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Talking With Tak Fujii About Bringing Japanese Games Overseas Part 1

By Spencer . November 3, 2011 . 6:48pm

Behind the scenes Tak Fujii is the producers at Konami that handles games licensing deals from both sides of the table. He took care of N3: Ninety-Nine Nights II and the Japanese version of Darksiders, which Konami published in Japan. Fujii’s recent projects include the Western release of No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise and Frogger 3D. As a producer deeply involved with localization, Fujii and I had a casual conversation about bringing Japanese games overseas.

This is going back a bit, but since it made you famous on the Internet, how did you arrange to publish N3: Ninety-Nine Nights II from Microsoft since it’s their IP?

Tak Fujii, Producer: That’s a secret deal between us and Microsoft. [Laughs.] Mmm… I cannot say too much about it. Well, Q Entertainment and Feelplus, let’s say they like us.

I know AQ Interactive must like you since brought No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise overseas.

It’s the same thing. Marvelous Entertainment is the rights holder and they are looking for publishers, right? I don’t know what the deal is with Ubi[soft] and Marvelous. Maybe they didn’t have any interest in the PS3 version of No More Heroes for North America. Marvelous was looking for a publisher in North America and Europe. They published it by themselves in the Japanese market.

Konami has an interesting relationship with AQI since you’re handling New Little King’s Story too.

Oh, that’s not my title, man! Currently, I don’t have any titles with Marvelous yet. In the future? Maybe, yes. [Laughs.]

While I was walking around Konami’s Tokyo Game Show booth, only a handful of the games developed from the Japan side have been confirmed for the US like Pro Evolution Soccer, NeverDead, and Metal Gear. How do you feel about that since you handle East to West conversions?

It’s hard. As you know, the industry has changed. It’s a totally different business here compared to five years ago. This is my personal guess, but many Western gamers don’t play Japanese games anymore or maybe they never played Japanese games. They have no interest in Japanese games.

This is a story from Gamescom, when I discussed with Jay [Public Relations Manager at Konami America]. OK, there is a big FPS franchise in the West, the biggest one from somewhere. It has massive numbers. Maybe half or more than half of those players may have bought hardware just to play that game and no other games. They only have one game and they keep purchasing downloadable maps, additional content, DLC, DLC, DLC. And then a new one comes out and they just buy it. They never play sports games, action games, and have no interest in Japanese games.

Before Microsoft came into the console business, the center of development was Nintendo or Sony. It was very handy for us to discuss hardware and technology with them because everything was in Japanese. Now, reports have to go through the American division and are translated into Japanese for the technical division and then if anything comes back we have to translate that into English for support. It’s hard. Once America started getting into the console business, there is only English support and they are in the Western market. It was handy for them and so the roles changed.

Compared to other publishers you don’t have as much moe-moe in your line up. Well, aside from LovePlus, which make your titles more approachable to a broad market.

[Laughs.] Actually, there are tons of people that want to bring Tokimeki Memorial to the States.

You also have franchises that are quite popular in the West like Metal Gear Solid, Contra, and Dance Dance Revolution. Since Konami has the knowhow to make games that appeal to both markets, how can you utilize that knowledge to make a game like Frontier Gate a worldwide game right out of the door?

That’s not my project, but I know what you’re talking about. The producer and I had a meeting last weekend where he talked about how the game has good feedback from the States. We may think about localizing that game, but it’s business.

We don’t want to have a localization like, "My name is blah blah blah. We have battle! Hey, you bastard!" [Laughs.] We don’t want to do that anymore. It has to be well translated and it’s got to feel native in the West. That’s the quality we’re looking for. It may happen.

How about this for business? If the scale isn’t right, because being a larger company Konami needs to sell more units for a game to be viable, would you consider to license your games to a smaller Western publisher?

If there’s a deal, yes, but I haven’t seen anything like that yet. We don’t need to sneak into the Western market since we have distribution deals already.

Bandai’s been doing exactly that for some of the titles developed by their Banpresto label and Prope.

