IxisNaugus said:
I think you're overestimating the difference between US and European gamers. Different as they are, European gamers have - more recently in fact - shown a lot of interest in these kinds of games. In the case of many games, including Tales of Vesperia, small as the shipments may be they often sell out rather quickly. But I believe few publishers are paying much attention to this and still view Europe as a risky region, be it for promotion or shipping, with the exception of someone like Rising Star Games. If and when these games are given more of a chance in Europe, then we may well see sales blossom further. As for your second point. High profile, yes, but if anything this shows that there can really be a brighter future for JRPG's in Europe. The lack of interest again comes from a lack of exposure. For far too long now has an increasingly large number of JRPG's skipped a release in European regions, with only the biggest guns apparently being seen as the viable ones (Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, more recently Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter), and more low-key titles being stealth released with no promotion or arriving absurdly late (the most recent Tales games, Persona 4, Star Ocean 4, Chrono Trigger). I'll give you Lost Odyssey though. That game even had voice overs done for French, German and Italian (or it may have been Spanish) |
Hmm, I think that it is cool to finish this debate on this note. I agree on the "brighter future" part, and that's all that really needs to be said! SO4 didn't really have bad promotion though, even here the game stores had ads, and it's rare that they advertise RPG's at all.
