Momotaro Dentetsu Surpasses Three Million Sales On Switch, Yet It's Still Exclusive To Japan

Not much of a point. That new train simulator game isn't doing too hot outside of Japan, is it?

the game would be fun to play for me.

While it would be nice for it to be localised to see what all the fuss is about, it would completely sink without a trace worldwide. Some things just don’t translate outside of a country. Look at how mad Germany are for David Hasselhoff. Some countries have a niche.

Konami found its Metal Gear Solid replacement right here.

I'd be very surprised if this ever gets localized in the west. The game is very Japanese, would undoubtedly crash and burn in the west. Might not even make its localization money back. From what I understand, its a train simulation board game? Already extremely niche, but the artstyle is going to put off most western people who would be interested most likely. The artstyle simply doesn't appeal to western audiences like it does to the Japanese.

It's a good seller in Japan but I don't think anyone outside Japan would care about this just like Dragon Quest back in the days. Sure it sells like hotcakes in Japan back in the NES and Super NES days but outside of Japan Dragon Quest attracts no one and the slow pace of the game doesn't win western audience over. It wasn't until DQ8, the popularity of Akira Toriyama, Dragon Ball Z, and the anime crowd that Dragon Quest finally got its western appeal. This game on the otherhand will need a lot of proving to do in able to win western audience over, its success in Japan doesn't mean it will be the same outside it.

@NTDO89 which? The fact there are multiple indicate there is an audience.

Don't bother releasing it outside of Japan. Majority Non-Japanese wouldn't get what's its hype is all about.

If you want to play it because of its characters and premise, I wouldn't hold my breath.
If you want to play it for its gameplay, didn't we have Billion Road from the same creator?

I've tried to understand the game a bit... it appears to essentially be a cross between Monopoly and a tile/dominoes strategy game... with a generational, iconic, but very Japanese character as the lead.

Some things just don't land globally and I'm afraid this is one of those things.

The licencing for the series is a mess. The creator might have some control, might not, with whatever they don't have belonging to Konami which was lent to Nintendo for undisclosed terms. Nintendo is basically working as 3rd party developer.

That means that behind the scenes, who has distribution rights for the game itself might be complicated, given the developer of the game (Nintendo) would set terms as would the owner of the IP (Konami). The series was on it's way out when Nintendo got the deal in 2015, so the most likely problem is that Nintendo only agreed to work on the IP in return for strict publishing control, and a release outside of JP would require renegotiation no one is interested in doing.

There's not enough death or misery for it to sell in the west. Swap the cartoon look for something a bit more post apocalyptic, put it in first person, swap the smiles for scowls and stick a stubbly protagonist in, male or female. Hey presto, western interest...

@nessisonett A David Hasselhoff train simulator you say. Hmmm.

There’s an understandable degree of FOMO to seeing a game sell like hot cakes that you can’t have, but as other commentators have said, if this were to be localised it would probably sell pretty dismally.

If it were announced in a Direct or something, I imagine the reaction would be, “Who asked for Choo-choo Monopoly? C’mon Nintendo give us a new F-Zero already”.