I can't seem to find anything online about it. I'm weighing up wether to go for the US system or the Japanese one. undoubtedly the 360 is set for a nose dive in Japan. but the games themselves, atleast some of them, could turn out to be interesting no?
Looks like it is going to be - Dead or Alive 4 Everyparty Fifa 06 Need for speed MW Perfect Dark Zero Ridge Racer 6 Tetris - grandmaster Ace The next wave after launch is dec22. I don't think I have missed anything good.
Localisation from america to japan takes much longer than the other way round. Think translating from Japanese is hard? Try translating to Japanese, especially if you are an american based company. Makes logistic sense, and the simple fact is that games missing from the jp launch are the games that would never ever sell more than 3 copies. Fifa is only there cos it is a football game, that might go down well. I'm only going to get a Japanese one, looks like there is going to be a bit of quality, EM, far east of eden, N3, Chrome hounds, LO and blue dragoon (which looks very poor from the screens I saw today IMHO). And of course senko no ronde, I so love that game! Find an arcade with the difficulty set to max and that game is amazing, also tournement/2p play is truly brilliant. I think I will buy one late Jan, to get EM and the others that interest me at that time. I reckon we have about a year and a half of japanese support to enjoy.
I wish Dead Rising was a launch title.. that's the kind of game I would buy a system for (blindly) - it reminds me of what was available for Dreamcast for some reason - looking at my sig you'll notice the kind of game I like. was sad to read that the creator of Illbleed and Blue Stinger passed away. so sad. 2 of my favourite games.
Ah, I didn't know that. I did like Illbleed though. I remember being in a grocery store, or something, and a monster pops out. That's been a while, so I can't really remember.
I doubt the localization is anymore painful from one area to the other. Translations are almost always outsourced anyways. I think some companies (Microsoft being one of them) that translating games that scream 'western' into Japanese is a dumb idea. Case in point: Halo. We'll see though. Hopefully this time around they won't try to hide the fact that it's a US-made console.
How do you guys think the 360 will do in Japan. American consoles generally haven't done too well over there, I'm wondering if the Japanese people will take the same opinion with the 360 that they did with the first Xbox. [edit] Also, what types of titles do well in Japan? I know that they have different tastes in games than Americans generally do, so maybe Microsoft needs to keep that in mind when creating games if they wan't the 360 to succeed globally.
Even though it's not really the same, check out Condemned. I've been watching a friend play through it these past couple of days and it really is a great title. The immersion factor is off the scale. I didn't know the creator of those two games died either. When did he pass away?
Well, nobody really knows. Japanese are label-whores... even more so than American fanboys. So, it's a big crap shoot. If it were on looks alone, the smaller 360 would outsell the PS3 in heartbeat in my opinion. This is a country that Apple took by storm when the iMac came out...basically b/c it was a small, compact, and very cute computer. M$ is obviously putting way more effort into the launch, and hopefully will follow through. They've got a lot of Japanese developers. In all honesty, I would've said the PS2 would've failed based on it's shitty launch, but look what happened. M$ is definitely the underdog this time around. It seems they've realized crappy US games with nice graphics won't sell in Japan (at all). What games sell well in Japan? RPGs are huge, and sell systems. 3D action games of course, and many other genres that do well in the US, but genres that are very good sellers but don't do shit outside of Japan are Pachinko, Dating Sims, etc.
Dead or Alive 4 Kuso game Fifa 06 Kuso Game Kuso Game Ridge Racer 6 Kuso Game Seen from a Japanese view :dance:
Yeah, you cannot underestimate the importance of the rpd to the japanese market. You just have to look at the coverage in magazines and space in shops. Rpg is king. Oh and american rpgs go down like a cupfull of sick, ho hum. I think we might be seeing the 360 gain some share in japan with this next gen. They have done well to gain support. But you must remember that magatama and Kawai Hiroshi failed to sell the first one. I think MS have got a solid product, they have done their research and they have got some good games on the horizon. They should do a bit better this time round, although I think the launch is going to be pretty poor, once Blue Dragon and the like give people good reason to buy the machine, we may see a small reversal in fortune. The potential problem for MS in Japan may be, that they have a slow launch, then EM and N3 turn out to be not so good and then blue dragon is delayed considerably, if those key games are too long coming then other japanese companies are less likely to get involved. I think a lot of companies are waiting to see how big titles from other companies go before they throw their money in. MS has really got to get the year after the launch right to sustain interest in the 360, otherwise potential developers are going to bugger off to other pastures. BTW I own 4 pachislo games on the ps2 alone. It is an impotant market! And the original xbox did have some OK dating games. EDIT - funny thing about everyparty - I love the way western mags describe it as a very japanese game that appeals to mainstream japanese gamers, or something like that - yeah it is japanese, but it is still a shite looking game, everyparty is not going to sell the 360! I would rather play itadaki street special a hundred times over.
