Off all the things that's wrong with society is the fact some titles are region lockout luckily DS well DS and DS lite anyway are region free systems but even so several games are still Japan only even do that's still won't stop you from playing the game without illegally modded your system, the language is the only barrier left, in the US/EU it's deference story since both British and American English is 99% the same with slight pronouncing deference so when we here a UK or US only title we can just import them on our DS (Wii is a deference story) so that issue is meaningless however Japan Only are not only a 100+ titles exist but compare to US/EU only titles there AAA titles and sometimes unsuccessful sequels to games we had played. Some of them i understand after all Japan is a "weird" nation if we compare them to outside market but even so that's what makes the games they make attractive and interesting. I don't expect games like Jump Ultimate Stars to ever be release outside of Japan do to licence issues:
Same can be set for Tatsunoko VS Capcom but here Capcom was able to do the impossible rounding up licence around the US and EU to deferent company who had their own separate contracts with Tatsunoko, it was a huge achievement for Capcom's part. Another reason is the Adult theme in several games here in the US Rated A for adults aka 18+ Years is banned on Home Console and Handhelds (EU i believe it's the same story, however Australia it's far worse situation). Games like Doki Doki Majo Shinpan!:
However these titles are meaningless compare to those who are intensionally Japan Only titles, the primary genre is the RPG and do to the heavy text nature of these genre i can understand why it takes so long to release the game compare to the Japanese version, but even so it's worth the wait and yet there some Game Companies who just won't spend cash on a translator, the primary suspect is Namco Bandai unless you been living under a Rock, Namco Bandai is the soul example of a Game Company who dare mock us with their excuse of good products especially since most of them are Japan Only don't believe me look at Tales Series there where three Tales game release on the DS between 2006 and 2008. How the heck did that happen? I mean Tales Of series is already popular outside of Japan so why make the newer ones all of a sudden Japan only?
At the same time if it weren't for Xseed and Rising Star Games, we could have never gotten Fragile and Sky Crawlers since Namco Bandai wanted them to be Japan Only titles. However believe it or not there not the only ones in fact Squere Enix And SEGA are also guilty of the same thing however here it's minor since there actually releasing the games about 2 Years later after the Japanese release even so there are still Japan only titles between the two companies:
How did this happen? I mean i know Video game is first and furthermost a business and video games are products to sell within this industry but when did the Japanese thought just because it was unsuccessful in their country it won't be outside of Japan games like Metroid Prime and Final Fantasy 7 gain massive hit outside of Japan and yet they still follow the same rule, believe it or not Nintendo is guilty of the same thing. Yes even Nintendo the Gaming Company who did everything to make Video Games a Industry again in 1985. Both ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat and Soma Bringer where great RPG titles from Nintendo and yet do to poor sales in Japan, it became Japan only titles why? I mean did Nintendo, SEGA, Square-Enix, Namco Bandai and the rest (yes i only mentioned about 5% of the problem there about 20 deferent Gaming Companies in Japan with this issue.) see the globe? Not only is the American, Australia, Africa, Europe and the rest of world who has a video game culture, a massive deferent compare to Japan but in US and EU in general sold more Video Game Hardware/ Software compare to Japan in every single way so in theory every game should be made in English either in EU/US before any other Language and yet Gaming Companies thinks it's a good idea to let some titles which we liked as Japan only, that's Bull****, games that doesn't have a good installed based i can somehow understand but Shining Force and Tales? Even an analyst will think that's crazy.
Anyway if there are more Japan Only titles that needs to be released outside of japan post it in the comments below.
Can't see a sumo wrestling game selling too well in the West, or cricket in many regions, because they aren't popular in all regions, so makes sense not every game is going to be translated and marketed everywhere.
Hopefully the translator from Japanese to English will be better than your native tongue And I don't think you quite grasp how expensive it is to mass produce a game. If you were just talking about downloads, then that's a different story. But then you have to deal with copyrights and such... money makes the world go 'round. In theory I do agree though, but I don't think you understand the business side of entertainment.
It would be nice if we didn't insult the poster when posting a contrary point of view.
I will echo Fuzzy, there's a lot of stuff that needs doing to get games published in different territories. It's only recently that many big Japanese publishers have had overseas publishing arms. Namco is only now starting to do its own publishing in Europe; same with Square Enix through the purchase of Eidos.
And whilst there may be a market for some niche titles there's still a gamble there. Rising Star is a pretty small outfit so they can probably make back the investment in something like Muramasa, but Capcom is going to lose a lot of money if bringing over Monster Hunter 3 turns out to be a bust.
I should think the DS presents less risk due to lower development costs -- are there any DS cart releases that people want localised which aren't?
