It’s being reported that Epic Games developer Cliff Bleszinski made comments to the effect that Japan can’t keep up with the US technically.

Apparently the remarks were made by Bleszinski to Xbox World 360 magazine, and apparently he said “Part of the problem is, technically, Japan just can’t keep up with the US” when asked if Epic Games had plans to expand into Japan, Korea and China in the future.

Bleszinski then went on to say that “There’s been this fundamental shift. And it seems like part of the problem is not a lot of people play console games that much in Japan anymore. It’s all moved to this really weird mobile-type situation.”

Since then Bleszinksi has spoken out in his own defence, denying that he said anything about Japan not being able to keep up with the US. Posting on his Twitter account he commented “Internet tabloid alert: I said nothing about Japan not being able to keep up with the US regarding tech” and tagged the update with the word “fabrication.”

Bleszinski was obviously more than a little put out by the reports and went on to say “There are plenty of existing and upcoming Japanese titles that look amazing. I have nothing but the utmost respect for those devs.”

He rounded his defence off with a couple of remarks about his thoughts on journalism: “If this ‘journalism’ continues devs will only be able to recite fact sheets verbatim” stating that “Websites intentionally publish misquotes and out of context pullquotes to create forum flamewars which generates traffic and profit.”

So, which side of the fence are you sitting on this morning?