Let’s Hope the Rest of Japan Follows Namco’s Business Model

GeekParty's Austin Wood writes: "To the relief of JRPG fans everywhere, the localization borders between the States and the Japanese games market have recently begun to crumble and releases are beginning to trickle down. Unfortunately, there’s still a crotchety old group of windbags holed up in a corner with enormous franchises gathering dust in their back pockets. I am, of course, referring to the annoyingly large group of Japanese studios that refuse to wake up and smell the viability."

[Need4Game]

Namco Bandai Business Model?
F2P Tekken Revolution, F2P Ace Combat Infinity.

Summary of the Article, Forget whatever "HD" means, make more Anime-JRPGs.

[TheNewSquid]

If free-to-play games keep money flowing toward all the fantastic localization work Namco's been doing, than so be it.

[NioRide]

F2P titles are only good for 1 thing.

Quick grabs on money, companies are learning now that their 5-6 hour games aren't being bought new because people don't want them for short experiences, so they turn to free2play games, they can have ads goings, have a item shop and they will pull in more money from new players then they will from older ones.

Its a model that works well for many of these companies and it won't be going anywhere soon.

[TheNewSquid]

There's a huge difference between free-to-play as a legitimate business model that works in the interest of players and free-to-play as a cash grab. It's the reason Zynga is tanking and Turbine is doing rather well in their niche.

I won't comment on the quality of Namco's free-to-play games, because I haven't played them. What I do know, though, is that Ni no Kuni was fantastic, Tales of Graces f was fantastic, and the Xillia games look super great.

[CrossingEden]

which is a bad thing considering the complete oversaturation of anime rpgs out there, the market for that type of game in the US and the UK is definitely become the minority due to the stagnation of game design in japan, we no longer get innovative games like shadow of the colossus or okami being the majority

[3-4-5]

Hey Japan, Start Localization BEFORE you finish the original Japanese version.

That way, once it releases in Japan, US/EU Localization is already 50-60% complete.

Seriously if each company hired only two more "interns" who can translate they could speed up the process by months.

[krontaar]

What? Waiting years before localizing something?

No thanks.

[MestreRothN4G]

Don't worry. This article just comes to fill the trend of "let's say something really really stupid in an article to fish hits".

WTF. No.

[CLOUD1983]

NAMCO's business model deny from JRPG fans dual audio for Xillia that's what they did, so as NAMCO show to people who demand that option the middle finger I'll do the same also & show them the middle finger ..i., & I'll skip this game it seems they don't want my money so everything's fine.

[Inception]

Yes, you can skip it, your loss. Namco doesn't need your money anyway, because a lot of Namco fans ready to support their effort to bring more JRPG in the west, including Tales, despite the majority of western gamer stuck with their yearly FPS.

[Artavasdus]

If you're ready to skip a promising game like Xillia only because of dual audio, you should really question the reasons behind your interest in gaming. Are you in for the whole experience (story, battle system, graphics, art direction) or to hear some Japanese seiyuu you probably don't even understand?

Don't get me wrong, I like dual audio too, but this kind of exaggeration actually make less companies interested in localizations, and thus in dual audio itself.

[tiffac008]

Well bro, I hope you at least you buy Tales of Symphonia: Unison Pack because that will come with dual audio next year.

Although I would implore you to buy Tales of Xillia (1 & 2) too, because good JRPGs are hard to come by and effort should be rewarded by the community. I mean its just language, we played games without any voice before.

[CLOUD1983]

I'll get that yep, & I have play almost every good classic JRPG released on PS1 yep we didn't have voice overs back then but it was the 90's we didn't have a lot of other things also, now it's 2013 we r talking about games on PS3 with Blu-ray that's 25 GB of space there it's not CD with 700 MB like in PS1, now I demand from all JRPG companies to have dual audio or Japanese voices only on every game they release out of JPN, they must understand that this feature is very important for JRPG fans & make it a standard on those kind of games, & companies who ignore us I'll boycott their games it's the only way I have to make them listen, I'll speak with my wallet.

[Inception]

@Cloud1983

Lol, you called yourself a JRPG fans but you don't know how much cost to bring japanese seiyuu voices outside japan!

Here, read this and educate yourself why a lot of company decided not to include japanese voices when they localized games from japan!
http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

I hope after you read this, you will understand and not repeat again the bs you spouted about company gave their middle fingers to JRPG fans outside japan!

[Cryptcuzz]

I for one am excited for this game, since I have enjoyed the Tales series since the PS1 days many years ago.

This game looks like its going to be a blast. Character designs, music and battle system looks really good as well.

Now its time to contemplate whether I should get the regular or deluxe edition WHOOHOO!! Been waiting for this game for awhile now.

[Artavasdus]

I went for the Collector's Edition, after Ninokuni it's definitely possible it will get extremely rare soon after day one.

[Cryptcuzz]

Yeah you are right, I fully regret not having the collectors edition Ni No Kuni, but then again it was a gift so I can't complain.

I must get the collectors edition myself with this game then! Thanks buddy!