Big Picture Mode

Industry issues given the widescreen treatment.

- Nathan Brown

During the almost eight years I’ve been working on Edge, Japan trips have been a rare commodity. I joined the team at the peak of the 360 era, when western developers ruled the roost, and big Japanese publishers were struggling to catch up. So, if there was a trip overseas, it was almost always taking you to the US, and mostly the west coast. Yes, there’d be the odd bit of Canada, and a fair bit of Nordic action. But in my first six years on Edge, I went to Japan once. I just got back from my fourth trip in 18 months. Japanese game development is back.

Thank god. When I fell in love with Edge in the early 2000s it wasn’t the reportage on western games that drew me in; it was the unearthing of far-eastern curios. It was Katamari and Rez, God Hand and Ryu Ga Gotoku. Games with an otherworldly quality that this grown-up, well-travelled mag had handpicked for me and me alone. It was a western magazine with, I felt, a Japanese soul.