Masaya Matsuura on the future of the music game genre

Everyone who’s into music games knows PaRappa: The Rapper, one of the pioneers in the music game genre. It’s one of the quirkiest and funniest games to have come out for the PlayStation 1.

With the popularity of the music game genre on the rise, who better to ask about it than Masaya Matsuura, the creator of PaRappa: The Rapper. GamesIndustry.biz was recently lucky enough to talk with Matsuura who shared his thoughts on the industry.

Of course when we talk about music and games, you cannot help but mention popular games such as Singstar, Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Matsuura spoke about these “newer” games that have captured western gamers rather smugly, “I’ve been waiting for things to happen in the West that we have had in Japan for the last 10 years.”

He was also asked about the controllers that both Guitar Hero and Rock Band have and he called it old news noting that he’s past that phase and he “had that interest in 1997 or so!” However he did say that “they are much more advanced and sophisticated than the ideas the Japanese developers had, so I appreciate that and respect their activities.”

This leads us to a question that we should consider, why are western developers so behind in development and what can they do to catch up? Matsuura gave a clear answer on this pointing out the differences in music culture.

I started my career as a musician in the early 90s. I was an exclusive signed artist for Sony. I worked to release my album in the UK, but unfortunately the Japanese music market is very specialised and I didn’t generate any foreign interest. I was frustrated to have to stick to the local market, so I started to think about worldwide activities. I wanted to move a little further afield, away from the conservative music business.

I think that a lot of musicians in Japan wanted to appeal to the wider market by using new ideas – games, for example. Music sales are shrinking, it’s a worldwide tendency, so maybe soon they will have to appeal to a wider market. This helps music games succeed.

So where are we headed in terms of music and gaming? Matsuura foresees that “Maybe in 20 years, 15 per cent of the music industry will earn their money from games.” Will we really be seeing the integration of music into gaming as software sales have been dying down? A very interesting notion that industry experts need to explore. If you want to read the full interview, check out the read link.

Everyone who’s into music games knows PaRappa: The Rapper, one of the pioneers in the music game genre. It’s one of the quirkiest and funniest games to have come out for the PlayStation 1.

With the popularity of the music game genre on the rise, who better to ask about it than Masaya Matsuura, the creator of PaRappa: The Rapper. GamesIndustry.biz was recently lucky enough to talk with Matsuura who shared his thoughts on the industry.

Of course when we talk about music and games, you cannot help but mention popular games such as Singstar, Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Matsuura spoke about these “newer” games that have captured western gamers rather smugly, “I’ve been waiting for things to happen in the West that we have had in Japan for the last 10 years.”

He was also asked about the controllers that both Guitar Hero and Rock Band have and he called it old news noting that he’s past that phase and he “had that interest in 1997 or so!” However he did say that “they are much more advanced and sophisticated than the ideas the Japanese developers had, so I appreciate that and respect their activities.”

This leads us to a question that we should consider, why are western developers so behind in development and what can they do to catch up? Matsuura gave a clear answer on this pointing out the differences in music culture.

I started my career as a musician in the early 90s. I was an exclusive signed artist for Sony. I worked to release my album in the UK, but unfortunately the Japanese music market is very specialised and I didn’t generate any foreign interest. I was frustrated to have to stick to the local market, so I started to think about worldwide activities. I wanted to move a little further afield, away from the conservative music business.

I think that a lot of musicians in Japan wanted to appeal to the wider market by using new ideas – games, for example. Music sales are shrinking, it’s a worldwide tendency, so maybe soon they will have to appeal to a wider market. This helps music games succeed.

So where are we headed in terms of music and gaming? Matsuura foresees that “Maybe in 20 years, 15 per cent of the music industry will earn their money from games.” Will we really be seeing the integration of music into gaming as software sales have been dying down? A very interesting notion that industry experts need to explore. If you want to read the full interview, check out the read link.