Source: http://www.rpgsite.net/news/879/fate-of-tales-series-down-to-sales.html
Fate of Tales Series Down to Sales
Posted on December 2, 2010 by Zack Reese
There is a note from a man's account on Facebook that has been circulating around the Internet the past few days. Jiyoon Kim (J), who was at his job at a 7 Eleven (an international convenience store chain), had a fateful encounter with a man named Scott (S) who works as a press representative for Namco Bandai Games North America, and was given the chance for an interview. I would like to highlight three of the questions that Scott answered during the hour-long chat. On the subject of the cost of translating:
J: Why didn’t you guys localize Tales of Vesperia for Playstation 3, and also try to localize Tales of Graces for Wii or even PS3 version?
S: It has to do with the money wise. Tales games are extremely tradition for Namco… but it’s just that voice overs, and translations, DLCs are just too much money. One or two lines by a voice actor can be really expensive. It could go from hundreds to thousands!
J: Well, have you thought about not dubbing the game, but just translate the game with subtitles?
S: There are many reasons of why we refuse to leave Japanese dubs in our game. One of them is really about encourage players to listen in English… but also there are players that don’t really read subtitles or even read game dialogues. So it’s quite a troublesome for us to localize the games in undubbed quality.
One of the more enlightening moments came towards the end of the interview, where Jiyoon Kim and A had this to say:
J: Wouldn’t this make other fans boycott on buying NBGI games who had been expecting their Tales games to be localized?
S: It would make us harder to localize more games then. The lesser sales we get on any games that are being localized, the lesser chance we can localize games such as Tales. Like I said, the Tales games are just overwhelmed with voice castings with translations… we might not even be able to localize at all if fans are just refusing to buy our games. I understand why people are upset and they are boycotting, but it would also mean there might not even be future games such as Tales [and] .hack.
J: Does it matter if fans buy import or localized games? S: Not really. The more sales we get from any region, we will gain money regardless. It will encourage us a lot to localize new games in future, or even develop more games such as new Tales series. Remember, even if NBGI North America is away from NBGI Japan, it’s still one company.
Got that, everyone? Scott has basically told you fans out there that if you want to see any more Tales games come out over here, you need to start showing interest in their other titles. They need the reassurance that it's worth the time, money and effort to bring anything after Vesperia to our shores. Right now, Namco Bandai has two solid titles out in the wild: Enslaved and Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 2.
The first is by Ninja Theory, the same folks behind Heavenly Sword for the PS3. I had a chance to play it to completion recently, and I can say without a shadow of the doubt that it is one of the best PS3 games of the year and most assuredly worth your time. Our sister site The Gaming Vault gave it an 8 out of 10 and called it "a wonderful experience to play through".
For Naruto fans (or anime fans in general), you really can't go wrong with CyberConnect 2's sequel title in Ultimate Ninja Storm 2. It provides some of the best-looking visuals that make it damn near impossible to tell the difference between it and the show. Think about taking a look at both of them the next time you are in your local game retailer.
Don't like either of these? Consider importing any of the Tales games in Japan. Hell, it worked for Demon's Souls. I'm not saying you have to throw your wallets at Bamco and hope that seals the deal, but you certainly are not going to expect them to be willing to inject millions of dollars for our benefit if there is absolutely no measurable indication that we will be willing to do the same for them. However, you should also consider offering your encouragement to companies like XSEED Games and Atlus who are both seeking the publishing rights for the Tales series in our markets. Whatever you do, don't keep quiet, because due to the fact that during these hard economic times and fewer companies are willing to take these types of risks, we may not see another Tales game outside of Japan. We will be there at next year's E3 where we can hopefully bring you good news about the future of the Tales series and its fate in the West.
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Really Namco!? This one really ticks me off! ugh. F you namco!!!!!
