{"id":55796,"date":"2026-01-16T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T15:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=55796"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:33:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:33:40","slug":"japanese-studios-like-nihon-falcom-cant-compete-with-china-and-korea-in-development-scale-and-capital-but-they-can-in-individuality-and-creative-spirit-ceo-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-studios-like-nihon-falcom-cant-compete-with-china-and-korea-in-development-scale-and-capital-but-they-can-in-individuality-and-creative-spirit-ceo-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese studios like Nihon Falcom can\u2019t compete with China and Korea in development scale and capital, but they can in individuality and creative spirit, CEO says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With the immense success of Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter<\/strong> 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<\/a> in the West. In a recent interview with Presidents Dictionary<\/a>, Toshihiro Kondo, CEO and President of Nihon Falcom, talked about the company\u2019s philosophy and where it positions itself against its major global competitors in the industry, like China and Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRather than competing in terms of scale, we want to compete globally by honing the creative spirit and originality that\u2019s unique to Japan. Currently, the scale of game development has been enormously expanding on a worldwide level, and we\u2019re now living in an age where having capital strength is considered important,\u201d Kondo notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Trails<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to Kondo, leveraging Japan\u2019s 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. \u201cChinese and Korean developers work on such a large scale and hold so much capital, we don\u2019t stand a chance against them. However, I think we all agree that there is still something Japan-produced content has that they can\u2019t compete with \u2013 its creative spirit and originality,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile it\u2019s important to be rational and create things together as a coherent organization, works infused with individual flair and the desire to \u2018create something you like no matter what<\/em>\u2019 carry a truly unique charm. That\u2019s why our company values personal preferences, or in other words, individuality.\u201d Of course, as Kondo mentions, having a company-wide individualistic mindset means that clashing opinions and sensibilities easily turn into disagreements, and it\u2019s also not that efficient if you look at the big picture. \u201cBut if we tried to avoid that and make everything systematic, our strongest virtues would disappear.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kondo considers the biggest strength of Nihon Falcom to be a \u201chandcrafted feel\u201d that comes from deliberately maintaining an \u201camateur\u201d attitude towards game development. \u201cOur founder often said, \u2018We are a company of amateurs<\/em>.\u2019 This means that, in contrast to the fully sectionalized labor-division systems imposed by major corporations, we\u2019re an organization in which all members exert their knowledge beyond their domains [of expertise], without clinging to just one specialized field,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PlayStation veteran Shuhei Yoshida says Japanese studios are unlikely to replicate the production scale and speed of Chinese games like Genshin or Honkai: Star Rail<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nihon Falcom CEO Toshihiro Kondo talks about the company\u2019s philosophy and where it positions itself against its major global competitors like China and Korea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":55803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-55796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nJapanese studios like Nihon Falcom can\u2019t compete with China and Korea in development scale and capital, but they can in individuality and creative spirit, CEO says - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Nihon Falcom CEO Toshihiro Kondo talks about the company\u2019s philosophy and where it positions itself against its global competitors.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-studios-like-nihon-falcom-cant-compete-with-china-and-korea-in-development-scale-and-capital-but-they-can-in-individuality-and-creative-spirit-ceo-says\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Japanese studios like Nihon Falcom can\u2019t compete with China and Korea in development scale and capital, but they can in individuality and creative spirit, CEO says - 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