Background In 1966,
Sega introduced an
electro-mechanical game called
Periscope It became an instant success in Japan, Europe, and North America, which would remain the standard price for arcade games for many years to come. Sega later produced gun games that used
rear image projection in a manner similar to the ancient
zoetrope to produce moving animations on a
screen. The first of these, the
light-gun game Duck Hunt, appeared in 1969; it featured animated moving targets on a screen, printed out the player's
score on a ticket, and had volume-controllable sound-effects.
1970s to early 1980s The first
arcade video game,
Atari, Inc.'s
Pong, debuted in the United States in 1972, and led to a number of new American manufacturers to create their own arcade games to capitalize on the rising fad. Several of these companies had Japanese partners and kept their overseas counterparts abreast of this new technology, leading several Japanese coin-operated electronic games makers to step into the arcade game market as well.
Taito and
Namco were some of the early adopters of arcade games in Japan, first distributing American games before developing their own.
Nintendo which at this time was primarily manufacturing traditional and electronic toys, also entered the arcade game market in the latter part of the 1970s. The first
stealth games were Hiroshi Suzuki's
Manbiki Shounen (1979) and
Manbiki Shoujo (1980),
Taito's
Lupin III (1980), and
Sega's
005 (1981). 's TV Tennis Electrotennis, Japan's first home video game console Block Kuzushi Separately, the first home video game console, the
Magnavox Odyssey, had been released in the U.S. in 1971, of which Nintendo had partnered to manufacture the
light gun accessory for the console, while Atari began releasing home console versions of
Pong in 1975. Japan's first home video game console was
Epoch's
TV Tennis Electrotennis. It was followed by the first successful Japanese console, Nintendo's
Color TV-Game, in 1977 which was made in partnership with
Mitsubishi Electronics. Numerous other dedicated home consoles were made mostly by television manufacturers, leading these systems to be called
TV geemu or
terebi geemu in Japan. Created by Nishikado at Japan's
Taito,
Space Invaders pitted the player against multiple enemies descending from the top of the screen at a constantly increasing speed. The game used alien creatures inspired by
The War of the Worlds (by
H. G. Wells) because the developers were unable to render the movement of aircraft; in turn, the aliens replaced human enemies because of moral concerns (regarding the portrayal of killing humans) on the part of Taito. As with subsequent
shoot 'em ups of the time, the game was set in space as the available technology only permitted a black background. The game also introduced the idea of giving the player a number of "
lives". It popularised a more interactive style of gameplay with the enemies responding to the player-controlled cannon's movement, and it was the first video game to popularise the concept of achieving a
high score, being the first to
save the player's score. It set the template for the shoot 'em up genre, and has influenced most shooting games released since then. Its success marked the beginning of the
golden age of arcade video games. Video game arcades sprang up in shopping malls, and small "corner arcades" appeared in restaurants, grocery stores, bars and movie theaters all over Japan and other countries during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Space Invaders (1978),
Galaxian (1979),
Pac-Man (1980) and
Bosconian (1981) were especially popular. By 1981, the arcade video game industry was worth $8 billion ($ in ). Some games of this era were so popular that they entered
popular culture. The first to do so was
Space Invaders. The game was so popular upon its release in 1978 that an urban legend blamed it for a national shortage of
100 yen coins in
Japan, leading to a production increase of coins to meet demand for the game (although 100 yen coin production was lower in 1978 and 1979 than in previous or subsequent years, and the claim does not withstand logical scrutiny: arcade operators would have emptied out their machines and taken the money to the bank, thus keeping the coins in circulation).
