the entirety of the 2000s western devs were pumping out their A game and making better games than japan did arguably, both in game design and in budget.
Half Life, Team Fortress, Portal, Prince of Persia, Far Cry, Mass Effect, Dead Space, God of War, TES Morrowind and Oblivion, Fable, Halo 1-3, COD WaW and Black Ops, Splinter cell, timesplitters, Minecraft, GTA, Max Payne
i can go on... you have to admit that at least one of these titles massively innovated and changed game design in the gaming space
Japan had some good stuff too ill admit but that time period from 1998-2011 was the peak of western gaming as a whole. i dont think anyone who lived in that time period or played games since then could deny that, most of the hype was surrounding the western developed games
It wasn't until when the CEOs and Shareholders took over in 2012, compounded by gamergate in the later 2 years making them incorporate woke elements, microtransactions, DLC, etc. While putting actual innovation and uniqueness at the backburner. The innovators like Indies don't really have the budget to create games as big as the old AAA titles, so we're sort of stuck between low budget but exciting indies and high budget, greedy rushed out of the door microtransaction fests. Yes Japan is greedy too, but their greed is mostly left to their shitty gacha mobile games which nobody in the west plays anyways (besides weebs) so people who enjoy bigger stuff like Resident Evil and Final Fantasy are good.