With the immense success of Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter both domestically and globally, Japanese developer Nihon Falcom has been actively working on more localizations of their titles, while also devising new long-term strategies for expanding their IPs in the West. In a recent interview with Presidents Dictionary, Toshihiro Kondo, CEO and President of Nihon Falcom, talked about the company’s philosophy and where it positions itself against its major global competitors in the industry, like China and Korea.
“Rather than competing in terms of scale, we want to compete globally by honing the creative spirit and originality that’s unique to Japan. Currently, the scale of game development has been enormously expanding on a worldwide level, and we’re now living in an age where having capital strength is considered important,” Kondo notes.
According to Kondo, leveraging Japan’s unique identity and creative spirit is what will help companies like Falcom stand out in the ever-expanding video game market, as Chinese and Korean studios continue to release high-quality titles developed on a large scale. “Chinese and Korean developers work on such a large scale and hold so much capital, we don’t stand a chance against them. However, I think we all agree that there is still something Japan-produced content has that they can’t compete with – its creative spirit and originality,” he says.
“While it’s important to be rational and create things together as a coherent organization, works infused with individual flair and the desire to ‘create something you like no matter what’ carry a truly unique charm. That’s why our company values personal preferences, or in other words, individuality.” Of course, as Kondo mentions, having a company-wide individualistic mindset means that clashing opinions and sensibilities easily turn into disagreements, and it’s also not that efficient if you look at the big picture. “But if we tried to avoid that and make everything systematic, our strongest virtues would disappear.”
Kondo considers the biggest strength of Nihon Falcom to be a “handcrafted feel” that comes from deliberately maintaining an “amateur” attitude towards game development. “Our founder often said, ‘We are a company of amateurs.’ This means that, in contrast to the fully sectionalized labor-division systems imposed by major corporations, we’re an organization in which all members exert their knowledge beyond their domains [of expertise], without clinging to just one specialized field,” he explains.
Creative games like Persona 3 Reload, Trails 1st Remake, Tales of Graces remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Oh wait?
Tales of Graces was never remade. Ports/remasters are not remakes.
I agree with them but they need to stop trusting NISA their translators are absolutely awful at capturing the Japanese spirit and individuality. It would be better to have AI do the work instead because NISA butchers the text a lot when it comes to Trails.
I’d much rather have NISA than GungHo, who break consistency of established terms and names, fail to set regional prices, fail to create a digital art book and soundtrack, fail to publish DLCs on time, and fail to publish on GOG & Epic.
Play the japanese versions then if you hate english so much.
Japan has always been a good gauge of what’s to come. They’ve been aiming for a world record speed run at statehood. This last run has seen the whole gamut in a single generation, displayed for all who would care to study. They of all nations are being hit hardest with an aging population, and what with their intolerance for other cultures… It’s no wonder they can’t compete, from winning awards at the Olympics to designing award winning interactive media, they just don’t have as large as a population to recruit from. Personally, in team China, as the Japanese are complicit in their government and it’s crack down on organized fun.
Korea has a rapidly declining population, even worse than Japan, and I have always associated their studios with very grindy MMOs. Chinese studios are extremely prolific now, but their government is severely holding them back from free creative expression. Japanese games are pretty much the blueprint for everything we’re seeing out of Asia now.
Trails the 1st it’s not just a remake dude
I feel XSeed was the best translator for Nihon falcom games in the early psp handheld era. they did such a good job with the early Trails games up to cold steel 2. and then NISA took over, alot of issues arose. mostly translation wise. look at the pc version of Lacrimosa of Dana. it was a mess. downside for XSeed was that their team was too small and they took a long time to translate.
Ironic given how ShiftUp was just saying that Korea can’t compete with Japan’s manpower and needs AI
It’s a culture/social problem. While they have an aging population problem, so does South Korea, and they have it worse.
What’s different today is they no longer hold a monopoly over the aesthetics of the kinds of media they produce.
Japan lives in a bubble and is being held back by their elders who are both extremely conservative in how they do things, as well as with their willingness to invest sufficient capital.
More original than china yes, that just keep throwing the same stuff that already exist with different skins
Saying you can do better in individuality is pretty rich, seeing so much of Japanese Manga is repeat of past success.
China is making some seriously fantastic series that appeal to a wider audience with stories that pull us in.
Still waiting on a Japanese show that is anywhere my old favorites like Attack on Titan or Death Note.
@Nobody Important
every country has its own issue and so is china. Their content can be very restrictive if it touches any sensitive issues that go against their government view. If the game addresses social issue and it is not something the government would like to highlight (bring into public attention), it will be censored.
For china, it is all fun and games until the government knows at the door when it sees something they don’t like.
So don’t bet on any single country. Just be a diverse player. Oh, And if you see a game that you dont like, (lgbt, violence, SA), ignore it and move along.
Dude!
Don’t understand why. The animation quality has gone off a cliff since studios started using all-digipaint and quasi-AI. The whole industry is quickly becoming garbage.
Agreed NISA is way better than GungHo. Not to mention the quality of the PC ports put out by Durante are TOP NOTCH. Dude implemented a co op feature in Ys X PC port on launch!!! That’s unavailable on ANY other console!
I think that Japanese games are still better. Chinese games are literally just stolen work usually. Look at how they were ripping off Horizon Zero Dawn. Not an once of creativity and made to milk money from whales.
Korean games are also far behind Japanese games in terms of quality. They have nothing to worry about as they still bring something different while the others are just copying.
Setting onesself apart requires more self-reflection… It must not be attributed to competition against other people by attempting to claim individuality in this way.
Being competitive requires to study the other person(s) and attempt to build on someone elses ideas that are a bit better. This is not individuality
The desire for individuality comes from within, with accepting: the past, of ones current position, loving thy neighbor, and mistakes with grace.
It depends on the philosophy of the Japanese market and how they view the world. I do know that this field is competitive, and I think it is rivalry, not necessarily in a condescending way… But Every nation has the same drive.
If they stick to what they know, like, inspiration for their own culture more, and do like what Quintet/Enix did with real-world mysticism: I believe they can find their individuality, through the eyes of cultured Japan.