Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice - Kotaku Comments

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Replay — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:40:11 MDT

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I'm cross-posting my reply to the "Flash games"-linked article here. You guys need to get your facts straight. The so-called tepid American titles linked to are the winners of the *warm-up* contest this year, had *one month* to develop the game, and didn't have much at all in the way of prize incentive. The real Dream-Build-Play entries look nothing like Flash titles.

Two ACTUAL winners of the American Dream-Build-Play contest, and one intensely strong runner-up:

The Dishwasher -

Hurricane X -
Burning Angels -

And Burning Angels didn't even win. Like I said in the other thread - poor and unfair coverage. I usually love Kotaku, but these threads make me wonder about the research quality of the site. I get tired of gaming sites not checking their facts right sometimes...hope your reporters will take some more time with the facts in the future.

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Replay

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

freespeech — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:11:09 MST

don't underestimate the japanese!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

freespeech

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

cubed2D — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:25:45 MST

@oldbenway: First off, im not a us dev, im from the UK.Secondly, im a full time computer science student. I put as much time as i can in to devloping my game engine, would i like to join up with an artist to but a full game? hell yes. but to get an artist on board, you need to beable to show them something. i need to provide a stabe, fully featured engine, completed protype game so they know what there signing up for and thats not easy.

cubed2D

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Witzbold — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:21:40 MST

@okenny :): Actually its the other way around.

Seeing how there by far are more graphic whores in the western market than the eastern one.

Witzbold

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

CyberSkull — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:07:01 MST

Why the frelling frack were these games not released stateside? I don't care if it's in Japanese, they look freaking great!

CyberSkull

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Fyren — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:27:28 MST

Most impressive!. I definitely dig the totem-pole-esque game. Very pleasing to the eye.

Fyren

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

godhandiscen — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:25:25 MST

I feel PWND... :'(

godhandiscen

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

DARTH_TIGRIS — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:37:17 MST

More proof that XNA is good, not just for MS, but for the entire gaming industry (Sony, Nintendo and all regions where games are developed included).

DARTH_TIGRIS

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

NoBullet — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:28:49 MST

Graphics isnt everything. People went nuts when the American XNA games were released. People here are just basing this on graphics alone, which is ignorant.

NoBullet

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Gray665 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:20:09 MST

Well I thought the DIshwasher was amazing. I mean how can you really tell how fun these games are from these screens. I'm not saying they don't look nice but who knows how they play.

Gray665

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

hezz05 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:42:29 MST

Wow, that first one looks like it might have come from ABA games. Quite nice.

hezz05

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

RemyDuvalle — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:26:57 MST

All the games currently available to try from XNA blow ass. Dishwasher was the only one that was the least bit fun... but I still wouldn't pay $5 for it.

RemyDuvalle

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

oldbenway — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 09:52:08 MST

@cubed2D:
Maybe it's a sign that you should look for a designer to team up with--go the extra step to try and make your game look like a game, I think that's the point driven home by the article, it doesn't seem like the US devs are trying as hard as the jp ones. from the looks of the screenshots, I would say they are right--although the gameplay may suck, those games might be all fluff and no content...

oldbenway

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

fuchikoma — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 09:09:32 MST

What I suspect happened here is that the Japanese devs went "this is another games distribution platform so let's make some games for it!" while many of the American devs thought "This is the cut-down mini-game part of the 360. Let's see what we can manage with it."

Take it seriously, and get serious results. Not that there aren't awesome American titles on there, but it seems to be seen as a retro arcade/minigame/limited platform and I think the results show that a bit.

fuchikoma

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

okenny :) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:59:32 MST

This is almost like the classic argument about how western developers like to look at mechanics while eastern developers focus on presentation. I've never liked that theory though as I've seen excellent examples of both from all over the world. Luke, the premise of your statement "Japanese XNA games look better" seems rather limited ;)

okenny :)

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

ParadoxControl — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:58:31 MST

Is that last screen shot of a red replicator!? Were all doomed!