Donkey Kong with over 60,000,
Galaxian with 40,000,
Donkey Kong Jr. with 35,000, Other Japanese arcade games established new concepts that would become fundamentals in video games. Use of color graphics and individualized antagonists were considered "strong evolutionary concepts" among space ship games. The Namco's
Galaxian in 1979 introduced multi-colored animated sprites. That same year saw the release of
SNK's debut shoot 'em up
Ozma Wars, notable for being the first
action game to feature a supply of energy, resembling a
life bar, a mechanic that has now become common in the majority of modern action games. It also featured vertically
scrolling backgrounds and enemies. Mega Man, known as Rockman (ロックマン, Rokkuman) in Japan, is a Japanese science fiction video game franchise created by Capcom, starring a series of robot characters each known by the moniker "Mega Man". Mega Man, released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987, was the first in a series that expanded to over 50 games on multiple systems. As of March 31, 2021, the game series has sold 36 million units worldwide.[1]
Konami's
Scramble, released in 1981, is a
side-scrolling shooter with forced scrolling. It was the first scrolling shooter to offer multiple, distinct
levels. Vertical scrolling shooters emerged around the same time. Namco's
Xevious, released in 1982, is frequently cited as the first vertical scrolling shooter and, although it was in fact preceded by several other games of that type, it is considered one of the most influential. The North American video game industry was devastated by the
1983 video game crash, but in Japan, it was more of a surprise to developers, and typically known in Japan as the "Atari Shock". After the video game crash, analysts doubted the long-term viability of the video game industry. At the same time, following a series of
arcade game successes in the early 1980s, Nintendo made plans to create a cartridge-based console called the Famicom, which is short for Family Computer. Masayuki Uemura designed the system. The console was released on July 15, 1983, as the Family Computer (or Famicom for short) alongside three
ports of Nintendo's successful arcade games
Donkey Kong,
Donkey Kong Jr. and
Popeye. The Famicom was slow to gather momentum; a bad chip set caused the initial release of the system to
crash. Following a
product recall and a reissue with a new
motherboard, the Famicom's popularity soared, becoming the best-selling game console in Japan by the end of 1984. By 1988, industry observers stated that the NES's popularity had grown so quickly that the market for Nintendo cartridges was larger than that for all home computer software. By mid-1986, 19% (6.5 million) of Japanese households owned a Famicom; one third by mid-1988. In June 1989, Nintendo of America's vice president of marketing Peter Main, said that the Famicom was present in 37% of Japan's households. By the end of its run, over 60 million NES units had been sold throughout the world. In 1990 Nintendo surpassed
Toyota as Japan's most successful corporation. Because the NES was released after the "video game crash" of the early 1980s, many retailers and adults regarded electronic games as a passing fad, so many believed at first that the NES would soon fade. Before the NES/Famicom, Nintendo was known as a moderately successful Japanese toy and playing card manufacturer, but the popularity of the NES/Famicom helped the company grow into an internationally recognized name almost synonymous with video games as Atari had been, and set the stage for Japanese dominance of the video game industry. With the NES, Nintendo also changed the relationship between
console manufacturers and third-party software developers by restricting developers from publishing and distributing software without licensed approval. This led to higher quality software titles, which helped change the attitude of a public that had grown weary from poorly produced titles for earlier game systems. The system's hardware limitations led to design principles that still influence the development of modern video games. Many prominent game franchises originated on the NES, including Nintendo's own
Super Mario Bros.,
The Legend of Zelda and
Metroid,
Capcom's
Mega Man franchise,
Konami's
Castlevania franchise,
Square's
Final Fantasy, and
Enix's
Dragon Quest franchises. Following the release of the Family Computer / Nintendo Entertainment System, the global video game industry began recovering, with annual sales exceeding $2.3 billion by 1988, with 70% of the market dominated by Nintendo. In 1986 Nintendo president
Hiroshi Yamauchi noted that "Atari collapsed because they gave too much freedom to third-party developers and the market was swamped with rubbish games". In response, Nintendo limited the number of titles that third-party developers could release for their system each year, and promoted its "
Seal of Quality", which it allowed to be used on games and peripherals by publishers that met Nintendo's quality standards. Japan's first
personal computers for gaming soon appeared, the
Sord M200 in 1977 and
Sharp MZ-80K in 1978. During the
16-bit era, the PC-98,
Sharp X68000 and
FM Towns became popular in Japan. The X68000 and FM Towns were capable of producing near
arcade-quality hardware
sprite graphics and sound quality when they first released in the mid-to-late 1980s. Japanese developers created the
action RPG subgenre in the early 1980s, combining
RPG elements with
arcade-style
action and
action-adventure elements. The trend of combining role-playing elements with arcade-style action mechanics was popularized by
The Tower of Druaga,
The Tower of Druaga,
Dragon Slayer and
Hydlide were influential in Japan, where they laid the foundations for the action RPG genre, influencing titles such as
Ys and
The Legend of Zelda. The
action role-playing game Hydlide (1984) was an early open world game, rewarding exploration in an open world environment.
Hydlide influenced
The Legend of Zelda (1986), an influential open world game.
Zelda had an expansive, coherent open world design, inspiring many games to adopt a similar open world design.
Bokosuka Wars (1983) is considered an early prototype
real-time strategy game.
TechnoSoft's
Herzog (1988) is regarded as a precursor to the real-time strategy genre, being the predecessor to
Herzog Zwei and somewhat similar in nature.
Herzog Zwei, released for the
Sega Mega Drive/Genesis home console in 1989, is the earliest example of a game with a feature set that falls under the contemporary definition of modern real-time strategy.
Data East's
Karate Champ from 1984 is credited with establishing and popularizing the one-on-one
fighting game genre, and went on to influence
Konami's
Yie Ar Kung-Fu from 1985.
Capcom's
Street Fighter (1987) introduced the use of special moves that could only be discovered by experimenting with the game controls.
