As a gamer and fanboy of several titles such as Kingdom Hearts and the "Tales of" series, I am quite sad to say that I cannot own and play every copy of a game since some of them aren't published in Europe. I would love to play the Final Mix versions of KH 1 & 2, yet I will never be able to do so. Some "Tales of" games never reach Europe at all. Trying to import them is useless since:
1. I cannot read japanese.
2. My console isn't able to play it.
Now, I can understand that some games might not sell as well in Europe as they might do in Asia. But what do you think?
Should all games be made International, even when taking the costs for a publisher in account?
For real... I really want access to this fight! WY U JAPANESE ONLY!
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ReplyDeleteThat's a good question that has been looked in several times. The answer isn't really a "yes" or "no" one. Some games are produced for the Japanese market only (like some of the early FF titles). When the franchise proves successful, they may the make the jump.
ReplyDeleteAs a tokusatsu fanboy I am mostly plagued by this problem. Lots of the cool stuff you'll only get in Japan. Thanks to fansubs, I can still see the shows. I can never have a subbed dvd in my collection though... The hardly exist.
With games, the need to be localized, mostly to America. If a game doesn't sell there, we don't get it most of the time. Big titles are always co produced for a Japanese and an English version. as most of us know. A niche game like KH does have that luxury, but some versions are Japan only because the franchise isn't THAT big and only caters to a certain audience.
Region free is not a solution, localization is the problem here. If there is not a big enough audience for a game to sell, it will not be localized. It's Yens and Dollars in the end.
Pity, Really.