ParadoxControl

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

yjaved1 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:31:40 MST

I say bring on the competition! Now this is what I'm talking about. I knew XNA could do some incredible stuff, and I'm hoping to start working with this stuff very soon...

yjaved1

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Bokusatsu_Tenshi — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:29:51 MST

Reading the post title ONLY, I just knew the comments were gonna degrade to something like the J-RPG/W-RPG arguement (read trollan).

Anyways, I think XNA is a great thing, and it's growing fast. And the best part of it: It is giving creative Indie Developers some room.

Just like Steam, for PC games.

But you can't judge the creativity on game development of this or that country based only on that.

On the western side, I think independent gamers didn't quite realise the potential of XNA... thus the flash game ports lookalike.

Also, the Indie Game Industry is very rich around here if you don't limit it to XNA only. People are always creating different stuff... though not always they reach a final product.

On the japanese side, the truth is that few of us know how's the Japanese Gaming industry.

Most titles won't reach us, even when they are very well known. The ones that really reaches internet fame and all usually needs some fan made patches.

Also, the gaming market here is completely different from there. I've seen some pretty interesting stuff and demos, but unfortunately, they were demos only.

It's a different market... games that sells here, won't sell there, and ideas investors put money here, might not work there.

The harsh reality of game development... creativity is a must, but is not enough to produce a game.

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Zegridathes — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:02:33 MST

@Wapanese: I know I recognized Kenta Cho from somewhere. He's the guy behind Tumiki Fighters.

Zegridathes

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

MugiMugi — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:32:46 MST

@Taiyz: There is over 100 doujinshi events a year in Japan, It's true that comiket is the biggest but just so you realize, it's far from the only one.

MugiMugi

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

cableshaft — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:27:41 MST

Also keep in mind, the American independent game dev mentality seems to be towards being a 'lone wolf', or being the only person working on the game, while Asia in general seems to be more geared towards working as a team, and as such Asian-made games get much better artwork because the programmer isn't also expected to come up with the art on his own.

I and many other developers who work on independent titles have a hell of a time finding a decent, dedicated 3D modeler to work with and stay motivated on our projects (because they have their own projects in mind, usually involving much larger games), and 3D modelers tend to turn to the mod scene so they can focus on the art and not have to worry about the code, as such the only good looking independent games tend to be (not all, but certainly the XNA games in the latest contest) very abstract in style (which makes the art requirement much, much simpler) and done by the programmer himself (flOw, Everyday Shooter).

cableshaft

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

kNZA — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:27:26 MST

Obviously, the 360 is hardly setting sales charts on fire in Japan (could be a good strategy for getting attention, though).

There are half a million of them sold there already.

Big games can sell 100K copies there.

You couldn't accuse MS of winning or providing serious competition but there are xboxen over there.

kNZA

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

j14rk1n — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:13:45 MST

@karmakid: Not if you know what you're doing.

j14rk1n

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Taiyz — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:02:23 MST

@Witzbold: The key difference that seperates the doujinshi titles you've mentioned and games like we've seen created in XNA, is that doujinshi is created to SELL at an event or convention like Comiket. Other varieties, such as fan-comics and erotic manga are made in the same way.

At the same time, some doujinshi is original content such as the Higurashi no Naku Koroni visual novel series. It, and its sequels are sold at Comiket, where-as the official PS2 port was sold in regular electronics stores. It's the same with the Touhou series you mentioned, and Higurashi Daybreak has also been quite a hit and has recieved an expansion. Even the popular Tsukihime and Fate/stay night visual novels that have spawned anime (like Higurashi) and PS2 renditions are doujin games based on original novels, and I don't think I need to bring up Melty Blood.

I suppose you can bring up titles like Alien Hominid or N/N+ that make the jump over to the Xbox Live Arcade, but the doujin market has a hell of a lot more content coming out year after year (probably because of the distances between each Comiket; developers need to make each event count!) and the fact that they're landing not only port deals but multi-seasonal anime series' is a testament to the power behind the genre.