It may be an advantage for that company and a disadvantage for our company or maybe not. We have our own strategy to grow in the Western market on our own. If we make a big mistake in the next couple years, maybe we’ll think about it.

Check back for part two tomorrow where Fujii talks about Hudson’s IP and Konami’s plans for Western expansion.

Read more stories about Frontier Gate & Interviews & Konami on Siliconera.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Kamek20xxExtra?feature=mhee Michael Stevens
Spencer: Compared to other publishers you don’t have as much moe-moe in your line up. Well, aside from LovePlus, which make your titles more approachable to a broad market.

Fujii: [Laughs.] Actually, there are tons of people that want to bring Tokimeki Memorial to the States.
Me included (seriously)! I laughed so much at the moe-moe. XD Nice interview and keep up the good work, Fujii!
No9
I love Tak Fujii! I hope he gets to work on more great projects. Maybe even a moe moe game… =D

kroufonz
tak fuji doing some extreme moe moe game sounds awesome
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_S2UKKIGGOA4V5EIFXAD7BQQOV4 Heehee
I will be sucked just as long as there’re one million troops in it because that will be extreme!

Ladius
Suikoden CT, Terror of the Stratus, Frontier Gate, Beyond the Labyrinth… lately, Konami (and tri-Ace through it) has been working on some really interesting games.
As sad as it is, though, I really can’t see any of the PSP ones being localized :( Maybe BtL will have a chance, though.

icecoffemix
If Vita sells well in the west then maybe, big maybe.
Now start promoting Vita and buy all those Konami’s PSN releases. :p

kroufonz
yes tak i do want tokimemo,
update tokimemo 4 with higher resolution graphic/ or make tokimemo 5 for PS3 and PS vita with transfarring release it after PS vita released in japan, then give it english subtitle bring it outside japan not just US, but also Europe and ASIA
konami only have few galge surely it is not gonna be hurt to bring one or two title to the west (using a bit of money from MGS profit)?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=20704987 Heath Bunch
Just bring me Beyond the Labyrinth and New Love Plus and its all good, Konami. ;)

kroufonz
even much better if frontier gate and tokimemo 4 got at least psn release in the west (PSP and PSVITA compatible)

kroufonz
also teror of stratos and suikoden too:P

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=20704987 Heath Bunch
Bring it all! :)

http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/HAEBCODVH3BGFIHE47BKNDXD2I Jonathan
I don’t know about the rest of the US gaming market, I just want to see games brought over here.
It’s funny; he brings up a good point about how pre-XBOX, we rarely discussed the Western/Japan markets, mainly due to how all consoles were essentially made in Japan. While we still didn’t get a lot of games, or had very Americanized versions of them, this generation seems to be condensing the very small presence of “Japanese” games further.
Personally, I don’t want Japanese developers and publisher to think the West has no viable market to sell to, especially with how far we came in the previous console generations. But, it seems that the economy, along with a lot of weak willingness to take risks, will keep that under shaky grounds. . .

Ladius
Truth be told, we’re getting more localizations (and far nicher ones, too) than in the last generations. The audience for Japanese games may be dwindling, but in this generation we have had countless interesting Japanese games to play. The fantranslation scene has never been so healthy, too.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-Pierre-Louis/667684607 Steven Pierre-Louis
rather than the Japanese market shrinking, all they’re seeing is the western gaming market growing around them. The guys that only play shooters and sports games are relatively new. They didn’t really lose these consumers, they never had them.

http://twitter.com/Unorfind Unorfind
nope market for Japanese games have really shrinked compare sales of xenogears or other jrpgs back in psx days and nowadays :(

