japanese needs to learn about simultaneous release

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

nofingershaha said:

Perhaps the biggest gripe about Japanese game companies is that they take forever to localize their products for the Western market. Companies like Square Enix and Sega don't realize that the longer time it takes them to localize their game after it releases in Japan, the less we care about them as the hype dies down.

Take Final Fantasy 12 for instance, it took Square Enix about a year to localize that game to the Western audience. The result of that long delay cost Square over a million in sales due to the fact by that point the Western market was all geared up for the next generation of consoles.

When we look at the world wide market for the video game industry, Japan is the last in the long line of vital markets for this industry. From a business standpoint, this doesn't make much sense for these companies to continue these practices when Western publishers are producing and making games faster then they are.

Of course not all Japanese developers and publishers are like this. Hideo Kojima was smart enough to release MGS4 simultaneously worldwide. Of course this is because of the popularity of MGS franchise in the West. If this was Katamari, they can take all the time they want. However, for sure titles like Final Fantasy and Gran Turismo which will do well in the West, taking time to localize it after releasing it in a market that has shrunken so much over the years like Japan, it just does not make much sense. 

Now of course I'm not saying some of these titles won't sell unless they are released simultaneously, but life time sales will be compromised at some point.

This is the exact reason Dragon Quest has never caught on in America.  From the first game being released Three YEARS late to currently with all the DS titles being released over a year after their Japanese counterparts with no marketing whatsoever.  Some Japanese companies just don't care about the western market, yet expect games to sell here just because its a bigger market.

Its completely sad that Dragon Quest IX was actually starting to get hyped on sites over here.  But all of that hype is completely gone now and Square Enix has stated they aren't even going to start TRANSLATING Dragon Quest IX until sometime 'next year'.  If there's anyone to blame for the crappy sales of Dragon Quest, its Square Enix.