Worldwide UP - 04th September

[kain_kusanagi]

snfr said:

kain_kusanagi said:

Spankey said:

TheSource said:

According to a person I know who speaks Japanese "ex" means poop / shit in Japanese in slang speak. Would you buy a system called Shit X360 in English? 

"Ex"as in short for excrement maybe? perhaps some english seeping through to Japanese.

However, seems a bit dodgy an explanation for me seeing as how many Japanese games have an X in them, don't they? or am I mistaken?

 

Very true. Wii sales outside of Japan prove people don't care that it sounds like the another name for urine. Nothing about Japan gaming makes sense. The whole world enjoys Xbox 360 and western style games as well as PS3, Wii, and Japanese style games. But for some reason Japan snubs western games. How is it that westerner's tastes include Japanese style games, but Japanese tastes don't include western style games? Good games are universally good and fun is universally fun, so the only explanation is the Japanese refuse to  let themselves enjoy western gaming. I just don't see how anyone can argue that it's about taste and preference when Japanese games are popular outside of Japan. If we enjoy their best games than they should enjoy our best games. It's the only region that refuses to give the Xbox 360 a chance or even consider western style games.

Sorry, but you're completely wrong.

Good games are NOT universally good and fun is NOT universally fun. If it was ,as you said, universal, then Yakuza and Valkyria Chronicles would do a lot better in the west (these are QUALITY games in Japan), but they sell really bad here, just like the PSP would sell more in the west (it's outselling all home consoles in Japan), but it's doing worse than any other console right now. Japanese could ask themselves: "Why does the PSP do so bad in the west, it's awesome!" You probably see what I mean... or probably not.

Quality is subjective, fun is subjective. Nuff said.

Yet Yakuza and Valkyria chronicles have sold decently for the niche titles they are, and with almost no marketing what so ever. The PSP is very successfull, it just isn't as successfull as the DS, but still doing fine. Even the Japanese treated Valkria Chronicles as a niche game, that's why its sequal is on the PSP instead of the PS3. Your examples are not the trend. Look at Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, and the countless other very Japanese games that enjoy huge success worldwide. Sure there are plenty of niche games that are popular enough in Japanese that westerners scratch their heads at, but I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about blockbust games like Halo, Modern Warfare, etc. Those games are just too good for the Japanese to not like at all. The sales of the Xbox 360 are so poor in Japan, inspit of huge marketing, that I don't think it has anything to do with taste. Especialy considering that MS secured tons of extremely Japanese games just for Japan, yet they still ignored the little white box.

Fun may be subjective to a certain extent, but quality is not. The Japanese are really missing out on some top quality software, but they don't even seem to want to even give any of it a chance. Maybe their are just too set in their ways. It would explain why Japanese RPG are still using random battles and turn based combat while thw rest of the world moved on years ago. But I think it's deeper than that. I think the Japanese see gaming as a Japanese thing and they don't like the idea of an outsider muscling in on the action.

Japan can't be the only nation in the world that doesn't "get it". Nope, they just don't want to "get it". Nuff said.