SolidusSnake
The big Western games back in the day before Xbox were all on PC. Think of Doom, Quake, Half-Life, Elder Scrolls, Baldur’s Gate and other D&D games, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Counter Strike, Soldier of Fortune, Battlefield 2, Gothic, and so many others were all made by western companies and were created for PC. It was hard for kids and meat heads to get into these games because you had to jump through so many hoops with keeping your system and graphics card updated, installing drivers, installing patches, keeping an eye on system requirements, etc.
Of course the people who play the “popular first person shooters” he mentioned were never into Final Fantasy or any other Japanese titles, so like Steven said, the Japanese never lost any gamers, rather, the market exploded cuz Xbox made it a lot easier for people to play western games by putting them on consoles. The market for J-games is still there, we just look a lot smaller compared to the hordes of people playing Serious Army Man Shooter nowadays…

http://twitter.com/Paradox_me Paradox me
That’s not true at all. A good number of the folks playing Call of Duty, Gears of War, Battlefield, etc. are the same people you would have seen playing Final Fantasy and other Japanese games in generations past. Gaming has grown, but not to the point where there’s an audience of 15-20 million brought in only for these Western titles.
Japanese games have lost quite a bit of their audience to a number of factors, such as a perceived decline in quality, change in taste, etc.

SolidusSnake
If by “perceived decline in quality, change in taste, etc.” you mean that much of the good stuff is on handhelds, then you may be on to something. Otherwise I call BS.
Granted, there are people who are into shooters and JRPGs. I’m one of them, have been playing JRPGs since the NES days and shooters since Doom and Wolfenstein. But I’m talking about people who never picked up a controller before Halo and COD hit home consoles. The people who are making gaming into a huge, unprecedented entertainment colossus. The people who buy every modern battlefield game and have no interest in any other genre of gaming. In other words, the average gamer in this day and age.
Perhaps you could tell me what features that Battlefield and Call of Duty have in common with the likes of Final Fantasy other than the fact that they both have graphics and stuff and are played with controllers. These games obviously have much more in common with the likes of Counter Strike, Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, etc, then they do with JRPGs. Even the handful of RPGs that have become popular (Oblivion, Dragon Age, Fallout, Mass Effect) are heavily influenced by both Western entertainment F & SF tropes as well as first person shooters and CRPGs. I don’t see why you assume that the Halo and COD kiddies would be interested in Final Fantasy, unless you just HAVE to establish that the horrible moe moe bishy japansy pedo stuff is RUINING GAMING FOREVER. In which case you are probably spending too much time on Kotaku.
Back on topic: you can’t deny the negative influence of practically every damn Japanese game nowadays being on PSP when the US market hates handhelds. Games like Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom, hell, even creepy cartoon porn stuff like Catherine or BlazBlue pull off some decent sales in the western market. The only portable games that seem to be doing good sales over here are casual stuff and Nintendo games. And needless to say none of our COD and Halo gamebros will touch that stuff. Can’t have your cake and eat it too, Japan. You can make games for the PSP and sell a bunch of copies locally, or you can gamble on an HD title and hopefully sell a few hundred thousand copies, but expecting COD numbers for any game that’s not COD is simply not realistic.
PS: There have always been ecchi and moe elements in Japanese games, but before the internet not as many people knew about them.

