Monster Hunter 3 price drops 59% at BIC Camera

[wenlan]

sc94597 said:

wenlan said:

let's see how long it will take for Capcom to announce MH3 (or whatever the name is) on PSP

MH is "abysimal" in the west (in comparision to the sale in Japan/Asia), and will stay the same.  it doesn't matter which console/handheld MH is on, it's the cultural difference that makes MH less popular in the west.  it's not something that heavy marketing campaign can change.

Please tell me, what is it about monster hunter that 'makes' it less popular in the west? Show me the evidence that you KNOW the preference of every single type of personality trait of a "westerner" that makes you think that people wouldn't like the game. I think it is just most Japanese games don't have any recognition in the West outside of the internet, and monster hunter is/was one of them. Before I started to use the internet probably knew about 10% of all the good games out there from the Japanese market. These are popular ones that either have been here since the revival of console games, or have had a huge marketing. So I really don't believe stereotyping a group of people from the origins of where their base civilization comes will tell you what kind of games they want to play or not. It is more that certain games became more popular due to marketing, and similar games sell because of these certain games. Imo if I saw monster hunter 3 playing in front of me without any knowledge of the game or it's origins and it was in english I would actually guess a Western developer made it. It shares more traits with western games than Japanese ones. It doesn't focus on cutscenes or story progressed gameplay. It utilizes quest/mission systems that you find in almost any Western RPG/Action Adventure/MMORPG. Also if I had to guess which audience it would target more I would guess western since similar games have sold more in the West. So like I asked earlier, what makes it target Japanese audience only?

i hate to stereotye people and that's not what i was trying to do.

Monster Hunter Portable 2G on PSP has become more like a social phenomenon in Japan.  to reach the level of popularity like that, it takes more than hardcore gamers' support.  people over there get together playing MH ad hoc to socialize and having fun.  do you think this will ever happen in the western world?  (this is also the reason why several people on this forum and I think MH3 on the Wii will do well, but will not be as popular as MHP2G in Japan, but that's off the topic).

a good marketing campaign can make people aware of the existence of MH, but in no way it will suddenly change people's social behavior and make a good number of "casual" gamers want to spend hours with friends farming for rare materials to make good equipments so they can take on the next quest.