Taiyz

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Witzbold — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 06:41:32 MST

@Nexus6: No folks here know of that entry, its just that some of the others are a bit "underwhelming" I suppose is what the general consensus seems to say.

Witzbold

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

MugiMugi — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 06:34:20 MST

The first game in that list is Mazer Mayhem it's free to dl: [www.asahi-net.or.jp]

Should work in all regions now as I sent him in some bug fixes a week ago.

MugiMugi

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Nexus6 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 06:06:35 MST

Are you crazy ! Has anyone played The Dishwasher? He's an American and that game blew me away !

Nexus6

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Witzbold — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 05:27:43 MST

@Moonshadow101: On the contest site my friend helped me look for the information in regards to the J contest and it said that the acceptance for applicants period was 11/15 - 02-15 so 3 months. Although it doesnt state how long they had to work on projects we can assume that some were made within that 3 month period and others who knew about the contest before this date was announced were working on something before.

Asides from that speculation there is no solid info written on the time limit in regards to development.

No idea how long the XNA has been active in Japan so it would be hard to judge if folks actually knew about this contest ahead of time. That and I havent followed on the news of XNA in Japan also all that much.

Witzbold

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Moonshadow101 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 05:02:29 MST

Uhh... People? The American Contest had a time limit of four months. That's how long you had to make your game, start to finish. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume the Japanese contest had a somewhat more relaxed timeframe, if any at all.

Either that, or Japan is raising an army of infant super-coders to take over the (e-)world.

Moonshadow101

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Snake726 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:45:04 MST

Maybe if they position XNA right we'll start seeing more international games -- these look great :)

Snake726

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

GOD — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:19:54 MST

@Thorax: True, but the big guns are starting to come out. Remember. Japanese developers have not really gone for the whole Xbox 360 thing yet. Although it may seem that we have had a "Next Gen" console since late 2005 the Wii and PS3, which appeals more to the japanese market, will help push the creative talent in Japan and we will start to see some awesome stuff.

@tei: I'm talking rule of numbers here.

For the obscenely small amount of 360s that have sold in Japan a fraction of that decided to get XNA, and a smaller fraction made some decent looking games.

In the US every man and his dog got one, a fraction of that got XNA and i don't see anything that looks as good as this.

That is how I see it.

Amen

GOD

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Hrist — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 03:50:47 MST

Oh neat. Games that I would actually consider paying for.

Hrist

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

sugardeath — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 03:35:42 MST

Proof that Japan is greater than America :(

(sorry, just this mentality that I've carried over from FFXI <_<)

sugardeath

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Walker — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 03:32:34 MST

These actually look really awesome. Heres hoping something good comes out from them, like XBLA releases.

Walker

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Tei — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 03:11:17 MST

@Father ColdCuts: "And there you have it! the wealth of creative tallent in the US is VERY limited...". No. That show that theres some talent on the XNA Japan scene.

I don't know what the USA talended indie guys are doing. Maybe webgames, PC games, or using a different framework. Sony has released a _free_ engine that will able people to make games for PC , PS3 and XBox360, maybe some people as on this. Maybe other people use GCC to compile his games, or are creating games for the movile phones. Who know? do you know?. You have to pay Microsoft 100$ for the right to make XNA games. But for everything else, is free. You don't have to pay for use SDL and OpenGL, or Ogre, or something else. Why are these japan dudes making games for a console that is dead in japan, anyway? made no sense :D.. If all you want is eyeballs for you game. I don't know.

Tei

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Ludwig — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 03:08:46 MST

There is this japanese one, possibly lone-wolf.
[xbox360.qj.net]

This game was there too, not sure where to find the other games from pervious Dream Build Play contests o.O

[img181.imageshack.us]
[img181.imageshack.us]

Ludwig

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

SaintEmpire — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 03:05:46 MST

swel!