http://twitter.com/Paradox_me Paradox me
I didn’t say that the new gamers brought into the console space due to the popularity of shooters were ever particularly interested in Japanese games.
However, most console gamers that are now in their 20s and early 30s that grew up on Japanese games have by and large moved on to Western games, be it shooters, WRPGs or action games.
Much of this can be attributed to the shift in platforms (focus on handhelds), but also the fact that many of these gamers’ interests changed. The same people that enjoyed JRPGs and such in their youth are now seeking more “mature” experiences, immersion, player choice and freedom.
Edit- No, I’m not talking about myself. I hardly play any Western games at all. You seem awfully confrontational when it comes to this topic. I’m merely going by my observations of the gaming community in general.
SolidusSnake
Speak for yourself. I still play Japanese games and so does pretty much everyone I know who did so in the past. And I don’t particularly consider playing COD or Battlefield on Xbox live to be a mature experience offering me a wealth of player choice or freedom. COD and Gears certainly have immersive campaigns. Mass Effect has a more mature script and storyline than the Disney Channel-esque FF13, but I’m not sure that it tops the likes of Digital Devil Saga or Nocturne.
There’s certainly a strong BIAS against anything Japanese when it comes to newbie Western gamers, but most people I know who’ve played Japanese games in their youth are still open to new ones. Really now, most gamers in their 20s and 30s have grown out of Japanese games? Are you sure you’re not just talking about yourself here?
http://twitter.com/Xander_VJ David García Abril
In my experience, the vast majority of the “console gamers that are now in their 20s and early 30s that grew up on Japanese games and have by and large moved on to Western games, be it shooters, WRPGs or action games” were never big into Japanese games to begin with.
The J-RPG fans are a good examples. The vast majority of people who claim to be old JRPG fans were never really JRPG fans. They were “Final Fantasy” fans. Once you start mentioning games like the “Tales of” series, “Xenogears”, “Fire Emblem”, “Vagrant Story”… hell, sometimes even “Chrono Trigger” and “Dragon Quest”… they get lost. Maybe they heard about them, but never really played them.
People who really were JRPG fans in their youth rarely give up on the genre, because they know were to look now that Square Enix is an empty shell of its former being. And even they still have awesome new JRPGs like “The World Ends With You”, “Nier” and “Chaos Rings”. Although, of course, since they are not called FF, very few people know about them.
How many people sick of teenage angst have played the “Disgaea” series?
How many people sick of medieval fantasy have played the “Persona” series?
How many people sick of the same clichés have played the “Xeno” games? Hell! Or even the “Tales of” games, a series that is based on deconstructing those clichés!
How many people sick of moe characters have played “Lost Odyssey”?
Since people never look beyond the same two home console series, they are missing out a whole load of great games that they could love.
For the rest of most genres, however, there’s not really a true sense of “Japanese games”. Fighting games are still almost exclusively from Japan. However, people usually don’t point them out as “Japanese games”.
Other “weird” genres like dating sims and stuff were never big in the West to begin with.
However, there’s something that it’s true: the “moefication” of anime and how it has become more and more focused on the otaku audience has really hurt the Japanese industry, both anime and video games. But that’s not only in the West, but in Japan itself as well.
http://twitter.com/Unorfind Unorfind
yeah you right back in psx days jrpg were selling better than nowadays but fans often deny it ,xenoblade won’t oust sell xenogears etc. etc. really only FF somehow keeps level of sales high (if we talk purely about jrpgs )
Gatchaman1
Well as they say “you are what you eat”
So their interests will change if there is nothing to eat (due to the shift to development to handhelds) and the only thing to eat is Western console games if your diet only consists of playing console games.
MPHavoc
It’s funny hearing about these generalizations about gamers in their 20s and 30s moving on to more “mature” games, when I’ve met people on various forums and in real life who are in their 40s and 50s that talk about Final Fantasy, Azure Dreams, Xenosaga, Xenogears, Arc the Lad, Grandia, Lunar, the Atelier and Ar Tonelico series, Shadow Hearts, Persona, Phantom Dust, Megaman, Street Fighter, Fate/Stay Night, Blazblue, Guilty Gear, Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile, the Tales of series, Disgaea, and No More Heroe; I could go on. Some of which were even introduced to these games at the aforementioned ages. I don’t pretend to know what circles you travel on the internet, Paradox_me, but there’s no common consensus on the gaming community’s attitude towards Japanese games. Or an age-limit for the enjoyment of said-games for that matter.
Heck, my friends, wife and siblings are in our early-to- mid twenties and we haven’t forgone any of our lust for Japanese games. We’re currently going crazy waiting for the rest of Falcom’s franchises(the Ys and Sora no Kiseki series) to get localized, as well as Pandora’s Tower, the Last Story, and Xenoblade Chronicles.
Gatchaman1
Well census wise you don’t represent the majority of the Western buying market…
MPHavoc
To Gatchaman: Nor did I claim so. I’m contesting that the whole “20 to 30 year olds outgrow Japanese games” statement is not an irrefutable fact that applies to everyone. Where it’s being treated as a common statistic or symptom that implies this happens to ALL JRPG players. I do not deny that there are people who in the Western Market either have no interest or may lose interest in JRPGs, or that JRPGs(sans Final Fantasy) are still niche amongst Westerners.
Gatchaman1
Hey dont diss Catherine that game is cool. Anyways Japanese gaming dominates the handhelds. Western developers other than EA Sports barely even touch that market and stick to consoles instead where they pour their money in. Japanese gamers are more social gamers and live close enough to find people who have PSP’s, DS, 3DS and play co-op with them instead of staying home on a PS3/360 and play online. And the Japanese culture doesn’t really like FPS or guns too much for that matter since guns aren’t really that legal in Japan while the average American household they say owns like 1 to three guns. Its in the Western culture and Western game developers know this and ran with it full force this gen to take full monetary advantage.

