As long as they get a third of their sales outside of Japan with almost no advertising, I think they will keep localizing these games. Though they would probably sell more if they published on PS3 and 360 in the US.

You're clueless, dude.

I hope not as just beat Xillia and had a blast doing it. Top five game of 2013 right now for me.

I am curious as to localization cost and sales expectations. I would guess 100K is the bar for breaking even given limited advertising budget I see these days for JRPGs. I have no basis for that, but given Xillia 2 is coming I assume Namco is okay with numbers.

Add Tales of Symphonia for Gamecube, and that trend looks even worse.

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My answer to your question is over-saturation. I consider myself a JRPG fan, and Symphnia was an awesome games, but I couldn't buy Vesperia at full retail price. It's also a great game, but it feels very very similar. It's hard to convince "core" gamers to buy a JRPG day 1 when they know the price will come down, and when the next Tales of game looks a lot like the prior.

I mean I still haven't beaten Vesperia (it's really high on my TDL now and I'm actually 5 hours in), nevermind Graces f, and Xillia. What motivation do I have to get Xillia 2 anytime soon, except for the fact that if I wait too long, it might become super rare?

Plus not only do I have a couple other Tales of games, just at the end of a consoles life there are so many other JRPG's to catch up on. I for instance just got into the Atelier series.

It's sad though, Namco releases a new Tales of game every 2-3 years, and that's over-saturated, but an annual Call of duty is not.

Y'know what Namco should do ? They should forget about adding voice acting to the games and start by just translating the text and just calling that localizing.

This. If you look at Lamace's post, Xillia and Graces f have more front-loaded sales and plataeu earlier. When you look at USA and Europe only it's clear Xillia won't top Vesperia outside of Japan.

http://www.vgchartz.com/tools/game_comparison.php?reg=USA&ending=Cumulative&game%5B%5D=Tales+of+Xillia+%28PS3%29+%5B48676%5D&game%5B%5D=Tales+of+Graces+f+%28PS3%29+%5B46451%5D&game%5B%5D=Tales+of+Vesperia+%28X360%29+%5B18652%5D&game%5B%5D=

http://www.vgchartz.com/tools/game_comparison.php?reg=Europe&ending=Cumulative&game%5B%5D=Tales+of+Xillia+%28PS3%29+%5B48676%5D&game%5B%5D=Tales+of+Graces+f+%28PS3%29+%5B46451%5D&game%5B%5D=Tales+of+Vesperia+%28X360%29+%5B18652%5D&game%5B%5D=

To be fair, Graces f might top Vesperia in Europe though.

If you are that backed up on Tales games, I'd skip Graces and go to Xillia. Xillia and Vesperia are both very good games. Graces is certainly solid and it has longer main quest that Xillia but if I had to take two out of the three. It would be Vesperia and Xillia. Asbel is no Yuri Lowell.

I'm only backed up because of University. Now that I'm done school, I have time to catch up. Going to beat Graces f first because it's hard to go back to a Wii game after playing a PS3 game.

Sony is not a Tales platform thats the problem. The PS3 has enough jRPGs if the games would come out on Nintendo or Microsoft consoles it would be something special and therefore would sell more.

When has that happened?