Street Fighter II (1991) established the conventions of the fighting game genre and allowed players to play against each other. In 1985,
Sega AM2's
Hang-On, designed by
Yu Suzuki and running on the
Sega Space Harrier hardware, was the first of Sega's "
Super Scaler"
arcade system boards that allowed
pseudo-3D sprite-scaling at high
frame rates. The pseudo-3D
sprite/
tile scaling was handled in a similar manner to textures in later
texture-mapped polygonal 3D games of the 1990s. Designed by
Sega AM2's
Yu Suzuki, he stated that his "designs were always 3D from the beginning. All the calculations in the system were 3D, even from Hang-On. I calculated the position, scale, and zoom rate in 3D and converted it backwards to
2D. So I was always thinking in 3D." It was controlled using a
video game arcade cabinet resembling a
motorbike, which the player moves with their body. This began the "Taikan" trend, the use of
motion-controlled hydraulic arcade cabinets in many arcade games of the late 1980s, two decades before motion controls became popular on
video game consoles. Sega's
Space Harrier, a rail shooter released in 1985, broke new ground graphically and its wide variety of settings across multiple levels gave players more to aim for than high scores. The following year saw the emergence of one of Sega's forefront series with its game
Fantasy Zone. The game received acclaim for its surreal graphics and setting and the protagonist, Opa-Opa, was for a time considered Sega's
mascot. The game borrowed ''Defender's
device of allowing the player to control the direction of flight and along with the earlier TwinBee'' (1985), is an early archetype of the "cute 'em up" subgenre.
Hydlide II: Shine of Darkness in 1985 featured an early morality meter, where the player can be
aligned with justice, normal, or evil, which is affected by whether the player kills evil monsters, good monsters, or humans, and in turn affects the reactions of the townsfolk towards the player. In the same year,
Yuji Horii and his team at
Chunsoft began production on
Dragon Quest (
Dragon Warrior). After
Enix published the game in early 1986, it became the template for future console RPGs. Horii's intention behind
Dragon Quest was to create a RPG that appeals to a wider audience unfamiliar with the genre or video games in general. This required the creation of a new kind of RPG, that didn't rely on previous
D&D experience, didn't require
hundreds of hours of rote fighting, and that could appeal to any kind of gamer. The game also placed a greater emphasis on storytelling and emotional involvement, building on Horii's previous work
Portopia Serial Murder Case, but this time introducing a
coming of age tale for
Dragon Quest that audiences could relate to, making use of the RPG level-building gameplay as a way to represent this. It also featured elements still found in most console RPGs, like major quests interwoven with minor subquests, an incremental spell system, the
damsel-in-distress storyline that many RPGs follow, and a romance element that remains a staple of the genre, alongside
anime-style art by
Akira Toriyama and a
classical score by
Koichi Sugiyama that was considered revolutionary for console
video game music. Shoot 'em ups featuring characters on foot, rather than spacecraft, became popular in the mid-1980s in the wake of
action movies such as
Rambo: First Blood Part II. The origins of this type go back to
Sheriff by Nintendo, released in 1979. Taito's
Front Line (1982) established the upwards-scrolling formula later popularized by
Capcom's
Commando, in 1985, and
SNK's
Ikari Warriors (1986).
Commando also drew comparisons to
Rambo and indeed contemporary critics considered military themes and protagonists similar to Rambo or
Schwarzenegger prerequisites for a shoot 'em up, as opposed to an
action-adventure game. The late 1980s to early 1990s is considered the golden age of Japanese computer gaming, which would flourish until its decline around the mid-1990s, as consoles eventually dominated the Japanese market. A notable Japanese computer RPG from around this time was
WiBArm, the earliest known RPG to feature
3D polygonal graphics. It was a 1986 role-playing shooter released by
Arsys Software for the
PC-88 in Japan and ported to
MS-DOS for Western release by
Broderbund. In
WiBArm, the player controls a transformable
mecha robot, switching between a
2D side-scrolling view during outdoor exploration to a fully 3D polygonal
third-person perspective inside buildings, while bosses are fought in an arena-style 2D
shoot 'em up battle. The game featured a variety of weapons and equipment as well as an
automap, and the player could upgrade equipment and earn experience to raise stats. Unlike first-person RPGs at the time that were restricted to 90-degree movements, ''WiBArm's'' use of 3D polygons allowed full 360-degree movement. The PC Engine, TurboGrafx-16, known as TurboGrafx-16 in the rest of the world, was a collaborative effort between
Hudson Soft, who created video game software, and
NEC, a major company which was dominant in the Japanese
personal computer market with their
PC-88 and
PC-98 platforms.
R-Type, an acclaimed side-scrolling shoot 'em up, was released in 1987 by
Irem, employing slower-paced scrolling than usual, with difficult levels calling for methodical strategies. 1990's
Raiden was the beginning of another acclaimed and enduring series to emerge from this period. In 1987, Square's
3-D WorldRunner was an early stereoscopic 3-D shooter played from a third-person perspective, followed later that year by its sequel
JJ, and the following year by
Space Harrier 3-D which used the SegaScope
3-D shutter glasses. Also in 1987, Konami created
Contra as a coin-op arcade game that was particularly acclaimed for its multi-directional aiming and two player cooperative gameplay.
Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei by
Atlus for the Nintendo Famicom abandoned the common medieval fantasy setting and
sword and sorcery theme in favour of a modern science-fiction setting and horror theme. It also introduced the
monster-catching mechanic with its demon-summoning system, which allowed the player to recruit enemies into their party, through a conversation system that gives the player a choice of whether to kill or spare an enemy and allows them to engage any opponent in conversation.