Gatchaman1
And whats crazy is that XBox games aren’t even sold used in Gamestop, Best Buy, Circuit City, Walmart, K-Mart anymore and barely in other game stores like Play n Trade. So its like Microsoft invaded then vanished and now are invading again.

MPHavoc
We really need a survey or something to let Japanese developers that we *are* interested in their games, no matter how many FPS clones we keep mass-producing. I can understand if he thought we were twindling into a minority, but saying that he believes there’s “no interest” at all just doesn’t set well with me.

http://www.facebook.com/bryanjnleong Bryan Leong
This doesn’t sound so good for Type-0…

http://twitter.com/Megawarrior345 Elle
It bothers me that we have to worry about whether or not a FINAL FANTASY GAME is being localized or not. Times have really changed indeed and I’m not liking it one bit.

Crimson_Cloud
Tell me about it. When the localization of the usual franchise is being questioned you know we are going the wrong way.
But to tell you the truth, some JRPGs fans are quiting because they aren’t satisfied with the games that are tossed our way, like Final Fantasy for example. Honestly, I too had more fun with AR Tonelico Qoga, Disgaea 3 and Hyperdimension Neptunia than with FF13, whose name would give quite an impact in the good old PS/PS2 era…

Gatchaman1
Dont forget the FF XIV fiasco
MPHavoc
Yeah, I find myself getting more into JRPGs that are considered an “acquired taste” in the West than what’s considered popular for the mainstream crowd. Hyperdimension Neptunia is a game that was panned poorly by critics or just had a mixed reception yet I found myself loving every bit of it (and more often than not laughing my ass off).
http://twitter.com/Megawarrior345 Elle
Not going to lie. I like those games better than FF13 too. To be honest, it’s thanks to FF13 that I DO play those games. lol

Gatchaman1
My guess is Square-Enix is waiting it out to see if they’ll either put it on PSN as DD, or release it for VITA.
Or maybe do an HD version. Because PSP is dead in the West.

http://profiles.google.com/baldulf2024 Keel J
It’s not true that westerners are tired of japanese games.
Westerners are tired of reiterative, unoriginal, poorly executed and worse written japanese games.
Also Japanese developers are too fixated in hitting the big numbers of Modern Warfare and GTA, that’s not gonna happen, not as things are right now. If you want to retake your trone you are going to work it step by step

Ladius
“Westerners are tired of reiterative, unoriginal, poorly executed and worse written japanese games.”
To be honest, most Japanese games outside of the usual big names are simply ignored (as in “hey, I didn’t even know that game existed, let alone it was localized!”) by most western gamers, except for a small niche that actively follow them from their Japanese announcement to the eventual western localization. They are not even given a chance by most others, being included in a generic “Japanese games” category that is faulted for some big budget game’s shortcomings (FF13′s extreme linearity used to criticize the whole jrpg genre, for example).
It isn’t like Trails in the Sky, Tactics Ogre, DeathSmiles, Ys Oath in Felghana, Ys Seven, Infinite Space, Ghost Trick, Hotel Dusk, Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn, Contact, Knights in the Nightmare, Z.H.P., Atelier Totori, Theresia, Little King’s Story, Flower Sun and Rain, Kara no Shoujo, Rondo of Swords, Valkyria Chronicles 2, Last Window, Laevatein, Resonance of Fate, Deadly Premonition, 999, BlazBlue CTCS and countless other titles of different genres released this gen aren’t great games in their own right, but their sales are still decent-to-poor simply because they are largely unknown outside of their traditional following, and don’t even have a chance to expand their fanbase unless they enjoy some unlikely critical acclaim by reviewers or very strong word of mouth.
Of course the handheld focus of Japanese developers and the growing hardware divide between Japan and the other markets (especially considering PSP) hasn’t helped, either, as well as tons of other reasons ranging from the aging Japanophile western demographics to aesthetic and cultural problems, but accusing the games themselves when most of them aren’t even given a chance is unfair, imho.

