I think the problem is that japanese gaming market just rejects western games, even the ones they would like, Winning Eleven sells well in Japan because it's made by a japanese company, but Fifa sells poorly, if you like winning eleven probably you would like Fifa too... Like Gta, it received a really high grade from Famitsu but probably won't reach a million, western market don't reject the well done japanese games(sometimes they sell more than in Japan), but japan reject well done western games, why?

Western games do not appeal to Japanese gamers, simple as that. PES has gone down the shitters for the past 2 years however before that it was the best of the best so that is why PES is big in Japan.

I cannot think of a western game series which does well in Japan, GTA IV did good numbers but that is about it. Japanese games however have WW appeal unlike Western games, even so a small amount. SF, RE which is entirely for western gamers how being a shooter rather then a survival horror, FF, GT, MGS etc.

Crash Bandicoot, Spyro and Banjo Kazooie did sell pretty good back then, but I guess that Japanese and Western platformers are similar and that those games could have been made by a Japanese devoloper.

Anyway, the main-problem with western games is that they lack a soul and because of that they ussually sell bad in Japan.

The problem with japanese market rejecting western games, is that the japanese has their own equivalent games in the market and the western companies don't push their games in the japanese market due to its relatively small size, when the japanese push their games in the west because the market is so much bigger.

For example the football games, i don't know how much EA pushes FIFA in Japan, but Konami had its own football game before FIFA started and as far as i recall, FIFA doesn't have much outside Europe and South-America, while ISS/PES has Asia better covered.

GTA had success in Japan, since there's no "japanese GTA" in the market, atleast not one that had been there earlier and establised a franchise there.

And of course the cultural differences such as western devs work more on the graphics side of things, when japanese focus on atmosphere instead. And japanese make generally better games.

For the same reasons why most western players hate jRPG. Diffrent taste in gaming.
Also West is lot more sandbox oriented - Oblivion, Fable, GTA, while japanise seem to prefer story narration on rails like most jRPG.

Western games do not appeal to the Majority or Japanese gamers....


It's just that simple...

they have different taste. /thread.

Because Western games look like this:

... and Japanese people want games that look like this:

^^
Score!