Why Japanese Don't Like Games from the West

[Demotruk]

sapphi_snake said:
They are successfull in all Western countries, regardless of language spoken. Do you somehow think that American TV shows and movies don't make it to European countries who don't speak English? And I doubt that Westerns have had a significant impact on Britsh culture. It's just that, when it comes to video games at least, the Japanese are highly xenophobic, and reject non-Japanese video games. And I'm pretty sure Windows based PC's are pretty popular in Japan, it's just that they reject Microsoft when it comes to video games (because, like I said before, they're xenohpobic).

No, I don't know how you think that what I'm saying implies that. What I am saying is that English speaking content is more easily exported among other English speaking regions, while for non-English speaking countries a localization is required and some of what made the original good is inevitably lost in translation, and this is true. This is why the English speaking markets in video games align much more closely than non-English. Why do you think the 360 has the edge in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand when the PS3 has the edge everywhere else?

It is not about "having an impact on our culture", it's about being culturally identifiable and relevant. Westerns are in English speaking regions because they were widely exported to English speaking regions.

The Japanese are simply the extreme end, because unlike other non-English countries, they get a lot of content made specifically for them.