Keiichi Yano of
iNiS has a unique perspective on the Japanese and American game industries. His company remade their game
Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! into a new game whose references and music are more famililar to Western audiences; now Japanese shops are importing the resulting game,
Elite Beat Agents, for Japanese sale. In addition, as discussed in this interview with Gamasutra's Christian Nutt, iNiS has been licensing their nFactor2 engine out to developers for use in Xbox 360 games-- a move that, to be honest, would seem to have more benefit to the American market.
Furthermore, the genre to which he contributed so much-- music games-- now has an American juggernaut in
Guitar Hero that threatens to subsume all other music games (except
Rock Band, which is a direct descendant of
Guitar Hero) in the public's consciousness.
We'd listen to anything Keiichi Yano had to say based only on our teary-eyed devotion to
Gitaroo-Man. Luckily, he's actually
interesting in this interview about music games, middleware, and international game development. Readers-- are-- GO!