kroufonz
most of western gaming media also make the situation even more worse , with some review/preview that often filled with hate and biased view toward anime & japanese game, some even doesn’t give any chance to let the game known to the mass.
while the small niche publisher couldn’t really make the game known outside their core fanbase due to limited budget for advertising and promotion (in japan even some niche game could get TV add, totori for example). while in the west even big company like namco bandai rarely try ro advertise their bigger niche stuff like tales (while at the same time give some nice push/ effort for thing like enslaved and inversion advertising)
Gatchaman1
Another thing is reviewers. Many of the big name reviewers (IGN, Gametrailers) don’t even review those games you mentioned and many gamers today in the West watch or read reviews to make their purchase decisions.
Next thing is marketing. None of those games get the marketing push like games like Saints Row the Third, Battlefield 3, Batman, Uncharted, Skyrim, Forza, Gears, GTA etc.
So they easily always fall under the radar.
Now Nintendo will always be the exception because of their history and household name.

Samken
It’s not the first time and will not be the last that i’ll see Japanese Games struggling to come to the overseas market, and i’ll tell you why:
First and foremost, again they’re forgeting the World is not USA, Europe and Asia. Sure they’re big markets okay, but in 2-5 years, The Brazillian market will outgrown the Mexican market and will close the gap to the Canadian Market. And Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay sure will follow later. 48% of the population of Latin america speaks spanish as main language (52% speaks portuguese, just because of Brazil!), where the hell are spanish translated games? Only Spain gets those? (I’ll not even talk about where the hell are portuguese translated games). Ignoring Countries like China that are growing like 8% a year and Brazil that’s growing 3,6% a year in Today’s economy is a Big, big mistake.

Where’s Latin America (I’m from here), Middle East or Africa deals. Again, if they want to strike big, they need a TRUE worldwide partnership deal with publishers from all around the world, translations to at least Spanish, English, Portuguese, German, French, Italian and etc… of their games (local publishers can take care of that).
Only western developed games gets here officialy in my Country (1.5x-2x the price of the USA/Canada, Battlefield 3 is selling for 85$, and Special Edition was 129$. All those translated ONLY in english [not even Spanish], so if you don’t know english, you’re screwed). NO JAPANESE GAMES AT ALL comes here, not even the english translated ones (Unless it’s Final Fantasy). Try finding Disgaea 4 in video games stores in shopping malls here in my country, if you find, call me later.
Second, i think people outgrown the genre, i love some japanese games sure, i still play my Rorona, Totori, Disgaea you name it, but even i can tell the genre is getting old. They don’t CHANGE that much from one game to another (I don’t know why the hell FPS still selling, i’m not a FPS guy, so i’ll not talk about that). And even the hardcore fans are getting tired that the games that TRY to change something are Japan exclusive.
I’m really tired to import games from the States/Canada and playing in English (Well, yeah, global language sure, but not even 10% of the population of my country speaks that) or Japan and playing in Japanese. Being a brazillian gamer is suffering, just my 2 cents about that.

http://twitter.com/Xander_VJ David García Abril
You should look a little bit harder.
Since 2007, Nintendo localize all its games to Spanish for America, with proper Latin American translation (not re-using the translations for Spain, since those translations don’t quite work in that territory). And since recently it does the same for Brazilian Portuguese (the 3DS is prepared for them by firmware).
Don’t worry. It won’t be long before Latin America has its fair share of localized games, although at first it will only be the big budget titles. For niche games I guess you would have to wait a little bit longer, since it’s still quite far away from even Spain alone. Although I’m sure that will change eventually.

