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On Selling Western PC Games In Japan
Thanks to GameSpot for their interview with the Japanese PC game publisher Cyberfront, discussing what it takes for a Western PC game to sell in console-dominated Japan. The company's best-sellers are Civilization III, which boasts "good name recognition", and takes advantage of "the... popular simulation genre" in Japan, and interestingly, SWAT III - apparently, "the tactical shooter struck a chord among this particular group: Japan's model firearm subculture." The company's founders argue that the first-person shooter genre can still be popular in Japan, pointing out that "Medal of Honor for PS2 sold 200,000 copies." However, the PC market is still relatively small, so "...a title that sells 10,000 copies in Japan is considered a hit."
It seems that across cultures we have alot of differences (obviously), but despite the reasons for it, no one can resist a good shoot-em-up.
- Code Dark
On a serious note, they say:
but surely there's not much bigger an incentive than 4 or 5 million sales for a port?
In case people are unfamiliar with this "subculture" they are referring to the sport/hobby of Airsoft, which are exact replicas of real firearms, accurate to every detail, including weight. These guns shoot plastic BB's, and are either spring loaded, or, on the more expensive models, gas-powered.
o me p ://www.airsoftelite.com/
Aside from just collecting this guns, there are people that actually play with them ala paintball guns, with teams and everything (think real-life Counterstrike).
When I was a kid, me and brothers would have killed for a good, solid plastic BB gun, so in my quest to relive my childhood days, I bought a few cheap Airsoft Glocks (33 and 17) just for plinking around.
Here are some relevant links:
http://www.redwolfairsoft.com/redwolf/airsoft/H
http://shop.airsoftdynamics.com/home.shtml
htt
Also, these are GREAT for shooting girlfriends/cats!
Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
The Japanese have a very different market to sell for. They like smaller things that are more gadgety, which is why mobile phones and small game consoles are popular, where bulky PC's aren't seen as being as cool as they are in the West.
They also like different kinds of games, the Final Fantasy series is much bigger there than here. Games like Quake and Doom and multiplayer games are much more popular in the west. Multiplayer is a big driver for PC games that the consoles are only just waking up to (They're in "me too!" mode now.)
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Also, Japan is a country in the Asia and they speak a language called "Japanese."
Umm, why is someone who quotes a known troll site's claims modded interesting?
Come on, do you really belive that Dragon Quest would sell that much on the PC when there are more console owners in Japan then PC owners?
And if this quote was ment for the US (No, I didn't read it since I have no desire to read their flamebate or see their site), from what I can tell that series isn't that popular over here and if they tried selling it to the PC market it probably wouldn't do very well.
they also released the American version translated back into Japanese as "Final Fantasy 7 International Edition". I'm not sure why.
It was rereleased because it had more stuff added to it (not sure what, probably some sidequests, items, monsters, etc. - FFs not really my cup of tea). For some reason the Japanese will actually spend big money on these rereleases. (I suppose some truly obsessive fans combined with lots of disposable income, by American standards, is a good reason for that.) You see the same thing with a lot of Square games especially (Kingdom Hearts did it recently for example), but other companies do it too (Sega rereleased Jet Set Radio in Japan with the two new American levels).
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon