Japanese Game Awards Honor Taiko, Auto

Thanks to IGN for their announcement of the Japanese CESA videogame award winners for 2002-2003. The videogame trade body "awarded its grand prize to both Final Fantasy XI (Square-Enix, PS2/PC) and Taiko no Tatsujin (Namco, PS2). The latter title, while still not available in America, has proven to be a sensation in Japan, with non-stop arcade play and two PS2 versions combining for sales of over a million units." Of Western titles, Bungie's Halo was given an "award for excellence" alongside several Japanese-authored games, and Grand Theft Auto III, which has already sold over 200,000 in Japan, got the 'Global Award' for overseas-developed games.

Comments

Steel Battalion

[jxa00]

Good to see Steel Battalion (Capcom, Xbox) for finally getting some recognition. Props to the developer for having the balls to release a game + controller at almost the price of the console. The Mech "immersion factor" with that badass controller was triple A+.

GTA and Halo made it in Japan

[Anonymous Coward]

congrats rockstar and Bungie!
Me first!

Taiko no Tatsujin = Master of the Drum

[Nonki]

Maybe that's why it hasn't been released here, Americans would rather play killing games than play dance/music games I guess. But it's good to see Halo up there with Japanese titles.

Re:Taiko no Tatsujin = Master of the Drum

[Babbster]

Reminds me of the generalizations (which were rampant on Slashdot game discussions) that said the Japanese market wouldn't respond to Grand Theft Auto 3 because it was just too pointlessly violent. Maybe if the marketing departments of the big publishers weren't so devoted to their narrow perceptions of the various markets, all gamers would be more appreciative of a wider variety of genres.

Re:Taiko no Tatsujin = Master of the Drum

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone's interested, I happened to shoot some video of a girl playing Taiko no Tatsujin in an arcade a few days ago. (I live in Tokyo right now.)

I was prompted to whip out my digicam and shoot some lo-fi footage 'cause frankly this girl rocked. She was good enough that I thought she might have experience playing real taiko, but who knows - a lot of those kids that kick ass at DDR seem to have picked it up entirely in the arcade.

Makes me wonder where we cross the line between games (pure entertainment) and sims (teach a real-world skill). Train driving games have been out here for a while, and I saw my first bulldozer game the other day...

Anyway, the video is 7 megs and you can get it here: www.gamingjapan.net/smaller.avi.

If you look closely, you can see that there are red circles and blue circles on the display. The red circles are for hitting the face of the drum; blue circles are for rapping the rim. I gotta learn to do a drum roll... Cheers, Dan

Re:Taiko no Tatsujin = Master of the Drum

[dododge]

Apparently the third home version just came out a few days ago (will be placing my order as soon as I finish posting this :-), and a fourth is expected in December.

Maybe that's why it hasn't been released here, Americans would rather play killing games than play dance/music games I guess.

Well, there's some other issues with Taiko no Tatsujin that make it less likely to ever show up in the US:

• Special controller.
• Music-based, which means licensing and rights issues. DDR has certainly had this problem.
• Heavy use of Japanese in the interface, including vertical text. Localization could be a bit of work.
• Nutty graphics/character design, though I suppose that didn't stop Gitaroo-Man.
• Essentially no arcade presence. Again, DDR is at an advantage here because even the unlicensed JP machines are almost entirely in English.

You've gotta be kidding me!

[redgopher]

Where's kbounce?

Wheres the love?

[MMaestro]

I know the Xbox and the Gamecube aren't being recieved too well either in Japan's domestic market or international (or in the case the Xbox, both) but does the list of awards have to be dominated by PS2 games? Only 9 games in the entire article (9 1/2 if you consider FF11) are NOT for the PS2, while 18 games (17 1/2 considering FF11) are for the PS2.

Re:Wheres the love?

[Blackwulf]

Maybe the list is dominated by PS2 games becuase the games that they enjoy just happen to be PS2 games?

I mean, it looks like this group judged the GAMES, no matter what system they're on...To them, Great Graphics don't neccessarily mean Great Game...I mean, look at Taiko no-Tatsujin - the graphics aren't all that great, yet it won their game of the year (at least half of it.) Why? Because of it's gameplay.

Re:Wheres the love?

[DeadScreenSky]

I think a third of the winning games not belonging to the PS2 is pretty fair, since the vast majority of games, along with the most game variety, are released for the PS2 in Japan.

wtf

[hiroshi912681]

how did GTA3 sell well in Japan?! I heard that capcom was going to change it up for the J-consumers... I wonder what changed... because, as far as I knew, it wasn't a very palatable game for Japanese gamers as it stood. (I also wonder about the radio stations, too... subbed? no subs? dubbed in cynical Japanese?) somebody out there seen a review (in English) for this version?

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

Tommy Vercelli was changed into a twelve-year-old schoolgirl named "Tomomi-chan".

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit, that was hilarious. Seriously - I almost fell out of my chair.

Re:wtf

[jenoazrael]

I think you mean "Vercetti", not "Vercelli" :)

Re:wtf

[Absurd Monkey]

I really don't see how GTAIII wouldn't be palatable for the Japanese market. I mean, have you seen anime?? ^^
GTAIII is like Sesame Street compared to some of the most popular anime.

Re:wtf

[dododge]

Apparently GTA3 was released in Japan in September and was still in the top ten software sales last week.

http://general.gamerfeed.com/gf/news/4609/
http://www.m-create.com/eng/e_ranking.html

Taiko no Tatsujin

[neonstz]

I'm on vacation in Tokyo now, and I've spent quite a few yen on the Taiko-game. It's very addictive game, and I'm considering buying the PS2-version (have to get myself a modchip for my PAL PS2 though).