| Scisca said: Considering there are companies that operate solely to localise and distribute niche Japanese games in the West (XSEED) it has to be a profitable business. You give the example of Nintendo - do you remember Operation Rainfall? Why didn't Nintendo bring these games to NA even though they've already localised and released them in Europe? The Wii sales were too low in NA? Do you really think the possibility of profiting was that low not to take that risk? I think the Japanese companies just don't care, cause even though it's sure money, it's not huge money. But at the same time they are hurting the jRPG market in the West and making it impossible for more gamers to get into these games. It's just a bad business model. Remember that we don't have to buy as many games as the Japanese! If Namco thinks it's ok to develop the game for the Japanese market alone, it means they get profit from that market alone, hence the development costs are already covered. The money earned in the West just has to cover the costs of localisation to be pure additional profit and I will not believe that a game with such a brand like "Tales of" won't sell good enough to cover that. But I guess we're gonna see when "Ys" gets released. Do you really believe that a price cut in the West will change anything in the minds of the Japanese? Like others have said, they have a very bad track record in this matter and are pretty stubborn. Thank god for XSEED! |
Yeah 
XSEED is our savior !! The BIG publishers want to sell a LOOOT of copy . If they there aren't enough sold copy => STOP . It is really sad.
Take a look at this interview :
http://operationrainfall.com/interview-xseed-games/
It talks about all steps for localizing a game . Sadly there are not numbers but approximation . Enjoy !!
You can visit this blog for Zero no Kiseki and Sen no Kiseki guide
