i think ff13 will sell good in america and worldwide overall , mainly because it seems the 1st ff for that gen always sells really good and then the sales go down afterwards.

I wonder how much of this is the result of games only being released in the Japanese market.
After all, if you do not release something elsewhere, it is really tough for it to sell elsewhere.

What got my thinking about this was the DQ IX reference, since to this point it has only released in Japan.

Also, I wonder about the numbers. Here is the last paragraph of the Edge story:

Kobayashi then revealed a chart: Japanese Publishers Domestic Sales Comparison. The numbers were based on internal figures from Sony and public fillings from Japan’s other major publishers. 91.8 per cent of Koei’s sales come from Japan,- the most of any publisher. Tecmo follows at 89.6 per cent. Square Enix receives 86.6 per cent of sales from its home market. In contrast, 66.9 per cent of Kobayashi’s Japan Studio’s sales come from Japan. The closest competitors are Konami, with 74.8 per cent, and Namco Bandai with 76.8 per cent.

From this, all the major Japanese firms make at least three-quarters of their sales domestically. (Of course, since a lot of times the titles are licensed for localization, this might actually be true).

Mike from Morgantown

Final Fantasy XII sold almost 2m in the US.
http://vgchartz.com/games/index.php?name=Final+Fantasy&keyword=&console=&region=America&developer=&publisher=&genre=&boxart=Both&results=50&order=Sales

japanese people got good taste.
period :p

I have the solution. Better marketing and localization.

Japanese companies use to do well with sales in America. Heck, they use to dominate consoles in terms of sales. But now they don't. Why? Because they have major competition from western developers who are not afraid to pump out a ton of marketing to make sure their product is noticed. And in the last 5 years or so, Japanese developers have skimped out on the marketing of all but the biggest titles.

But alongside this problem is the problem of localization. In the past, Japanese developers felt all they needed to do was release a game with the most substandard localization, full of spelling errors, altered or removed cutscenes and weak voice overs that you would make fun of if they weren't characters you were trying to play as. But now, these pathetic attempts to pump out games as quick and cheap as possible aren't cutting it when they're having to compete with western developed games which are of high quality and don't have a similar low quality localization.

So if these companies really want to fix the problem, they'll stop trying to find a 'killer app' or 'make a game for Americans' and just fix what needs to be fixed. Heck, other companies have, like Atlus or Namco, and its worked well in their favor.

i personally think most japanese games r better than western games if u take notice most western games that make money are fps and how many of these games can somebody play over and over with really no change but the fact is that is all gamers like now a days no real taught at all in those games

Lot of japanophiles on this site, they could take a dump in a box and put pretty anime cover art on it and you people would think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

i think now some people will finally realize that FF13 going multiplat was a very smart decision.

if koie would stop killing franchises or ruining them, that i buy, i bought a ps2 just for PTO IV (PTO II the one before one of the best turn based strategy games ever) and they fuck it up, then kill the warship gunner series.... WTF.... KOIE i love now release either some new strategy games or some rehashes of the good series over here