noname2200 said:
Several points: Number one, the post I replied to was about the game's Western sales potential in raw numbers. I gave historical data of same. Note that neither Return On Investment nor profits were raised by either of us. Second, loathe though I am to respect the GAF hivemind's opinion, their sheer volume and variety of posters means they hae access to wide, otherwise unavailable, pools of data. The more respected sales-age members rarely guess about sales figures, and when they are speculating they make that clear. So those figures are likely straight from NPD. Finally, you highly underestimate what goes into localization. It's not simply a matter of hiring some voice actors to read a few lines and calling it a day; often, that's the cheapest part. Each line, verbal and written, has to be translated, and the text changed. Cultural references which won't click with the audience have to modified, and occasionally symbols have to be removed entirely. All of this costs money, but likely not a million yet. However, you also have to pay to market the title, organize press releases, go through the time (and therefore cost) of negotiating with retailers about buying the game, the cost of manufacturing and shipping the units, and probably a ton of other things that I'm forgetting. All of this takes a lot of money. And if those copies aren't sold, you've went and lost money. If a measly million was all it took to localize titles, there would be precious few games that WEREN'T localized. And I would already be playing Fatal Frame IV... |
Well, they can certainly go the cheap route like they did with Yakuza 2. Keep the cultural references in, and only traslate the text. (there was only English subs)
And of course, little to no advertising.
