Japanese Video Games Falling Behind Western Counterparts

Former Capcom producer and head of Game Republic Yoshiki Okamoto has said that Japanese developers - in a single lifetime - will not catch up to the western developers:

"It's almost too late. During the Famicom (NES) era, Japanese video games comprised 70 percent of all video games. And currently, it's like 15 or 20 percent, isn't it? Now, Western games are more advanced. For games like GTAIV, those guys are spending something like 5 or 10 years to make them. Even if we thought about catching up with them now, they'd still be making progress. But, not necessarily giving up, it's just not possible to catch up in a single lifetime"

Still some great games coming from the land of the rising sun so it's not all bad surely?

Source: Kotaku