Taiko Drum series a million seller in Japan acording to Namco

[jarrod]

Demotruk said:

Gojimaster said:
I wonder why they never released this game in North America. I probably would have bought it-- it was a really fun game in the arcade. It probably could have done quite well. It seems like it might be too late to release this game now, especially with the dying down of the music game craze and the over-saturation of drum related Guitar Hero and Rock Band peripherals.

Isn't that precisely it? GH and RB were never that big in Japan, so it didn't have the competition there. The competition for music games in the West is why they wouldn't bother release it.

They don't have to be as big as RB/GH to be worthwhile though.  Look at DDR on Wii, which has been a somewhat under the radar success story for Konami.  Or Samba for Sega.  I think there was enough interest for Taiko to have taken off on Wii, while it didn't on PS2.