Sega's
original Phantasy Star for the
Master System combined sci-fi & fantasy setting that set it apart from the
D&D staple. and allowed inter-planetary travel between three planets. Another 1987 title
Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord was a
third-person RPG that featured a wide
open world and a
mini-map on the corner of the screen. According to
Wizardry developer Roe R. Adams, early
action-adventure games "were basically arcade games done in a
fantasy setting," citing
Castlevania (1986) and
Trojan (1986) as examples.
IGN UK argues that
The Legend of Zelda (1986) "helped to establish a new subgenre of action-adventure", becoming a success due to how it combined elements from different genres to create a compelling hybrid, including exploration, adventure-style inventory
puzzles, an action component, a
monetary system, and simplified RPG-style
level building without the
experience points.
The Legend of Zelda was the most prolific action-adventure game series through to the 2000s. The first
Nintendo Space World show was held on July 28, 1989. It was a video game
trade show that was hosted by Nintendo until 2001. At the same year,
Phantasy Star II for the
Genesis established many conventions of the RPG genre, including an
epic, dramatic, character-driven storyline dealing with serious themes and subject matter, and a strategy-based battle system.
Capcom's
Sweet Home for the NES introduced a modern
Japanese horror theme and laid the foundations for the
survival horror genre, later serving as the main inspiration for
Resident Evil (1996).
Tengai Makyo: Ziria released for the
PC Engine CD that same year was the first RPG released on
CD-ROM and the first in the genre to feature animated
cut scenes and voice acting. The game's plot was also unusual for its
feudal Japan setting and its emphasis on humour; the plot and characters were inspired by the Japanese folk tale
Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari. The music for the game was also composed by noted musician
Ryuichi Sakamoto.
1990s to early 2000s The ‘golden age’ of console RPGs is often dated in the 1990s. Console RPGs distinguished themselves from computer RPGs to a greater degree in the early 1990s. As console RPGs became more heavily story-based than their computer counterparts, one of the major differences that emerged during this time was in the portrayal of the characters, with most American computer RPGs at the time having characters devoid of personality or background as their purpose was to represent
avatars which the player uses to interact with the world, in contrast to Japanese console RPGs which depicted pre-defined characters who had distinctive personalities, traits, and relationships, such as
Final Fantasy and
Lufia, with players assuming the roles of people who cared about each other, fell in love or even had families. Romance in particular was a theme that was common in most console RPGs but alien to most computer RPGs at the time. Japanese console RPGs were also generally more faster-paced and
action-adventure-oriented than their American computer counterparts. During the 1990s, console RPGs had become increasingly dominant. In 1990,
Dragon Quest IV introduced a new method of storytelling: segmenting the plot into segregated chapters. The game also introduced an
AI system called "Tactics" which allowed the player to modify the strategies used by the allied party members while maintaining full control of the hero.
Final Fantasy III introduced the classic "
job system", a character progression engine allowing the player to change the
character classes, as well as acquire new and advanced classes and combine class abilities, during the course of the game. That same year also saw the release of Nintendo's
Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryu to Hikari no Tsurugi, a game that set the template for the
tactical role-playing game genre and was the first entry in the
Fire Emblem series. Another notable strategy RPG that year was
Koei's
Bandit Kings of Ancient China, which was successful in combining the strategy RPG and
management simulation genres, building on its own ''
Nobunaga's Ambition series that began in 1983. Several early RPGs set in a post-apocalyptic future were also released that year, including Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II, and Crystalis'', which was inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
Crystalis also made advances to the action role-playing game subgenre, being a true action RPG that combined the real-time
action-adventure combat and
open world of
The Legend of Zelda with the level-building and spell-casting of traditional RPGs like
Final Fantasy. That year also saw the release of
Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom, which featured an innovative and original branching storyline, which spans three generations of characters and can be altered depending on which character the protagonist of each generation marries, leading to four possible endings. placing a much greater emphasis on character development, personal relationships, and dramatic storytelling. It also introduced a new
battle system: the "
Active Time Battle" system, developed by
Hiroyuki Ito, where the
time-keeping system does not stop. The fact that enemies can attack or be attacked at any time is credited with injecting urgency and excitement into the combat system. Nintendo's fourth-generation console, the Super Famicom, was released in Japan on November 21, 1990; Nintendo's initial shipment of 300,000 units sold out within hours. Despite stiff competition from the
