Trends and Commitments to Technical Development in the Video Game Industry in JapanCan Video Games be the Frontier of CG Research?In Pursuit of New Visual Expressions

Thursday, 17 December | 10:45 AM - 12:30 PM | Level 1 - Main Hall

The international videogame market is growing, yet the same market in Japan has virtually stalled. In the past, Japanese titles were top sellers in the West, but now Western companies dominate the market. Unlike their Japanese counterparts, popular Western games are characterized by their technical excellence (for example, their realistic graphics and human-like behavior).

For Japanese video game manufacturers, generating higher profits in the Western market is the number-one priority, and all companies are making efforts to achieve that goal. CESA, Japan’s only organization of video game companies, presents CEDEC, a game developers’ conference devoted to improving their development capabilities. CEDEC has grown significantly in size. The 2009 conference attracted an audience of 3,500. Our efforts to internationalize the conference and improve sessions will continue as we seek to contribute to the industry on a global scale.
“Research presented at SIGGRAPH is intended for high-end movies.” Not long ago, this perception was prevalent in the videogame industry. But with each generation, videogame console performance improves, the consoles become more complex, and game content is enhanced to meet market expectations. These tendencies are leading to longer production times. The industry needs the advanced technologies represented by SIGGRAPH, which raises an important question: Is the game industry attractive to researchers?

Considering this question as a mission, a little less than a year ago Square Enix established the Square Enix Research Center (SERC) to facilitate advanced studies in game technology. The center employs select researchers from around the world, predicts technologies that are expected to be at the core of next-generation games, and presents its research at academic conferences. In this session, SERC presents an overview of its perspective on the game industry.
The game industry has always pursued new and stimulating visual expressions. This session presents examples of game products to explain how the Japanese game industry heightens visual values and conveys a unique visual expression. It concludes with a summary of the Japanese game industry’s involvement with SIGGRAPH and its forums for advanced visuals and techniques.

Kenji Matsubara　
Tecmo Koei Holdings Co., LtdNaoto Yoshioka
Square Enix Co., LtdNaohiro Saito
NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc

Kazunobu Uehara
Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA)

Takashi Imagire
NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc.

Hiroshi Matsuyama
CyberConnect2 Co., Ltd.