Nintendo

You have to remember that your taste isn't the only taste in video games. For example, you didn't mention Animal Crossing which was an insane smash hit for sales. The Pokémon games sold extraordinarily well. Splatoon continues to kill in sales. Kirby is another one that sold like hotcakes.

New games have been coming out and selling like gangbusters. You just didn't notice because they're not the ones you, personally, play.

Spoken like somebody who has never played the timeless classic that is ARMS 🤧

Splatoon is one of the biggest games in Japan

Those games weren't good

It's not so much developer spite as it is that Japanese devs know the preferences of their home market much better than Western devs do, and vice versa, Western devs know the Western market much better. Microsoft's one token attempt on console to appeal to Japanese gamers (publishing Blue Dragon, Infinite Undiscovery, and The Last Remnant on the 360 back around '09) failed spectacularly not because MS is a Western publisher, but because the games' overall quality was mid at best and they actually ran better on PC and PS3 when the exclusivity ended. MS hasn't really made a real attempt to focus on Japan since.

? apex legends is one of the most popular games in japan right now. what kind of twisted sense of japan do you have right now.

It's not spite, but they absolutely do favour stuff built in their own country, as many do. Nintendo also notoriously builds their systems and games for the Japanese audience in mind, because it's what they know.

It's a totally different culture, and Japan as a nation is relatively isolated, so it's not a spite thing - just liking what is available to you and what you know.

Doubt it's spite.

I will avoid games that "feel" Japanese because they don't interest me for a variety of reasons. I don't like the exaggerated voices and facial expressions, I don't like personified insects and sea creatures, and I don't care for hamfisted dialogues that over-explain the entire plot.

Games like Mario and Zelda are exceptions because they have just enough of a Western feel to them.

I have to imagine Japanese players like things that feel normal to them the same way I do. And a lot of Nintendo's bigger games have found a good way to thread that needle between Western culture and Japanese culture.

I don't think Japanese people spend as much time thinking about the west as you think.

Maybe "pretentious cinematic thrid person action game" and "buggy eSports 2000s nostalgia bait" games just don't appeal to people in Japan as much as it does in the west.