Mega Drive/Genesis console, the Super NES eventually took the top selling position, selling 49.10 million units worldwide, and would remain popular well into the
fifth generation of consoles. Nintendo's market position was defined by their machine's increased video and sound capabilities, as well as exclusive first-party franchise titles such as
Super Mario World,
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and
Super Metroid. In the early 1990s, the arcades experienced a major resurgence with the 1991 release of
Capcom's
Street Fighter II, which popularized competitive
fighting games and revived the arcade industry to a level of popularity not seen since the days of
Pac-Man, setting off a renaissance for the arcade game industry in the early 1990s. Its success led to a wave of other popular games which mostly were in the fighting genre, such as
Fatal Fury: King of Fighters (1992) by
SNK,
Virtua Fighter (1993) by
SEGA, and
The King of Fighters (1994–2005) by SNK. In 1993,
Electronic Games noted that when "historians look back at the world of coin-op during the early 1990s, one of the defining highlights of the video game art form will undoubtedly focus on fighting/martial arts themes" which it described as "the backbone of the industry" at the time. A new type of shoot 'em up emerged in the early 1990s: variously termed "bullet hell", "manic shooters", "maniac shooters" and , these games required the player to dodge overwhelming numbers of enemy projectiles and called for still more consistent reactions from players. with
Cave (formed by former employees of Toaplan, including ''Batsugun's'' main creator Tsuneki Ikeda, after the latter company collapsed) inventing the type proper with 1995's
DonPachi. Bullet hell games marked another point where the shoot 'em up genre began to cater to more dedicated players. Rail shooters have rarely been released in the new millennium, with only
Rez and
Panzer Dragoon Orta achieving cult recognition. 1992 saw the release of
Dragon Quest V, a game that has been praised for its involving, emotional family-themed narrative divided by different periods of time, something that has appeared in very few video games before or since. It has also been credited as the first known video game to feature a playable pregnancy, a concept that has since appeared in later games such as
Story of Seasons. ''Dragon Quest V's
monster-collecting mechanic, where monsters can be defeated, captured, added to the party, and gain their own experience levels, also influenced many later franchises such as Pokémon, Digimon and Dokapon. In turn, the concept of collecting everything in a game, in the form of achievements or similar rewards, has since become a common trend in video games. Shin Megami Tensei, released in 1992 for the SNES, introduced an early moral alignment system that influences the direction and outcome of the storyline, leading to different possible paths and multiple endings. This has since become a hallmark of the Megami Tensei'' series.
Data East's
Heracles no Eikō III, written by
Kazushige Nojima, introduced the plot element of a nameless
immortal suffering from
amnesia, and Nojima would later revisit the amnesia theme in
Final Fantasy VII and
Glory of Heracles. The
TurboGrafx-CD port of
Dragon Knight II released that year was also notable for introducing
erotic adult content to consoles, though such content had often appeared in Japanese computer RPGs since the early 1980s. The game was praised for its soundtrack, emotionally engaging storyline, and strong characterization. It also introduced an early form of level-scaling where the bosses would get stronger depending on the protagonist's level, a mechanic that was later used in Enix's
The 7th Saga and extended to normal enemies in Square's
Romancing Saga 3 and later
Final Fantasy VIII. followed by
racing games gaining considerable popularity in the arcades. The game received considerable acclaim, its innovative cooperative
multiplayer gameplay, where the second or third players could drop in and out of the game at any time rather than players having to join the game at the same time, The game has influenced a number of later action RPGs. That same year also saw the release of
Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium, which introduced the use of pre-programmable combat manoeuvers called 'macros', a means of setting up the player's party AI to deliver custom attack combos.
PCGamesN credits
Romancing SaGa 2 for having laid the foundations for modern Japanese RPGs with its progressive, non-linear,
open world design and subversive themes. In 1994,
Final Fantasy VI moved away from the
medieval setting of its predecessors, instead being set in a
steampunk environment,. The game received considerable acclaim, and is seen as one of the greatest RPGs of all time, for improvements such as its broadened thematic scope, plotlines, characters, multiple-choice scenarios, and variation of play.
Final Fantasy VI dealt with mature themes such as
suicide,
war crimes,
child abandonment,
teen pregnancy, and coping with the deaths of loved ones. Square's
Live A Live, released for the Super Famicom in Japan, featured eight different characters and stories, with the first seven unfolding in any order the player chooses, as well as four different endings. Other chapters had similar innovations, such as Akira's chapter where the character uses telepathic powers to discover information.
