Many are realesed in Japanese for the rest of Asia, it looks like in Asia knowing japanese is like for western people knowing english, it's very common.

Most of the ~1.2 billion Chinese don't speak Japanese; It's just that they (publishers) have no motive to localize their games in the respective native language either due to piracy or small population / installed base.

In most cases, these games aren't even legal to play in other countries out of Japan and are ilegally imported.

Well, they shoulded put and english and chinese option in almost every japanese game, because the illegal imports of the rest of Asia would grow, and even just a small percentage of the population import games it would have huge numbers because of the huge population.

we don't know japanese in pakistan. Same goes for India, Afghanistan, Iran, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh...

Why would anyone want to translate to Chinese? so they'd sell 10 copies on the PS3, and 5 on the 360 and Wii each? there's no userbase for these consoles in China.

China is a terrible option, you'd do far better with Korean.

Why give Asians a Japanese version instead of one with the most important language on the planet: English? It's not like Japanese is awfully related to any other Asian language

I think you should take a look inside Asia again.

It's much more common to find a westerner being able to speak Japanese then a non-japanese Asian (particularly the darker asian varieties i.e Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans etc).

Don't confuse knowing random catch phrases due to overwatching anime, swallowing the anime/otaku culture, dressing like the japanese and having hair styles like anime characters, with actually knowing the language.

Also, there'd be not much incentive to translate into oriental asian languages, given that in China most people play MMORPG's (not WoW specifically, there's heaps of random free ones online), Most Koreans (obviously) play RTS's and the other asian countries aren't developed enough for gaming to be anywhere near a priority for households.

They'd be much better off having english in the Japanese release if they want to capture foreigners importing the game from them.

I am surprised that you don't know the answer...it's because they love sushi and sushi has no english translation but only a transliteration

I am surprised that you don't know the answer...it's because they love sushi and sushi has no english translation but only a transliteration

Former Soviet Republics are better off with a Russian version (or English) as they're not even related to Japan.
the Middle East are better off with a Turkish or Islamic (or English) version as they're still not related to Japan.
Southern Asia has former British colonies and speak English.
What's left of Asia Japan conquered in WWII and the might not like Japan and they're languages look in no way like Japan (only that they're strange signs us Westerns will not understand.
For the Sushi eating crowd, go live in Japan!