https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/211141-dragon-ball-fighterz/76389672
The source article no longer seems to work but somebody on GameFAQs had paraphrased it. And tbh this might be translated, so maybe not be exact words but it was still interesting.
Here are some quotes in the actual article:
“With that in mind, the controls are much easier than in some of our past titles. You may have seen, at EVO last year, that in the finals, all the finalists were Japanese. We don’t want that. We want a global audience to have fun. We want to see more foreign players in competition. With that in mind, we kind of reset everything and re-created the controls so everyone can have fun.”
"GamesBeat: Do you feel that there’s a way to design controls with Japanese players in mind that Western players may not quite grasp?
Mori: I feel that controls are something that everybody can understand regardless of nationality. But I just wanted to make it easier and bring down that hurdle.
At the same time, I feel like dexterity … Japanese players may be better at that. In my mind, games like Smash Bros. are where Westerners are much better than Japanese … that kind of game you jam buttons a lot, right?"
Sure more accessibility and lower barrier of entry are very good things to pursue, but tying that to nationality is kinda weird lol.
So just imagine if this kinda mentality is engrained at a level like this, what other things might be informed by said mentality too
Might be a reach but why not extrapolate that to “Why even care about releasing on Xbox if the west is simply too dumb and scrubby to play our games”. Sure that might not be the biggest driver of motivation, but it can contribute to it, especially if the platform already isn’t as popular for your kinda games.