SaintEmpire

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Dekko — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:58:00 MST

@Witzbold: @0xdeadc0de: It's just my opinion that the ground, water and the way textures are filtered at the distance look very similar to the way Halo CE's engine renders landscape. Why such hostility, I didn't say anything bad about Armored Strider nor did I think anything bad about it. It's just an opinion and I liked to share it but I guess I have to be more careful in the future and use the /friendly_joke and /opinion tags ..

Dekko

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Ludwig — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:57:44 MST

Before hammering XNA games "as large" you guys should check out the other contests and games on the website, there are some with pretty advanced shaders and all, superior to those above.

The ones they pick to sell were mostly based on the amount of content, being games instead of tech-demos.

Check out here:
[www.dreambuildplay.com]

Ludwig

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Thorax — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:53:39 MST

@Father ColdCuts (please donate to my charity event. Link on...: If this was the last generation then I would agree, but seeing as how the only japanese game that came out this generation that actually tried anything different or was noteworthy that I can think of was No More Heros, and a lot of the design elements were borrowed from Killer 7.

Eternal Sonata had potential, but it just ended up being another Jrpg with a different coat of paint. As for the American side of things, you have Portal, Bioshock, and Everyday Shooter (DLC counts damnit!!)

I'm not saying that the American market isn't over saturated with "AMERICA, F**K YEAH!!! shooters, because it totally is, I'm just saying that artistically Japan has to try and catch up with itself when it comes to releasing games that blow my mind all over the side of the wall.

I'm waiting for that or the next Digital Devil Saga game. Whichever comes first.

Thorax

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

karmakid — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:41:30 MST

kudos ^^,

karmakid

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

0xdeadc0de — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:41:12 MST

yep, XNA is slow

0xdeadc0de

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

0xdeadc0de — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:40:11 MST

@Dekko: uh, no at all, you can find that stuff just searching on google, also the sky is a free skydome texture. I used that stuff too

0xdeadc0de

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Witzbold — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:37:16 MST

@Dekko: Or you get a digital camera and take a photo of grass.

I do hope you were joking since if not you really made yourself look like a blithering ass.

Witzbold

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

H8ff0000 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:36:57 MST

@Wapanese: I got the ball rolling in my school to start working on an XNA game. It uses C#, which is like Java, if that means anything to you.

H8ff0000

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Witzbold — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:36:09 MST

Actually I think the US is by far higher up in development skills than the Japanese the problem is that folks dont have as much free time as they would like to work with the new tools / technology + time required to make 3d models and all the other shit in order to make a nice game as modders / total conversion teams had in the past with the older game engines / tools.

The rise in technology has kinda led to the downfall of the modding game scene sorta.

Plus theres the size restrictions also that make it more difficult. Granted I still think theres a lot of untapped talent in the western market with some of the quality of flash games out there.

---

In Japan there is a huge doujin scene (fan made games / software) and these people are used to working on a small size limit along with doing 2d graphics and other things. While there have been other devs that are making quite a few nice 3d games also.

Heres a vid from a more famous example called "Higurashi Daybreak" its a action fighting game based off of the animation Higurashi. Also the game engine / gameplay is similar to the one used in the Capcom gundam action fighting game.

Heres an example of the more famous "Touhou" 2D shooting game series.

So those are 2 examples of what the better fan devs here make.

Theres a lot of untapped talent here also, which is why Im glad to see MS giving them the chance to break out of the fan scene and try to get more into the more professional field.

Witzbold

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

edhe (xbl) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:34:03 MST

Looks nice. Hope they go global.

edhe (xbl)

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Dekko — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:27:09 MST

I wonder where did the developers of Armored Strider get their ground textures? I know that grass texture from another successful game series, developed by Bungie.