FromSoftware released their first video game, titled ''
King's Field, as a launch title for the PlayStation in 1994. The game was later called the brainchild of company founder Naotoshi Zin, who was considered a key creative figure in the series. The design of King's Field
would influence later titles by FromSoftware including Shadow Tower, Demon's Souls, and the Dark Souls'' series. The latter would propel FromSoftware to international fame. In 1995, Square's
Romancing Saga 3 featured a storyline that could be told differently from the perspectives of up to eight different characters and introduced a level-scaling system where the enemies get stronger as the characters do, a mechanic that was later used in a number of later RPGs, including
Final Fantasy VIII. Sega's
Sakura Wars for the
Saturn combined tactical RPG combat with
dating sim and
visual novel elements, introducing a
real-time branching choice system where, during an event or conversation, the player must choose an action or
dialogue choice within a time limit, or not to respond at all within that time; the player's choice, or lack thereof, affects the
player character's relationship with other characters and in turn the characters' performance in battle, the direction of the storyline, and the ending. Later games in the series added several variations, including an action gauge that can be raised up or down depending on the situation, and a gauge that the player can manipulate using the
analog stick depending on the situation. The success of
Sakura Wars led to a wave of games that combine the RPG and dating sim genres, including
Thousand Arms in 1998,
Riviera: The Promised Land in 2002, and
Luminous Arc in 2007. The
survival horror video game genre began with
Capcom's
Resident Evil (1996), which coined the term "survival horror" and defined the genre. The game was inspired by Capcom's
Sweet Home (1989), retroactively described as survival horror. The first
Tokyo Game Show was held in
1996. From 1996 to 2002, the show was held twice a year: once in the Spring and once in Autumn (in the Tokyo Big Sight). Since 2002, the show has been held once a year. It attracts more visitors every year. 2011's show hosted over 200,000 attendees and the 2012 show bringing in 223,753. The busiest TGS was in 2016 with 271,224 people in attendance and 614 companies had exhibits. The event has been held annually since 1996 and was never canceled. The 20th anniversary of TGS was celebrated in 2016. The
Fujitsu FM Towns Marty is considered the world's first 32-bit console (predating the
Amiga CD32 and
3DO), being only released in Japan on February 20, 1993, by
Fujitsu. However, it failed to make an impact in the marketplace due to its expense relative to other consoles and inability to compete with home computers. Around the mid-1990s, the
fifth-generation home consoles,
Sega Saturn,
PlayStation, and
Nintendo 64, began offering
true 3D graphics, improved sound, and better 2D graphics, than the previous generation. By 1995, personal computers followed, with
3D accelerator cards. While
arcade systems such as the
Sega Model 3 remained considerably more advanced than home systems in the late 1990s. The next major revolution came in the mid-to-late 1990s, which saw the rise of
3D computer graphics and
optical discs in
fifth generation consoles. The implications for RPGs were enormous—longer, more involved quests, better audio, and
full-motion video. This was clearly demonstrated in 1997 by the phenomenal success of
Final Fantasy VII, which is considered one of the most influential games of all time, the ambitious scope of
Final Fantasy VII raised the possibilities for the genre, with its more expansive world to explore, much longer quest, more numerous sidequests, One of the earliest Japanese RPGs,
Koei's
The Dragon and Princess (1982), featured a
tactical turn-based combat system. Koji Sumii's
Bokosuka Wars, originally released for the
Sharp X1 computer in 1983 and later ported to the NES in 1985, is credited for laying the foundations for the
tactical RPG genre, or "simulation RPG" genre as it is known in Japan, with its blend of basic RPG and
strategy game elements. The genre became with the game that set the template for tactical RPGs,
Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi (1990). Treasure's shoot 'em up,
Radiant Silvergun (1998), introduced an element of narrative to the genre. It was critically acclaimed for its refined design, though it was not released outside Japan and remains a much sought after collector's item. Its successor
Ikaruga (2001) featured improved graphics and was again acclaimed as one of the best games in the genre. Both
Radiant Silvergun and
Ikaruga were later released on
Xbox Live Arcade. The genre has undergone something of a resurgence with the release of the
Xbox 360,
PlayStation 3 and
Wii online services, while in Japan arcade shoot 'em ups retain a deep-rooted niche popularity.
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved was released on Xbox Live Arcade in 2005 and in particular stood out from the various re-releases and
casual games available on the service. The PC has also seen its share of
dōjin shoot 'em ups like
Crimzon Clover,
Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony,
Xenoslaive Overdrive, and the
eXceed series. However, despite the genre's continued appeal to an enthusiastic niche of players, shoot 'em up developers are increasingly embattled financially by the power of home consoles and their attendant genres.
2005–2015 (
Drummania) in
Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 2005 playing
The House of the Dead III in an
amusement arcade in Japan, 2005 at
Tokyo Game Show 2006 In 2002, the Japanese video game industry made up about 50% of the global market; that share has since shrunk to around 10% by 2010. The shrinkage in market share has been attributed to a difference of taste between Japanese and Western audiences, but in Nintendo's subsequent years, its revenues had declined. In 2009,
FromSoftware released ''
Demon's Souls for the PlayStation 3, which brought them international exposure. Its spiritual successor, Dark Souls, was released in 2011. In March 2014, Dark Souls II, was released, while Dark Souls III was released in 2016. Other FromSoftware games inspired by the Dark Souls series, Bloodborne (2015) and Elden Ring (2022), received critical acclaim and strong sales. They have also received a number of awards, primarily those for the role-playing genre, including multiple "RPG of the Year" and Game of the Year awards. Since release, Dark Souls
and Bloodborne'' have been cited by many publications to be among the
greatest games of all time. The decline of the Japanese video game development industry during this period was partially attributed to the traditional development process. Japanese companies were criticized for long development times and slow release dates on home
video game consoles, their lack of third-party
game engines, and for being too insular to appeal to a global market.
