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After PlayStation boss praises Nier Automata as a savior for Japanese games overseas, Yoko Taro says he was specifically told to focus on Japan because it wouldn't fly overseas
The success of Nier: Automata, created without Western appeal in mind, spurred a shift in the Japanese gaming industry, encouraging developers to prioritize their unique style over chasing Western trends, as evidenced by the popularity of Persona, Yakuza, and Monster Hunter.
During the Xbox 360 and PS3 era, there was a trend of Japanese game developers trying to make games to appeal to western audiences. Capcom was a big proponent of this with the likes of Lost Planet 2, which felt like a way to get Americans to like Monster Hunter by adding guns and robots to it, or the edgy Devil May Cry reboot DmC: Devil May Cry. However, over the last few years we've seen Japanese games abandon this trend to massive success, with the likes of Persona, Yakuza, Monster Hunter, and Nier blowing up over the last decade and only getting more popular since.
Recently, former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida named Nier: Automata the game that "revived" the Japanese games industry, citing that Nier director Yoko Taro "made it without thinking about whether or not it would sell overseas." Yoko Taro has responded to the praise while revealing a fun detail about why Nier: Automata is the way it is.
In a tweet, Yoko Taro said (via Twitter's translation feature), "I'm honored that Automata is being praised," however, he revealed the idea to make it wholly Japanese wasn't his. "It was Producer [Yosuke] Saito who gave the order to 'make it for the Japanese market without worrying about overseas reviews'." Afterwards, Yoko Taro gave a more in-depth account, saying, "I remember being told something like, "Yokoo [sic], you can't make games for overseas, so please try your best to make one for Japan at least."
While Saito's response may seem harsh, the producer did chime with a follow-up tweet, saying, "I didn't say that much. We're Japanese, so we don't need to try and force ourselves to be popular with people overseas." Saito added, "On top of that, if we gather people from all over the world who like Japanese games made by a Japanese person (Yoko-san, the one and only), there should be about 1 million of them!"
The original Nier sold notoriously poorly; in 2019, Yoko Taro told GameInformer, "we sold around 500,000. For the last game [Nier], we weren't really in the red, but it wasn't exactly a success either." So Automata's massive success came as a shock to many, but it's gone on to become so popular it boosted merch sales for Square Enix, and its protagonist, 2B, made an appearance as a guest character in a ton of games, including Soul Calibur 6 and Monster Hunter Frontier Z.