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Posted: Sep 13 2011 12:35 pm

And now with the ability to go 2 on 1.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 12:39 pm

This isn't another Japanese exclusive, is it?

Posted: Sep 13 2011 12:57 pm

"While there is still just a working title for the game, it was announced that the game will release in (in Japan) in Spring 2012. No story details have been given at this point, but the names of the three main characters were shown: Ronku, Liz, and Amelina."

Hopefully we'll be getting this, but it's still pretty early to know.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 01:14 pm

Fighter_McWarrior wrote:

This isn't another Japanese exclusive, is it?

Seriously.

What is the deal with that?

Why are they making so many Japanese exclusives and leaving us out of the loop?

Posted: Sep 13 2011 02:38 pm

It would be just like Nintendo to stiff us on an RPG we all want...

Posted: Sep 13 2011 02:45 pm

Atma wrote:

Fighter_McWarrior wrote:

This isn't another Japanese exclusive, is it?

Seriously.

What is the deal with that?

Why are they making so many Japanese exclusives and leaving us out of the loop?

Because you aren't as important to Japanese developers as you think you are.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 04:32 pm

You know, I always thought Japanese people loved us. Japanese games are filled with English words, anime and video game characters have Westernized features, and American rock bands are popular there. But my cousin lives in Tokyo, where she teaches English, and when I saw her recently, she told me that the Japanese are MAD RACIST against white people. She constantly gets pulled over and asked for her bike license, because apparently the only way a white person could have a bike is if they stole it. Also, there are many businesses marked "Japanese Only".

Posted: Sep 13 2011 04:35 pm

Good thing I'm not white.

Also, apparently no one takes the claims that Japanese developers fear Western developers seriously and they wonder why they don't get those funny little Japanese things that we think are so quaint as opposed to substantial.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 04:38 pm

I think we're finally starting to a see a shift, however slow, in the way Japanese developers think about the West, and Atlus is leading the charge.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 04:41 pm

It's a shame that there aren't more developers like them. You would think that such heavily consumer-oriented companies like them would be setting an example, but they're still the exception, not the rule.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 04:47 pm

Well, you also have companies like Aksys, NIS America, and Xseed who publish weird Japanese stuff that other companies didn't feel like bringing over here. They pick and choose very carefully what they publish, but they do well enough to stay in business.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 05:44 pm

It's our fault. It took us a while, but the Japanese interest in our market went away when us uppity white folk started to make our own video games.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 06:01 pm

You realize that video games started off as a Western thing, right slappy?

Also, Western games suck.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 06:08 pm

Maybe, but the Japanese got a foothold on the consoles before Americans did. We're a market that used to be owned by companies like Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Namko and Squaresoft. Now the top dogs are ones like Bethesda, Naughty Dog, Rockstar, Activision and Microsoft. The sales momentum at least has shifted from the Japanese companies to the American ones.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 06:12 pm

Um... Pong? Atari? Intellivision? Colecovision? Magnavox Odyssey? Any of these names sound familiar?

Posted: Sep 13 2011 06:22 pm

And look how they all fared against Nintendo

Posted: Sep 13 2011 06:36 pm

Syd Lexia wrote:

Well, you also have companies like Aksys, NIS America, and Xseed who publish weird Japanese stuff that other companies didn't feel like bringing over here. They pick and choose very carefully what they publish, but they do well enough to stay in business.

And again, they are all the exception. They have to tread carefully when they choose what to publish and how or else face financial crisis.

Syd Lexia wrote:

Also, Western games suck.

Then go to Japan and learn the language and you'll never have to worry about them. I'm not saying this to anyone in particular, but if people want Japanese games so much, they should meet the Japanese people halfway.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 06:44 pm

Um... they weren't in competition against Nintendo?

Console Generation 1

Pong, and other pre-programmed consoles
Magnavix Odyssey
Telstar

Console Generation 2

Channel F
Atari 2600
Odyssey-2
Atari 5200
Intellivision
Colecovision
Sega SG-1000

Console Generation 3

NES
Sega Master System
Atari 7800

It wasn't until the video game crash of 1983 that the Japanese became the dominant force in video games.

Don't you know, like, anything?

Posted: Sep 13 2011 07:00 pm

Syd, you're proving my point. Generations 2 - 4 were dominated by Japanese companies and it was those generations that established gaming as a popular activity in a way that gen 1 never did. So yeah, console and game makers were primarily Japanese for a really long time.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 07:20 pm

I am not proving your point, because the consoles I mentioned weren't in competition with Nintendo.

Also, Generation 2 was dominated by Western consoles. The only Japanese one in the bunch was Sega.

What you fail to understand, on a very basic level, is that there was never a head-to-head competition between Western console makers and Japanese ones, until the dawn of XBox.

When Nintendo entered the American console market, the console market was dead. No American companies wanted to make games or consoles anymore, and no retailer wanted to carry them. Sure, Atari stuck around for another decade or so, but their finances and business strategies were so incredibly poor that they never stood a chance after 1983.

It wasn't that gaming wasn't popular before the NES, it was that the market was poorly structured. Games were coming out TOO FAST, and there was no quality control. And whatever was popular got copied. If you liked Pac-Man, Breakout, and Space Invaders, there were dozens of variants. And the market collapsed. That Nintendo happened to be the one to pick up the pieces was only because they were the first ones to make a serious attempt to do so. They had to fight to get their products in American stores.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 07:31 pm

What you never understood about my original point was that in earlier generations, Japanese games were more prevalent, regardless of the consoles they were released on. I'm not quite sure how this debate became about consoles in the first place, but you can't deny that for nearly two decades, the top game publishers and developers were all Japanese, which is a trend that has only recently started to shift.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 09:13 pm

How long have Japanese games been prevalent on PC, if at all?

Posted: Sep 13 2011 09:31 pm

PC games still seem to have (with few exceptions) a pretty solid East/West split. Most of the stuff doesn't get localized. In Japan, the PC market seems to primarily be shmups, JRPGS, visual novels, dating sims, sexy visual novels, and sexy dating sims.

Posted: Sep 13 2011 09:47 pm

Would you believe me if I said you're the first person I've seen on a forum to properly distinguish dating sims from visual novels?

Posted: Sep 13 2011 09:59 pm

Cautiously, but yes.