Japanese game import scene dying?

Is it just me, or has the market for current gen import games died within the last few years? I'm not sure if it's because the US has a much bigger market on console games over the last generation...but what used to be "PREVIEW! JAPANESE VERSION! MAY NOT COME OUT IN AMERICA!' shit in EGM is like...gone. :/

 

It's just the region locking, and it's known as teasing... There is no point game sites mentioning Japanese Releases to the western market . Though I loved hearing about them when borrowing "HYPER" magazines.

I usually import games that I can play PS3 and some XBOX 360 games... Also I reckon it's shipping prices too, if you can afford by all means do it while you can.
Good topic to bring up, as I was thinking about this this morning.

 

EGM used to post imports ALL the time. And when tips and tricks was around they had an import section :/

 

In the current gen, most games are getting released in the West first, even if they are developed by Japan, and generally, the popularity of Japanese developed games has fallen out of favor. Also, importing itself has become cost prohibitive with the strong yen.

 

That and Most import games aren't worth two shits anymore.

 

Pretty much that. Back in the day, the big releases were made by Japanese studios, so naturally, they came out in Japan first. Now, big releases are often American-made. That, and the time between the Japan release and English release gets shorter and shoter all the time, no point in hyping up a preview for a game that's probably going to release in English in a few weeks.

 

yeah, now that you no longer have months and months of lead time between JP and US releases the urge to import has dwindled alot. I'd import when it meant not having to wait for the US launch, but now some consoles even launch here first, so why bother

 

I import all the time, from Asia That's because as pointed out, Japanese release dates are really slow.

 

There are several reasons why there is no longer an Japanese import scene.....

1 - Genereal worldwide release Dates
2 - Strong Japanese Yen
3 - Lack of Japanese exclusives
4 - More games that require extensive Japanese knowledge
5 - Stronger western games

1 - In the old bad days of the NES and Master System, there were years between a game coming out in, Super Mario Bros 3 took nearly 3 years between it being released in Japan and in Europe (it was nearly 1 and and a half years before it was released in America). As time had gone on, release dates have tended to closer until now when most games tend to get released in the West first then in Japan.

2 - The Japanese Yen means that Japanese games cost between $50 and $100+, although in real terms games are less expensive, you would still not want to import a game that is double what you would pay for a local game.

3 - A quick rumage through the Japanese websites of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, do show a strong lack of Japanese games, although the Wii does have more, you know that most of them have or will get released in the West. in the old days you would have a number of shooters, fighters, action games, platformers released on a system that probably would not get released in the west. Nowdays there are a handful of shooters that might not make it...

4 - Although someone would say that there are quite a few Japanese only games, the problem is that most of them require heavy knowledge of Japanese and a great deal of them are RPGs, Simulation or Adventure games that only the most hardcore gamer would want to import.

5 - Although there are a lot of decent Japanese games, even in Japan there are a lot of western developed games released and in some genres there is a lack of any Japanese games.

 

which is sad... i remember when i imported games because they came out months/year early...

 

I import old school

like literally import half my shit these days is coming from Japan.

 

An upcoming US Supreme Court decision has the potential to kill the import game scene (at least stateside): http://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-right-to-resell-your-own-stuff-is-in-peril-2012-10-04

 

What a load of crap. No way can a like that pass.

 

I'm not really worried about that case. The clusterfuck of problems it would cause alone makes it slim the court would ever vote in favor.

Part of me wishes they would vote for it though. The consequences would be so far reaching and piss so many people off that it could force the pendulum to swing the other way in favor of the consumer instead of the copyright holders.

 

Let's not forget that markup some sellers give to items they're selling overseas. On one hand I can understand charging for the potential hassles of shipping overseas, on the other hand they know most buyers aren't going to research prices in an item's original country.

 

also untop of strong yen and rising shipping costs, theres also import tax (uk, dont know about elsewhere) you can get hit with, luckily HMRC havn't got me yet but know a few people who have been hit with it

 

I used to import a lot of games myself, mostly the more obscure titles. But as of late the lack of AA+ titles and mostly the high cost of yen have scare me away. Sure video games are cheaper then the 90s, but the price on trying to pay for all the fees in todays market would feel like its double of what I pay for in the early 2000.

 

We , in Europe still have Rising Star Games who contributes to Danmaku popularity by releasing Cave games and others must-have games.

What about Aksys ?

 

The 16-bit and 32-bit era were amazing times for importing games from Japan. Sadly, this isn't commom anymore as the number of Japan exclusive games is very low. And release dates aren't so distant like they used to be.

I was going to import Under Defeat HD with the help of Yakumo some months ago but then i had problems with my old computer. Since i was already buying parts for a new one, i ended up getting rid of the old one and spent some time to complete the new machine. During that time Under Defeat HD got picked by Rising Star Games for release in US / Europe, with the adds of the game being patched and with it's DLC, plus a soundtrack CD. The cover art is terrible, but at least it will be cheaper and easier to get.

http://www.risingstargames.com/game.aspx?sku=under-defeat-hd-deluxe-edition-ps3:AMS

 

I feel like the geeky upside to living in Japan is getting smaller and smaller. The crazy strong yen is making it worse. Akihabara is basically nothing like it used to be, there's only a handful of arcade games, and shop-scouring just doesn't work like it used to. Note that I don't really dick around w/ current gen that much.