Ignition: The Japanese Market Is Shrinking
UTV Ignition has stated that they believe the Japanese video games market is quickly shrinking, and that Japanese-only developers will have a hard time competing in the future.
Speaking to Siliconera, Shane Bettenhausen, who's the director of business development at Ignition, said "There are very few independent guys in Japan that don’t have a Western subsidiary, but those little guys need someone to help them.
"[And they] don't know how to succeed in the West and the Japanese market is shrinking."
Bettenhausen also believes that Japanese developers still have a big part to play, but only if they target their games at a global audience, not only at Japanese consumers:
"I think the future is to make games together for the global market. That's what I really want to do with Japan is actually from the ground up create a game with Japanese developer that would work everywhere."
To practice what they preach, UTV Ignition's next big game, El Shaddai, is being developed by a Japanese developer. However, it's being geared at lots of different markets.
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