Dekko

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

GOD — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:21:03 MST

@cubed2D: I'm saying that they are hash jobs by comparison. There is no arguing that, Irrespective of weather or not they are fledgling developers, they are crappy little games. I remember my first painting when I started learning art at school. It was shite. There was no arguing that. But I recognise that this is a first step for budding pevelopers.

I still hold my opinion that Japan has more to offer to gaming than any other nation. Japanese craftsmanship holds it's strengths in perfection beauty and elegance. In the US it's bigger bolder and brash. Like painting an oil painting with a horses tail. All i ever hear is how big the textures are that are used in whatever game, or we used this many polygons in this. The focus is not what they do with it, but how much crap the pumped into it to make it look like that.

Look at Okami and ICO. They are damn fine looking games! it's amazing what was pushed out of that PS2. I still think GT4 looks better than any racer out at the moment. GT4 might not have as many textures or polygons as PGR4, Forza and all the current need for speed games, but it's lighting, over all naturalistic feel and gameplay are light years ahead.

I'm just saying that the US has alot of catching up to do, and that can only happen when the social attitude shifts.

GOD

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Wapanese — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:10:06 MST

As an aside, I remember reading that Kenta Cho (of Mazer Mayhem, not to mention rRootage and such) said that he had ha hard time getting a good framerate or something.

Perhaps it is a bit harder to work with XNA, or at least to get used to it...

Wapanese

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Scazza — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:07:57 MST

Those look fantastic. After downloading the 7 XNA games I was a little miffed that they were about average (except the dishwasher ninja game) and none really had any originality that you would hope from a small developer. These however look spectacular, and if japanese x360 owners get to download these instead of the average ones we got, then they are lucky ducks...

Lets hope some of these are fast tracked to XBLA, as I think I could enjoy a fun little armoured strider game..

Scazza

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Komrade_Kayce — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:06:54 MST

I want that spider mech game thing. Reminds me of this game I used to have for the dreamcast way back when, with online play and tanks and aliens and stuff.

Yknow, if the Japanese people don't hunker down and buy these games, theres no reason why Microsoft/Sony shouldn't offer a dumpload of cash to bring them/the games to the states to release games.

Komrade_Kayce

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Gentleben-Nintendo Club Star Whore — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:01:40 MST

While the Xbox fails in terms of sales in Japan, then there is no denying it does indeed have a small cult following. I'm sure it will be fondly remembered many years from now much in the same way the Sega dreamcast is.

I'd also expect long after microsoft stop making games for the 360 then people will still be coding high quality xbox live style games in Japan.

Gentleben-Nintendo Club Star Whore

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

phatseejay — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:55:47 MST

Cool! Japan's got it on!

phatseejay

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Coldbrand — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:54:15 MST

Wow, that kicks the shit out of our games.

Coldbrand

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

xybur — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:52:42 MST

Sweet.

xybur

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

doctorwily — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:50:51 MST

SExy..

doctorwily

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Megan Fox Iz Hot! ^-^ - ph15h — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:50:28 MST

=/ Didn't want to sound pessimistic about the XNA games shown in America. Maybe people approached the idea of XNA in different ways and didn't know what to expect so developed to what they thought would appeal to the masses and deliver within the boundaries of the restrictions that were put upon them.

Megan Fox Iz Hot! ^-^ - ph15h

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

Insomnia Bob — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:46:37 MST

Perhaps this has something to do with the games industry in Japan. From what I've told, there are quite a few otaku desperate for a way to break into the games industry, and XNA might be just what a small team, just starting out, is looking for.

Insomnia Bob

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

shouryuuken — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:46:05 MST

nice

shouryuuken

Japan's XNA Games Looking Surprisingly Nice

cubed2D — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:41:51 MST

@Father ColdCuts (please donate to my charity event. Link on...: thats pritty offensive saying that most xna games are hash jobs. Most xna devlopers are either just starting out codeing, or lone programmers with little to no art skills. I bought the 2d art from a garage games content pack i use in my xna game engines test apps.

cubed2D