Inafune feels the Japanese games industry has "gotten worse" since his 2009 comments

Keiji Inafune feels the state of the Japanese games industry has "gotten worse" since he made his famous remarks on the matter back in 2009.

Speaking with Gamespot at PAX, Inafune said there's no reason for what he feels is a continuing decline when there are more development options available than ever before.

"Ultimately, it's probably gotten worse than when I was talking about it before. And that's a shame," Inafune said, "but there are options out there. And there are many options that Japanese independent developers can pursue to gain more control, to own their own IP, et cetera.

"And Kickstarter is one of those fantastic options, and so, one of the reasons why I was interested in doing [the Mighty No. 9] Kickstarter wasn't just because potentially being able to connect with the fans, but also potentially being able to show other Japanese independent developers that there is a way, that there are options."

Inafune launched his Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter campaign September 2 initially asking $900,000 for development on PC with various stretch goals offering more content and release options.

By this morning, the game had already garnered $1.2 million and as of post time, Inafune is just shy of hitting the Linux and Mac stretch goal of $1.35 million.