I haven't seen this mentioned before (but I didn't read it all) but online multiplayer became big this generation, and this doesn't combine with most of the japanese strong genres. And then you have other reasons people are mentioned.

I'm not really great at quantifying it all, but every one has dual audio, so I'd wager there's more audio data in Atelier and Neptunia. Especially there's a lot more characters than you normally get in Tales games.

I like ya, Outlaw, but I have to go with Soriku on this one.  Neptunia and Atelier games mostly aren't voiced in English anyway and have about half the VA costs that they probably could if they went the whole way, and even if it had every single plausible moment voiced I think Tales games would still probably win out because of the sheer amount of skits that are voiced.  Those things are all over the place and I have to assume that if you added them altogether they'd be more than the the dialogue scenes in an Atelier.  

Chill man. We're talking about games not yourself.

Anyway, whats the difference between shooting people with gun and magic or strike with swords?

There's a segment of people that tries to demonize FPS and Western games but not even your holy "Japanese games" are imune to copy and paste virus.

AAA is not a bad thing at all if it works and people love it. Major western devs survive on the money they make from their successful games. If people love them it's not their fault.

If you go to XBLA you'll see the most varied and quality Arcade games among the big 3 consoles by far. And in great quantit.

West is not just EA and Activision.

I've only played the games in Japanese, so I wouldn't know how much is/isn't voiced in English. That said, it's not like Tales is completely voiced either. 

I believe skits are voiced in Japan but never in NA. I haven't played Xillia yet so I dont know if that broke the trend.

oh yea TOS2 did have voice skits.Forgot about that.

A) I don't need to "chill", as I didn't even come close to taking your comments personally. I am talking about games.

B) We're not talking about a difference between "killing people with guns vs. magic or swords or whatever".

C) I'm not demonizing FPS. I'm pointing out the fact that a VAST MAJORITY of the big, anticipated games from the west these day typically involve either first or third person shooting with guns of some sort. It's uncreative and dull as hell. It gets old.

D) I never said Japanese games were "holy". If you actually bothered reading my original post, I very clearly pointed out how far I think many of the BIG Japanese studios have fallen from their former greatness, IE Capcom, Square, Enix, Konami, Namco, etc.

E) The current model of big companies ONLY investing in "AAA" games is not sustainable, nor is it good for gamers or the industry at large. This has been documented by many actual gaming journalists and even developers, it is not merely my opinion. How many studios have gone under in the just the last 10 years, or hell, the last 5-6, because ONE big budget game didn't sell up to expectations? All of those companies thrived in previous generations on lesser sales, because games didn't COST as much. But now you have companies trying to make games compete with Hollywood, hiring big name voice actors, doing expensive motion capture, hiring notable writers or composers, trying to have "on par with theater" graphics and effects....it's bloated and often pointless, and if they don't sell MILLIONS (not just 1 million), it's considered a major failure. I'm sorry, but there IS a problem when the entire industry becomes based around "blockbuster hits", it robs game development of actual creativity, and it stagnates and floods the market with a lot of very similar products. That's not good for anybody.

F) Sorry, but false. WiiWare and PSN had just as many actually notable standout digital releases last gen. Wii U and PS4 both have a lot of already announced digital indie titles stacking up for release on their new consoles. Wii U especially seems to pop up with a new game announced coming to eShop seemingly every week lately. And if you really want to go with "best digital selection", the answer is rather obvious: Steam on PC.

G) I never said the West was only EA or Activision. But Ubisoft has become just as big as those two, and all THREE have established a model that most other MAJOR western developers are now striving to follow: Make as many big franchises as possible, that you can milk by releasing yearly installments to, and only focus major resources on these year installment franchises. That is a fact of the industry now. And it sucks. I never said that the west doesn't also have good, creative smaller studios. It does. But what I DID do, was argue the absurd notion that western developers are SO much better these days than Japanese developers. They simply aren't. It ultimately boils down to a matter of taste, but when you look at what actually comes out, and you look at studios that actually take risks and try to be creative, the Japanese studios (outside of the big ones minus Nintendo), are at least on par, if not superior in that regard, to the still-creative studios in the West.

I always play them in English for review purposes but I'd say that about 50% of what was voiced in Japanese in Atelier games gets voiced in English.  They commonly have story sequences that were clearly voiced in Japanese just be text.  Tales isn't completely voiced for every encounter but every meaningful story sequence is voiced, and that along with the skits means it's got quite a bit more English voice acting than does Atelier Games.  

I like Atelier games quite a bit, but they unfortunately are not the most faithfully localized.  

After Xillia, I'll take NISA's work each and every day of the week.