Apple's Success in Japan Inspires Game Devs

The iPhone has managed to do what the Xbox 360 could not: make Japan fall in love with it.

The Japanese have been somewhat reluctant to adopt other technology from Western companies - most notably the Xbox 360 - but they warmly embraced Apple's iPhone and iPod. Cell phones are an intrinsic part of modern Japanese culture, but even so the acceptance of the iPhone has been rather remarkable. According to Phillip Miner in Issue 219 of The Escapist, Japan's fascination with Apple's platform has not gone unnoticed by Japanese game dvelopers:

In light of this, it should be no surprise that major Japanese game developers like Capcom and Square Enix have embraced the iPhone and iPod Touch as platforms for game development. Square Enix, for example, has extended its Final Fantasy series of games onto the iPhone and iPod Touch with its Crystal Defenders: Vanguard Storm spin-off. As for Capcom, they recently created a version of Resident Evil 4 for the iPhone. And that's not all: Taito has created an iPhone-specific version of Space Invaders called Space Invaders: Infinity Gene, and Sega has been soliciting ideas from the gaming community about what games they'd like to see on the platform.

Read more of How Do You Like Them Apples? and let us know if you can bear to be separated from your cell phone. Me, I forget to charge mine half the time.