Japanese visual novel Danganronpa sells 200,000 units in the West

PlayStation Vita-exclusive franchise Danganronpa has helped to establish a market for Japanese visual novel games in the West.

That’s according to Takuro Yamashita, CEO and president of NIS America, which is the publisher for the titles in the US and Europe.

[DaveyB]

Danganronpa is pretty cool - but it's nowhere near as good as Steins;Gate.

[nidhogg]

And a version of Steins;Gate will also be released for the Vita soon. Weeee~

[BiggCMan]

Idk if that's true. I don't like Japanese media very much, anime, games, the general style they do etc. There has never been one that I truly liked when I tried to experience it.

But my friend told me the summary of Danganronpa a while ago, about the teens in the school and how to get out etc. So that really peaked my interest.

I got the game for my PS TV and absolutely fell in love with it. That game is freaking OUTSTANDING. How evil and dark it is, while simultaneously being uncomfortably hilarious. I've never seen anything like it, and now i'm starting up Danganronpa 2 soon.

Maybe I will look into Steins Gate, these same friends also like that anime.

[contradictory]

Steins;Gate the game is straight out Visual Novel though so you might not enjoy that.

i'd recommend the anime though because it's great.
it's pretty much the best series i've watched in a long time and it avoids pretty much everything i dislike about anime! probably because it's not a shounen anime and the dialogue and storyline aren't utter shit like every shounen ever. thank fuck it's not a shounen animu.

actually you might like some animu that AREN'T shounen. i used to be exactly like you until i figured out that the really popular mainstream anime aren't usually that great to my tastes...

[greenmiker]

Great sales in the west for a japanese title like this.

[G3n3raL86]

Upupupuuuu!!!

[pompombrum]

It'll sell another copy when I finally get round to buying a Vita.. the story sounds really cool.

[contradictory]

it's a story filled with surprise buttfuckery.
it also leaves a bit of surprise buttfuckery after it so you can go play Danganronpa 2 to reveal the rest of the surprise buttfuckery and get introduced to more surprise buttfuckery

-- Contradictory Dictionary --
"Surprise Buttfuckery"
1: surprising series of event
2: *censored for N4G.

[Blues Cowboy]

Good on them. Danganronpa was my personal GOTY of 2014 (us Europeans got it late!) and well deserved IMO, gripped me from beginning to end. Great characters and a fabulous storyline.

[G3n3raL86]

Us Danganronpeans!!!

[Blues Cowboy]

YES. Love it.

[Nerdmaster]

Really? Then give us the final Zero Escape game!! After 999 and Virtue's Last Reward, it's cruel to leave us without the end of the series.

[Zizi]

I guess it's time to make it available on PS4. 'Ultra Despair Girls' looks cool, btw.

[gokuking]

Why? People complain that PS4 gets indie games all the time; that it doesn't push the hardware. You know what'll push the hardware even less? A game that consists of barely moving images and text.

It wouldn't sell in Japan and probably wouldn't sell in the west. I remember people port begging Toukiden for PS4, and what happened? It flopped in the west and flopped in Japan.

[SoapShoes]

It flopped because the publisher didn't make that many copies for the West. Literally no major retailer carries it. It's not carried by Walmart, Target, or Best Buy. Most GameStops don't have it and if they do they only have received ONE copy. Yet the Vita version is readily available. Weird.

[gokuking]

Retailers order copies to perceived demand. If many stores only had a few copies for PS4, that means they didn't expect it to sell well.

[plmkoh]

I bought a copy because the narrative is fun. But they really need to change up those battle mini-games, some of them are frustratingly dull and rely on guess work rather than logic. I'm also hoping they add in more dynamic evidence presentation to skip logical sequencing if you can figure out the twists.

[WizzroSupreme]

That's better than I'd think for a Western market. Coll for them.

[ColManischewitz]

That's great. Japan needs to realize that it's best market for console and handheld games is the U.S., not Japan. We want Japanese experience more than the Japanese do these days.

[HentaiMasterRace]

Yes!

[KryptoniteTail]

I tried SteinsGate. It's boring, low-tier anime. Too childish and stupid, the charrare all retarded, especially the main scientist. It's really a show for autists.

If you want time travel anime look into Future Fiary. It has a Japanese only PSP canon visual novel, too. I wish we got that...

[Haseo106]

Both of them are awesome. Can't wait for the next one! Keep bringing them to the U.S. and I will buy them all!

[Youngindy21]

I want to play Danganronpa 1 and 2 but I am still waiting for them to go on sale. That game never seems to go on sale. They'd probably sell more copies if they put the game on sale once in a while.