Yoichi Wada stated in 2009 that the Japanese game industry had become "almost xenophobic." He also stated: "The lag with the US is very clear. The
US games industry was not good in the past but it has now attracted people from the
computer industry and from
Hollywood, which has led to strong growth." At the 2010
Tokyo Game Show,
Keiji Inafune stated that "Everyone's making awful games - Japan is at least five years behind", and that "Japan is isolated in the gaming world. If something doesn't change, we're doomed.", stressing the need for Japanese developers to bring in Western approaches to game development to make a comeback. Foreign games often sell more poorly in Japanese markets due to differences in what consumers expect for
escapism between these cultures. Microsoft had attempted to push both the
Xbox and
Xbox 360 consoles in Japan with poor success, at they struggled to compete against Sony and Nintendo there. However, as detailed above, Japanese console games became less successful, even in their own country, as of 2013. In the Japanese gaming industry, arcades have remained popular through to the present day. As of 2009, out of Japan's $20 billion gaming market, $6 billion of that amount is generated from arcades, which represent the largest sector of the Japanese video game market, followed by home
console games and
mobile games at $3.5 billion and $2 billion, respectively. In 2005, arcade ownership and operation accounted for a majority of
Namco's for example. With considerable withdrawal from the arcade market from companies such as
Capcom,
Sega became the strongest player in the arcade market with 60% marketshare in 2006. Despite the global decline of arcades, Japanese companies hit record revenue for three consecutive years during this period. However, due to the country's
economic recession, the Japanese arcade industry has also been steadily declining, from
¥702.9 billion (US$8.7 billion) in 2007 to ¥504.3 billion ($6.2 billion) in 2010. In 2013, estimation of revenue is ¥470 billion. selling over 500,000 units on the platform. This led to many Japanese doujin/indie games releasing on Steam in subsequent years. The Japanese game development engine
RPG Maker has also gained significant popularity on Steam, including hundreds of commercial games. Every year, hundreds of games released on Steam are created using RPG Maker, as of 2017. In the present day, Japan is the world's largest market for
mobile games. The Japanese market today is becoming increasingly dominated by mobile games, which generated $5.1 billion in 2013, more than traditional
console games in the country. Former rivals in the Japanese arcade industry,
Konami,
Taito,
Bandai Namco Entertainment and
Sega, are now working together to keep the arcade industry vibrant.
2016–present arcade in
Akihabara, Tokyo (2017) (red),
Wii U (green), and
PlayStation 4 (blue) in Japan The
eighth generation of video game consoles primarily includes the
home video game consoles of the
Wii U released in 2012, the
PlayStation 4 family in 2013; the
handheld game consoles of the
Nintendo 3DS in 2011,
Nintendo 2DS in 2013, and the
PlayStation Vita in 2011; as well as the first hybrid game console, the
Nintendo Switch in 2017, which played as a handheld but could be
docked to played like a home console. Unlike in most prior generations, there were few new innovative hardware capabilities to mark this generation as distinct from prior ones. Sony continued to produce new systems with similar designs and capabilities as their predecessors, but with improved performance (processing speed, higher-resolution graphics, and increased storage capacity) that further moved consoles into confluence with personal computers, and furthering support for
digital distribution and
games as a service.
Motion-controlled games of the seventh generation had waned in popularity, but consoles were preparing for advancement of
virtual reality (VR); Sony introduced the
PlayStation VR in 2016. Though prior console generations have normally occurred in five to six-year cycles, the transition from seventh to eighth generation lasted approximately eight years. The transition is also unusual in that the prior generation's best-selling unit, the Wii, was the first to be replaced in the eighth generation. Nintendo president
Satoru Iwata had stated that his company would be releasing the Wii U due to declining sales of seventh generation home consoles and that "the market is now waiting for a new proposal for home consoles". Sony considered making its next console a digital download only machine, but decided against it due to concerns about the inconsistency of internet speeds available globally, especially in
developing countries. On September 13, 2012, Nintendo announced that the Wii U would launch in Japan on December 8, 2012. The PlayStation 4 and Wii U use
AMD GPUs, and the PS4 also use AMD
CPUs on an
x86-64 architecture, similar to common
personal computers (as opposed to the IBM
PowerPC Architecture used in the previous generation). Nintendo and Sony were not aware that they were all using AMD hardware until their consoles were announced. This shift was considered to be beneficial for
multi-platform development, due to the increased similarities between PC hardware and console hardware. In October 2013, online retailer
Play.com announced that its Wii U sales saw a 75% sales increase. The company also predicted that the Wii U would be more popular than its competition, the
PlayStation 4 and
Xbox One, among children during the holiday season. Following the release of
Wii Party U on October 31 in Japan, weekly Wii U sales spiked to 38,802 units sold. During the first two weeks of December, the Wii U was the top performing home console in Japan, with 123,665 units sold. In
fiscal year (FY) 2013 (ending early 2013), Nintendo sold 23.7 million consoles. By February 26, 2014, Wii U sales had surpassed those of the
Xbox 360 in Japan. However, by June 2015, the basic Wii U was discontinued in Japan, and replaced by a 32 GB "Premium" set that includes white hardware and a Wii Remote Plus. In mid-November 2016, Nintendo announced that Japanese production of the Wii U would be ending "in the near future". The PS4 was released in Japan at ¥39,980 on February 22, 2014. In September 2015, Sony reduced the price of the PS4 in Japan to ¥34,980, with similar price drops in other Southeast Asian markets. Within the first two days of release in Japan during the weekend of February 22, 2014, 322,083 consoles were sold. PS4 software unit sales surpassed 20.5 million on April 13, 2014. During Japan's 2013
fiscal year, heightened demand for the PS4 helped Sony top global console sales, beating Nintendo for the first time in eight years. Since 2016, Japanese video games have been experiencing a resurgence, as part of a renaissance for the Japanese video game industry. In 2017, Japanese video games gained further commercial success and greater critical acclaim. The company had posted its first loss as a video game company in 2012 prior to the
Wii U's introduction that year, and had similar losses in the following years due to the console's poor uptake.
