North America, Europe, or Japan - who makes the best games (in general)?

Japan all the way bro. They're not dunking on the rest of the industry as hard as they used to, but they still have insane design chops.

Of course depends on the genres you're into though. For example, if FPS is your main thing, Japan isn't gonna do it for you.

Lol, Devil's Third comes to mind.

Japan introduced us to hentai.

Before the PC-98 the West use to just think of octopoda as predominantly something from the sea.

6 out of my top ten games of all time are from North America. I am going with NA.

Totally Japan, especially with Capcom, they make games that are fun to play.

there is no greatest part. 7 mystics from around the world and 2 parallel earths got together and created warhawk. the greatest game of all time.

North America by a mile. Nothing European even comes to mind and Japan has too much anime which I’ve always hated and I think is an ugly art style.

North American games seem to focus on gameplay, I’m not familiar with much of European gaming, and Japan seems to focus on arithmetic problem solving and their culture - both of which I don’t care about while I game.

I played many Japanese-developed games through the years and none I knew of involved arithmetic problem-solving or references to Japanese culture. Video games are supposed to be entertaining, not educational.

Japan definitely gets my vote. Some of my all time favourite developers are:

• Capcom
• Nintendo
• Platinum Games
• Square-Enix
• Arc Systems Works

Japan easily.

Depends on the genre but overall japan

Europe makes the best driving games

North America makes the best sports and open world action games.

Japan makes pretty much better games in every other genre

Well Disco Elysium came from Ukraine, so....

Eastern Europe is where its at these days IMO

Japan been doing good stuff lately but i'm not into JRPG's or Nintendo stuff

NA has been shitting the bed recently

If I want a mediocre gaming experience Japan all the way.

Japan all day every day, SE and Capcom took a 180 after their falls (almost) two gens ago and have been killing it since then. NA devs have just been getting trashy as hell lately inc the so called greats like Bioware, Bethesda and Blizzard all have fallen from grace. As for Euro devs, outside of CDPRRED they have been slacking as well cause it seems all the none CDPRRED devs have severe issues of even making a stable game that isn't buggy AF.

Almost all the games I like were made by a Japanese company, so Japan.

Japan, really what are you people smoking?

Japan, duh.

Japan has EDF, so Japan wins.

Japan's best games over the rest of the planet, free. Unless you just hate gameplay.

Japan for sure. There was a time western games were cool too and better for online. These days though i feel like western devs are terrible and just looking at their twitter profiles you see why.

Damn, didn't think Japan would be the clear choice here.

Used to be US for me:

-Valve

-Epic

-Blizzard

-Ensemble

But these days it's Europe or Japan

Hey, even SW gets it right sometimes.

jk, most of the Japan votes probably jrpg lovers

The country that made Zelda

I'm not a fan but I want to see P5 on Steam

Whichever makes Zelda is the best.

From what I've read in the past, I think JRPG lovers are the minority in SW.

For me it's tie between Europe and Japan. From Japan I mean hacknslash, fighting games and action games not JRPG crap.

Ended up voting Europe because Age of Wonders III, The Witcher Trilogy and Crysis 1 though some of my favourite franchises are American (Doom, Dawn of War, Postal) and Japanese (Tales Of, SoulCalibur, PlatinumGames)

With almost no exceptions, the only times white people make very good games anymore is when they're told by Japanese (producers) how to make the games. See Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Sonic Mania.

I would say "the west" makes the best games, that most of Europe and North America to me lol.

I don't like Japanese games, they all feel the same to me. Way too much flash, not enough substance. I'm not saying theyre bad, that shit can be entertaining, they're just not for me.

That's a tough one... if I look at my fav games of all time list, most are American developed.

But as I get older, for some reason I'm really starting to enjoy Japanese developed games more. Devs like Platinum Games are right up there with my favourite western devs now.

Japan. And if you're bringing hentai into this------->you're f_cking pathetic.

@subspecies: Isn't hentai Japanese? :P

It depends.

Japan although makes great game is certainly overrated.

The west while making some of the most visually stunning game or most freedom in its world can sometimes be shallow gameplaywise.

@Pedro: Are tentacles Japanese?

Tentacles? WTF are you talking about?

@Pedro: Japan has a trademark on tentacles.

Japan is the best!!! /Nuff said.

I also voted for Japan.

**** this is the most offensive part. The right region is winning, but for all the wrong reasons. Fucking weebs.

If Japan wasn't apart of the gaming market, I probably wouldn't even be a gamer.

Look at the best games of all time and you won't escape Japanese developed games littering the top spots.

The west has come a long way, but even most of the best western game studios Naughty Dog, Stanta Monica, Sucker Punch, Gurreulla Games are under Japanese quality control (Sony).

Japanese have the type of quality standards that most western game studios only measure up to after copying what Japanese have already done.

Example: the millions of Souls-clones after FromSoft showed western devs how to do mid-evil action RPG's the right way. Even CDPR mentioned trying to copy Souls style gameplay after Demon's Souls reception...SPOILER: They filed.

Lastly, look what happened when a Japanese controlled game studio (RARE) went to a 100% western game company (MS)...they went from a leading high quality AAA game studio to mediocre shovelware producing shitshow.

Japan, of course.

Japan wins easily, for Nintendo alone. If you start adding in Capcom, From Software, Platinum, etc, it just becomes cruel.

Rare were never Japanese controlled and plenty of Japanese developers go from AAA quality to shovelware too, seen some of the crap Konami make in recent years?

Whatever the case, RARE was under NINTENDO quality control when they actually produced AAA quality games.

As soon as they went to a western company (MS) they became a mediocre game studio, I mean the transformation was an instant.

As far as some japanese studios making shovelware, not every studio is capable of producing AAA level games to start with. Some studios loose that ability because of money restraints ect...what's M$'s excuse?

Best by generations:

• Gen 1 - North America
• Gen 2 - North America / Japan
• Gens 3-6 - Japan
• Gen 7 - North America / Europe
• Gen 8 - Japan

Overall - Japan

On a historical note, the "Japanese Invasion" of the '80s game industry (especially Gen 3) is more-or-less equivalent to the "British Invasion" of the '60s music industry. The '80s "Japanese Invasion" defined the game industry in a similar manner to what the '60s "British Invasion" did for the music industry.

This. Pretty sure most of the Japan votes are for action games and action-adventures, not JRPGs... except for Japanese action RPGs (J-ARPGs), e.g. Monster Hunter, Nier, Soulsborne, Nioh, Dragon's Dogma, etc.

Nah, that's a simplistic take. Nintendo didn't magically make Rare games brilliant, and MS gave Rare the time and money to make multiple "traditional" games for about a decade, many of which were great fun. They just didn't reach the heights of the N64 classics, and unfortunately low sales meant they got shifted onto Kinect crap. Rare are far from the only developer to decline from greatness or to struggle with the era of large team HD development. The teams that made N64 classics like Banjo Kazooie could be measured in a few dozens, compared to the hundreds (or for the larger open world games, thousands) of people that make games in the HD era.

"Excuse"? There's no "excuse".

Making art is hard, most of it turns out crap and it's very "rare" ;) to sustain success long term in any medium. That applies to all nations and people equally.