The rset of the Layton games Jump Superstars The Another World ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat 7th Dragon Hikari no 4 Senshi: Final Fantasy Gaiden Retro Game Challange 2 All the DS Tales games
WAT!
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Well, I certainly think that Japan should be promoting their culture more generally and games should follow suit. This generation we seem to be seeing more localisation of Japanese titles than I can ever remember. The original Playstation was massive -- there were literally dozens of titles that never saw the light of day outside of Japan, many of which had no real localisation problems or were arcade classic compilations that would have been recognised by Western gamers.
Hopefully the popularity of manga and anime will continue and expand and we'll see a bigger market for games that are more Japanese in content. Muramasa is quite impressive in how closely it keeps to the source material which is steeped in Japanese culture and mythology. In an earlier generation I guarantee the dialogue would have been massively edited, probably dubbed and endings altered. It sucks when stuff that looks really interesting doesn't get released outside of Japan, but look at how much is getting released and enjoy that (the DS seems to be the home of JRPGs)! Or use it as an opportunity to learn Japanese and broaden your horizons, works for me!
Localisation takes time. Time is money. They aren't going to localise something that's going to cost a lot to translate when there's little to no profit in it just for the sake of appeasing fans. Besides which, the fans in question who are likely to know anything about games released in Japan and want them localised are the ones on the message boards. Which believe it or not are a tiny minority of the total sales. An highly unpleasable and often complaining minority at that. For any console, that is, incase anyone thinks I'm going on about the whole 'casual Nintendo' thing.
I need to go to the grammar thread and note in the rule of thumb that you try and use at least one full stop every second line of text. Big walls of text are almost unreadable.
The reason there are so many games that don't get translated to English and published overseas is that the process of translating a groping-schoolgirl-soccer-player game and then marketing and publishing it overseas would cost a whole lot more than the $100 or so the publisher and developer would make when it sells five copies.
You'll find that almost every game that has a decent change of breaking even overseas is translated and released.
If you really think it's such an injustice then learn Japanese. I have, but I think you'll be disappointed - those groping-schoolgirl-soccer-player games are not nearly as good as they sound.
The rset of the Layton games Jump Superstars The Another World ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat 7th Dragon Hikari no 4 Senshi: Final Fantasy Gaiden Retro Game Challange 2 All the DS Tales games
Isn't it a bit early to declare The Another World Japan-only? I feel pretty good FFG will be localized soon enough. Pretty sure the FF name alone still prints money. Not sure about Bahamut. I'm guessing they won't localized The Nameless Game (not a survival fan, but I am interested in seeing how they can horror and a faux-corrupted 8-bit RPG can be mixed together) Too bad RGC2 won't be localized because not enough people bought RGC1, but I guess that is how business works.
Well after reading some of your post i noticed my topic was a bit misread i'm well aware that there will always be Region only games but since Video Games has achieve in the past years this must be it's next step, i know that maybe not all games i mentioned won't make an appearance outside of Japan. I also know that Video game are a Business so in theory if it won't sell the series stop, but my point is a bit unfair that games like Tales Of Hearts (example) get washed away as in "this won't sell in Outside of Japan" that's what i called a complete nonsense, there's a reason why Pokemon achieve total success because Nintendo knew that RPG was big outside of Japan even back in 1998 after Final Fantasy 7 impact. Another example why i think RPG titles (since most Japan only titles happen to be RPG i use that as example) should not be ignore instead have a chance to prove that there is an audience is the rising WRPG popularity so since RPG has achieve till the point there's a WRPG genre now proves worldwide RPG can be successful and because of Video games early life we weren't use to games like Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger yet (back in 1995 SNES era) and because RPG was in it's early lifetime until Pokemon flourish it with high impact so in theory since DS it's the top selling video game hardware this generation there actually no reason why RPG shouldn't be localized since it has a higher chance of being successful, this is one of the key reason why Glory of Heracles and Sands of Destruction must be successful to prove stubborn game companies like Namco Bandai that there is a audience for JRPG. While i will admit i'm frustrated towards Namco Bandai since back in 2007 i tried Tales of Phantasia on the GBA and i love the art style story telling of the series since then i was waiting for remakes or new installments of the series either on Wii or DS (i skip Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World do to i didn't play the first game) sadly i never got a chance to buy one yet same with Fire Emblem except it still continue and i bought a game in the series after trying sacred stones on the GBA, i bought Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon a few month's back and i like as much as any Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Metroid and StarFox game even it's spiritual brother advance wars days of ruin i bought love them both and wished i got into them earlier . And i'm sorry for going so far off-topic but the ironic part is this reminds me of this video:
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Topic: Japan Only titles needs to stop being Japan only titles.
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