rant of the moment ~ imports.. >.<, why, o why? Options

[DivA]

okay, i have come to the realization that the USoA gets the shortest straw in regards to japanese games.. >.< there are lots of interesting titles being released at Japan that never see the light of day at the states ~ case in point.. i recently got drawn to a game called, Atelier Marie for the GBA (quite by accident, by the way..). the premise is beautiful, an RPG dealing with the ideas of alchemy by learning from the inhabitants to create various formulas, thereby progressing through the game's story.. the plus-side ~ i can import it for about $64.00 (ouch.. -.-), the minus-side ~ no translation.. =. no big deal, this is an incentive to learn the language, i suppose.. =/ but the point is this ~ why do the neat & unique games stay at Japan, while select few staple titles (things that go BOOM) make it to the USoA? & while i'm on the subject ~ what is the deal with the time lapse for game language translations? =. i can go out & purchase an anime dvd that has the options for: english, japanese, japanese with english translations or even french! O.o feh, one would think technology has reached a point where all games could be programmed with this option; but then again, that would be logical ~ can't have logic in the business world *smacks head* what was i thinking? ;p

*deep breath*

[Crushinator]

Firstly, think of how many horrible games are released here in America. Japanese games have the same ratio of crap to good (if not higher), so although the games seem "wacky" and "japaneeze" the vast majority are still utter feces.

Face the facts that not everyone is an anime-obsessed japanophile fan-person, and the market for bizarre, very japanese-oriented games is far too small to make ANY kind of profit here.

Redubbing an anime into english and putting on DVD is a big task, but nowhere near the effort that is required to translate all the menus/speech/text in a modern-day game (especially the game you mentioned). Like I said above, the cost>benefit margin is way to slim (if its even positive.)

As far as simultaneos region development goes, it seems that a lot of big names games are doing that nowadays. The N64 Zeldas and Wind Waker, Silent Hill 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, PSO, Sonic Adventure 2, Shenmue....the list goes on. While the games don't usually see a simultaneous release, the development effort behind them is for USA and Japanese at the same time, and the worldwide release is always a consideration from day one.

Remember, its not like there is some magical switch that turns all the language in a game from Japanese to English to French to Swahili. It takes people time and effort to make all those changes.

Oh yeah and this...

QUOTE

the USoA gets the shortest straw in regards to japanese games

Shortest straw compared to what? Japan??? No other region in the world gets more japanese games offically (I say offically cuz of course most games are bootlegged and released in Hong Kong) released than the USA. Be glad you don't live in Europe, South America, or Australia, they get like 1/3 of the games released here, both American and Japanese.