What happened to western AAA games lately?

[Sonicx9]

Is it me are have most western AAA games going down that path the Japanese games went during the 7th gen/early 8th gen period, because if you can recall from late 2006 all the way up to 2016, western AAA games on consoles could do no wrong or what seemed like they could not do anything wrong have fallen downhill. Lets see outside of Sony PlayStation 1st party hits (Horizon Zero Dawn, Spider Man, and even God of War 2018 the last one which critic was not crazy about BTW based on his review), and Rockstar Games for Red Dead Redemption 2. It like most of them became misses than hits examples include EA in general, (Star Wars Battlefront II 2017 and Anthem anyone), Bethesda has became Bugtehsda lately after Fallout 76, Square Enix western games have mostly under performed compared to the Japanese side, examples Shadow of the Tomb Raider vs Spider Man case as Spider Man crushed it in sales and the other fadde. Heck Ubisoft for the recent Assassin's Creed and Activision Call of Duty series are not getting as high review scores lately. I think the problem is that their AAA greed combined with the obsession of live service games and what not is what hurting their receptions.

Will the western AAA bounce back and be able to compete with the many critically acclaimed Japanese and Indie titles which have taken the western AAA spotlight, or do they need to do things differently?

[BanjoPickles]

Hmm, I don’t see a problem. As you pointed out, PS4 has seen the likes of Spider-Man, Until Dawn, The Last of Us (and it’s pending sequel), GTA V (which is closing in on 100 million copies sold), Red Dead Redemption II, God of War, Crash trilogy, and so forth. Citing one company’s epic blunder (Fallout ‘76), along with another’s gross miscalculation, is hardly indicative of the industry at large. Every generation has had AAA misfires.

[Sonicx9]

Hmm, I don’t see a problem. As you pointed out, PS4 has seen the likes of Spider-Man, Until Dawn, The Last of Us (and it’s pending sequel), GTA V (which is closing in on 100 million copies sold), Red Dead Redemption II, God of War, Crash trilogy, and so forth. Citing one company’s epic blunder (Fallout ‘76), along with another’s gross miscalculation, is hardly indicative of the industry at large. Every generation has had AAA misfires.

Some good choices, but some like the original The Last of Us and GTA V are old late life 7th Gen/early 8th Gen when Western dev AAA games where still top tier, and Japanese and Indie games where on the backside at the time. And for Crash trilogy, that is debatable as it between a AAA and a mid tier game as it not a full AAA game, but not full mid tier either as most people today would consider most cartoony platformers game series like Crash, Sonic, Mario, Mega Man, etc as mid tier titles mostly as they were once considered AAA games back when the genre was king, but now fall in the middle as most modern AAA games 7th Gen onward is viewed as either being M are T rated with huge budgets and marketing hype and advertising and high review scores. Or is that a stereotype? And mind you 2017 onward had a few Japanese game dev misfires like Metal Gear Survive due happen every now and then just not as often as 2007-2016 range when most Japanese game dev stuff was on the backside compared to western dev AAA games. And even modern Indie games from 2017 onward like Troll and I and Life Of Black Tiger are shovelware misfires for the Indie side of things.

But back in 2007 to 2016 range, most people where Periphery Hatedoming Japanese dev games left and right during the 7th gen/early 8th gen console side of things, handheld and PS2 new stuff around that time frame for Persona 3 and 4 case on PS2 due not count as theat where the best Japanese game release came during that era as they became more portable centric and less console centric around that time period. Not that their weren't Japanese dev games that where critical or commercial success on consoles such as most Nintendo 1st party games, the Souls series from FromSoftware, PlatinumGames stuff, etc. But people really where poo pooing on the Japanese made games on consoles way more often compared to the past around the 2007 to 2016 range.