The New York Times attributed Nintendo lowering financial forecasts in 2014 to weak hardware sales against
mobile gaming. Previously, the company had been hesitant about this market, with then-president
Satoru Iwata considering that they would "cease to be Nintendo" and lose their identity if they attempted to enter it. About three years prior to the Switch's announcement, Iwata,
Tatsumi Kimishima,
Genyo Takeda, and
Shigeru Miyamoto crafted a strategy for revitalizing Nintendo's business model, which included approaching the mobile market, creating new hardware, and "maximizing [their] intellectual property". Prior to his death, Iwata was able to secure a business alliance with Japanese mobile provider
DeNA to develop mobile titles based on Nintendo's first-party franchises, believing this approach would not compromise their integrity. Following Iwata's death in July 2015, Kimishima was named as
president of Nintendo, while Miyamoto was promoted to the title of "Creative Fellow". The design of the Switch was aimed to bridge the polarization of the gaming market at the time, creating a device that could play "leisurely" video games along with games that are aimed to be played "deeply", according to Shinya Takahashi and
Yoshiaki Koizumi, general manager and deputy general manager of Nintendo's
Entertainment Planning & Development Division (EPD), respectively. This approach also would apply to the cultural lifestyle and gaming differences between Japanese and Western players; Japanese players tend to play on the go and with social groups, while Western players tend to play at home by themselves. The design of the Switch would meet both cultures, and certain games, like
1-2-Switch, could potentially make social gaming more acceptable in Western culture. Two key elements that were set to address this mixed market were the ability for the unit to play both on a television screen and as a portable, and the use of detachable controllers.
Media Create estimated that more than 500,000 Switch units were sold in Japan within its first month, beating out the PlayStation 4 to this figure. Console sales in Japan, which had been languishing due to the strength of the mobile game market, saw its first annual growth of 14.8% in 2017 due to the release of the Switch. Based on its first year sales, the Switch was considered to be the fastest-selling game console in history in many regions. With 2017 year end Japanese sales data from Media Create, the Switch became the fastest-selling home console in Japan in first year sales, with its total sales of 3.2 million units exceeding the 3.0 million units of the
PlayStation 2 during its first year of release, while
Famitsu reported that these sales had eclipsed the lifetime sales of the Wii U in the country, and helped to support the first growth in sales within Japan's console market in eleven years. By May 2019, the Switch had overtaken the PS4's lifetime sales in Japan. In 2017, Japanese RPGs gained further commercial success and greater critical acclaim. Some Japanese RPGs that were previously considered niche became mainstream million-sellers in 2017, including
Persona 5,
Nier: Automata, and
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 on the
Nintendo Switch. 2017 was considered a strong year for Japanese RPGs, with other notable releases including
Dragon Quest VIII on the
Nintendo 3DS,
Tales of Berseria,
Valkyria Revolution,
Ever Oasis,
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age,
Ys VIII,
Etrian Odyssey V,
Dragon Quest Heroes II,
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd,
Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia,
Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, and
Tokyo Xanadu. In 2018,
Monster Hunter: World sold over 10million units, becoming Capcom's best-selling single software title, and
Square Enix's
Octopath Traveler sold over 1million units. In 2019,
From Software's
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice received universal acclaim. On release day,
Sekiro drew over 108,000 concurrent players on
Steam, the highest for a new game launched during JanuaryMarch 2019 and the third highest of any Japanese game in the platform's history, behind only
Monster Hunter: World and
Dark Souls III. The game won the
Game of the Year award at
The Game Awards 2019 and by fans in the
2019 Steam Awards. Sony released the
PlayStation 5 in 2020 and have emphasized that they want this to be a soft transition, allowing PlayStation 4 games to be directly backwards compatible on their respective systems. Sony has stated the "overwhelming majority" of PlayStation 4 games will play on the PlayStation 5, with many running at higher frame rates and resolutions. Since the 2020s Japanese game studios have also begun to increasingly capitalize on the global popularity of
anime and
manga by releasing a larger number of anime-styled video games. In 2022, From Software's
Elden Ring received universal acclaim. The title made the third-most-popular debut on the video-sharing platforms
Twitch history, drawing nearly 900,000 viewers within 24 hours of release and won "Game of the Year" award at
The Game Awards 2022. In 2023 Japan's PC game market reached a record value of $1.61 billion increasing nearly 2.87 times since 2019. PC accounted for 13% of Japan's total video game revenue — compared to just 5% in 2019. The number of new
Steam users from Japan had increased by more than 150% since 2019. ==See also==