Samken
Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft releases are few and far between, you know it, i know, everybody knows. Sure, nintendo releases some games like Mario, Metroid or Kirby in Latin American Spanish (No Portuguese, but whetever), but not all of them (Fire Emblem or Smash Bros Brawl for exemple).
[We're talking about NTSC releases right?, if so PAL has Spanish]
And we’re just talking about First party games. I think if you want people to buy and play your game, first you need to make that game more accessible, with fair pricing and translating that game to that country language. Playing a game in a foreign language is not accesible…at all. But we’re already used to it.

http://www.facebook.com/JaeWhy SasuleUchiha
No Fujii , I like japanese games so much. And I don’t play one game for that console all the times. I play a game , finish it and switch another game.
And I like to see all Konami’s upcoming RPG like Suikoden , Frontier Gate and Beyond the Labyrinth get localized. Oh and if you bring Tokimeki or Loveplus to the west too , of course I will gladly be sucked to play those too :D
http://twitter.com/AnthonyFoster5 Anthony Foster
Just bring me the Far East of Eden games Hudson/Konami and I’ll be happy.
Frontier Gate and Terror of the Stratus would be nice too.

Gatchaman1
Dont forget Bobobo Bo Bobobo

kroufonz
Mr Tak should know that there is still gamer that love non westernized “japanese style” game outside japan, like majority of siliconera reader:)
http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-Pierre-Louis/667684607 Steven Pierre-Louis
“Maybe half or more than half of those players may have bought hardware
just to play that game and no other games. They only have one game and
they keep purchasing downloadable maps, additional content, DLC, DLC,
DLC. And then a new one comes out and they just buy it. They never play
sports games, action games, and have no interest in Japanese games.”
I hope he was exaggerating with this example. I doubt there are very many people that bought a console and only CoD. Even the “bro gamer” stereotype buys sports games. At the very least they’ll buy other FPSes in addition to CoD.
I think some of these devs are too down on the market. They just say, “Only Western games are popular in the West,” but then ignore games like Pokemon that put up huge numbers. For other games they think that if they don’t top the charts then there is “no interest.”
If they decide to release less and less games outside of Japan though, eventually there really will be “no interest.”

irzbos
One of my good friends bought a ps3 and only bought CoD Black ops. His place was then robbed with his PS3 and Black ops stolen. He then went and bought another ps3 and black ops to replace the stolen ones. His place was robbed agn. ps3 game and TV was stolen this time. Lo and behold he moved to a new apartment. And once again, bought a ps3, black ops and this time a new tv. So yeah, some people really do do that.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-Pierre-Louis/667684607 Steven Pierre-Louis
yikes. the devotion there is almost impressive. I play a lot of CoD too, but…
Gatchaman1
If he had learned anything from CoD he shoulda staked the place out sniper mode waiting for the perpetrator to arrive.

Okuni-chan
[For other games they think that if they don't top the charts then there is "no interest." ] _<) overseas, but wont bother taking the leaps to go "Hey fans, we know those games you've been asking us for wont make our cash registers sing but, because we listen and hear you we're going to bring you those games!" I know you have to worry about money and the sales, but sometimes it would be nice to see some fan love and feel like you being listened to. No not just listened to but you get a nice reply with a bow on top! (Meaning said video game) :3
kroufonz
you will be suprissed There is a lot of this people who only buy console for play mainly one or two game , it is either COD or sports game (madden, FIFA, and PES/WE) or sometime racing game, they may buy several other title (mostly AAA title) but their main but cod/sport games is what they mainly/mostly played all year.

