Who else realises that this latest JRPG announcement makes perfect sense?

[Godot]

Bladeneo said:

Perfect sense for everyone but PS3 owners, of course.

Anyone who visits VGChartz regularly has seen how obscure the japanese market has been in recent times, leading more and more japanese companies to come out and say they want to expand greatly in the western markets (Square-Enix is a name that particularly springs to mind.)

Microsoft's japanese image has always been poor, and despite their efforts already this generation it doesn't seem to be getting that much better. So, following the announcements they've made, it's clear that some pretty big deals have gone down in Japan. Microsoft has never been scared of pushing money into the xbox brand, (particularly it's japanese division with a whole lot of JRPG's already going to the 360 this generation); and it seems like theyve done the same again.

At first glance it seems like a stupid prospect; why are Japanese developers focusing development on a console that barely pushes 10,000 consoles a month? However, for all parties involved it seems to be a win win situation. MS aren't exactly going to miss the money they're pushing into these deals, Japanese developers not only get a portion of their gaming budget paid for, but they also gain extra exposure in the western markets by putting their game out on the strongest HD console (in terms of install base). But, what about Sony's position in all of this? Well, while many would question their apparant backing down and losing potential games to their nearest rival, it's makes sense. They put zero money forward (no more than usual), and although they recieve these games later (months, perhaps even a year), they know that the 360 versions aren't going to take many, if any, of their potential japanese consumers away. So even though it's released late, its safe to assume it'll still perform much much better than its MS counterpart, most likely even as well as it would have done had it been exclusive.

Alot of people have been reiterating the old "the PS3 is too hard to develop for" as the reason for the timed exclusives, but I don't agree. Square-Enix have already claimed they have the White engine running on the PS3, which is what they're using for all their multiplatform games, and I cant remember them saying theyve had any issues with it.

So, who loses here? People like me, who anticipated a slew of RPG's on their PS3 and thus far have been well and truly shafted by Sony. I personally think the japanese developers in question are treading dangerously and putting far too much faith in the 360; we've seen how poorly (against expection that is) the exclusive JRPG's have performed thus far this generation, it seems wishful thinking to imagine these latest games would destroy the sales of those already released.

Okay, im ranting, and making assumptions here, but I honestly don't think this is in anyway unrealistic. People have probably already said something similar to this but I had an urge to post so I did.

 Actually, it's the Japanese customers that loses the most. The comapnies they love publish the games they love on a system they hate. So, they stop being interested in consoles and move to handhelds where the Japanese developers haven't yet sold out. The Japanese developers are basically getting profit on titles that sell bad. In the long run, it will hurt them as their fanbase will shrink. Smaller companies that tried something different on Wii or PS3 will be rewarded as all their profit will come from sales and not from moneyhats.