody else was insterested on it, didn't want to -or couldn't- pay what it did cost, or they are not in a good moment for acquisitions of a certain size because as mentioned before all the big gaming companies are in conservative mode trying to reduce costs and maximize profits because seems that the winter is coming.


Square Enix is doing very well, their games make almost 3X the money they did 10 years ago.

Almost the same can be said about Sega:

Yes, most AAA Japanese development studios or publishers are performing great in recent years. But seems that isn't the case of this Ouka Studios.

Tencent salivating on buying Kadokawa. They have mobile studios + production team & fromsoft that make souls game. Tencent salivating at the idea of turning fromsoft elden ring to a mobile gatcha similar to Diablo or turning armor core to a mobile mech game