Why Japanese Don't Like Games from the West

[sapphi_snake]

Demotruk said:

I don't know if you are purposely misreading my points, but I'm not going to argue with you any more.

How am I misreading your points? Did you not say that the language is the main reason why Western (you said English language games) games aren't successfull in Japan?

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 true.

This is why the English speaking markets in video games align much more closely than non-English.

This is false. The rest of Europe alings largely the same as the UK, and most of Europe is part of the non-English market you speak of.

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?

Why would you say the PS3 has an edge over the 360  in France? Is the PS3 aimed at French speaking countries? Your language argument is downright stupid (and it would be a better argument to explain software sales, not hardware sales).

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.

Like I said, American movies (including Westerns) have been exported all over the world, especially in Western nations, regardless of of wether or not those English was the langiage of those countries. I can assure you that Westerns are as culturally identifiable and relevant to an Italian as they are to a Brit (if not more so, considering that there are Italian made westerns).

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

The Japanese are not the extreme end, they're an unique case (somewhat). If you look at the non-English speaking market you talk about you'll find that, except the Japanese, with some exceptions (like South Korea), these markets align almost perfectly with Elnglish speaking markets. Language and localisation isn't an issue as you said, considering that in the Japanese's case, they prefer specific genre's that are very popular mostly only in their country (JRPG, dating sim, pet sim, etc.), while they show no interest for genre's that were developed in the West (FPSs, WRPGs, startegy games etc.). The differences are cultural, but since games made in Japan have proven to be popular in the West too (Final Fantasy) while the Western games have always failed in Japan, one can come to the conclusion that the Japanese are simply xenophobic when it comes to video games.