Originally posted by Watchdog
Right but Square does not have many titles that people love and would buy a system for.
Capcom: RE, SF, Megaman, DMC, Genma
Sega: Daytona, VF, Sonic, Shenmue, Panzer
You could make the argument that these two companies are just as good in one genre as another. Square is good with RPGs, and they do other stuff too.
And then when you factor in the whore that EA is and all the publishing they do, they are much more important than Square.
Right, Capcom makes good Horror/Action and Arcade titles, and Sega makes good titles in a variety of genres. Same goes with Namco.
And I look back at my library of games, and most of the ones that stand out to me are made by Square. Yes there are a few made by Namco, a few made by Konami, a few made by Capcom, and a few made by Sega. However many of those games developed by Square which I mentioned about earlier actually do sell consoles (obviously not all the games I listed). The average Japanese gamer center around the RPG genre, and Square being one of the best developers for RPGs, stand out as ONE of the most important 3rd party developers.
Then you shift the field to the States, where Action type games tend to receive a better liking than RPGs. In such cases, arcade hits such as Daytona and Street Fighter begin to shine, and sell consoles.
Sales are relative to what kind of audience you have. Square and Enix were both big time companies here in Japan during the NES/SNES, however they were barely known in the States. Whenever there was a new FF released, or a new DQ released, people lined up the stores from days beforehand just to get a hold of the game. Many kids were mugged by people that wanted the game badly. So in Japan, the biggest 3rd party developers were Square and Enix.
Outside of Japan however, there is a different audience with a higher demand for other types of games, so the argument can easily go towards a different company.
You also have to remember the history of the companies which you mentioned. Capcom, Namco, and Sega all started out (and are still active) in the coin-op Arcade scene. Most games those three developers produced were Arcade games ported to consoles. One of Capcom\'s first ventures of creating a strictly Console based game was Resident Evil, and it was a large hit. Namco even more so is still coin-op based, with exceptions of recent hits such as XenoSaga (which by the way is only published by Namco, but not developed by Namco).
