Speaking with Gamasutra, Head of Team Ninja Yosuke Hayashi said that Ninja Gaiden 3 was aimed too much at Western tastes. In the interview, Hayashi said:
It seems like we made a Japanese hamburger for the West. Maybe as a Japanese developer, we need to make good Japanese food… and that's what people are wanting from a Japanese developer.
YES! Thank you! No one in the corporate office is going to realize this and demand it from you. They are going to ask for that hamburger every day of the week. EVERY. DAMN. DAY.
They don't give a shit about your creativity! They want you to make that super-big-million-fucking-seller. It's not going to happen if you don't have a unified vision. I'm happy Team Ninja, and someone so high up in the chain at the development studio, has realized this, I just wish it didn't take a huge stinker like Ninja Gaiden 3 to get the point across.
Hayashi continued to say that the current environment in the Japanese development industry is to do "everything they can just to basically stay above water." I think everyone can respect that situation these days.
This and other lessons are in my open letter to the Japanese development community on how to return to their former selves.