Gatchaman1
those aren’t real gamers. They’re just sports fans. Often when I know people like that and mention other games to them, even popular ones, they scoff at them like its a waste of time to play video games. Like the people who think video games are for kids. Very very casual players.

http://twitter.com/Megawarrior345 Elle
One of my relatives bought a Playstation 3 just to get the latest Madden or NBA 2K. The only other kind of game he had was Uncharted 2 and he gave that to me.
Gatchaman1
Well Nintendo games are a household name they were popular before the microsoft push so they will always continue to sell in the West.

http://twitter.com/Paradox_me Paradox me
I’ve said it before, but Japanese games have become far too niche to appeal to many Western gamers. They found a particular audience and as time went by they began catering more and more specifically to that audience.
Bishi, J-pop influence, moe, teen angst and melodrama, etc. do not resonate with Western audiences. It’s not that there’s no market for Japanese games anymore, just that many modern Japanese games are tailor made for a market that was never really there in the West to begin with.
I think it’s something that’s also had an impact on the anime industry in the West, and that the two (anime and games) are very much intertwined.

Samken
Unlike the USA that still has some hope, the Anime industry in my Country is pretty much dead, you only see re-releases of Old animes like Yu Yu Hakusho, Saint Seiya or Sailor Moon (80-90s anime). We only see new content if it’s a Kiddy anime DVD (Bakumen, Yu-gi-Oh or the New Digimon series).
BD sales are still crawling here in Brazil because not many people has BD players yet (An entry level BD-Player from Sony is 218$, that’s a lot of money, even for a middle class brazilian family). A small publisher tried to publish Evangelion 1.11 here in BD-DVD. The BD version of the movie sold only 300 copies, that’s pretty bad, but just so you know, the BD version only had Dolby Digital audio, no Dolby True HD.
So the collector’s were pretty pissed off about that, because the american and japanese version of the movie had Dolby True HD audio. Do you know what they did? They only sold DVD copies of the next evangelion movie (2.22). So…, what happened with the DVD copies of the movie? Flopped. I think it didn’t even break 1.000 copies.
Unlike the anime industry, the manga industry is pretty much alive and kicking here, Clamp will release their new series here as well, and we have some releases that the USA don’t have, like Love Junkies from Kyo Hatsuki (26 volumes completed).
Gatchaman1
On the flip side, when Japanese developers try to Westernize their library, it doesn’t sit well either. Dead to Rights Retribution, Time Crisis Razing Storm, Warriors of Troy, Clash of the Titans, Knights Contract, Enslaved, the hate backlash at the new DMC reboot etc. Only exceptions are maybe Vanquish (best TPS in my opinion though many felt it was too short and lacked MP) and Ace Combat AH (which I just bought but havent received yet).

theworldofnoboundries
Well i can see how Tak Fuji come to the conclusion that the West does not fond Jrpg or other Japanese games.
People who buy consoles only to play FIFA and CoD really exist.(Some of my friend only play those games and said other games is bull without even trying them once.)
But to Tak Fuji, it is not ur market that is shrinking. It is the exact opposite. They are growing however the growth is small compare to the growth of the market these last 10 years.
More people is coming to play game. More people fall in love to Jrpg however “Most” of the west player love FPS more that Jrpg which makes ur genre to look like they fail compared to the FPS genre.
I myself bought CoD Modern Warfare 2 to try but in the end most of the game i bought is purely Jrpg. This shows not all player would buy Jrpg but maybe most casual gamer will bought CoD but there are still gamer that are still waiting for good Jrpg to come.
(C’mon Bring 3DS beyond the labyrinth here and we Jrpg fans will show how many of us still love Jrpg!!!)
kuro_chan666
Well, if they translate(not localize, just translate. not interprete, just simply write everything written in another language) Tokimeki Memorial 2, a huge bunch of people I know will be happy. I’d even buy it to support them, even though I already own Tokimeki Memorial 2 Limited Edition with all EVS discs. Never regretted buying it, though it was costly, I must say. Even now, the game is no way near looking old or what. The graphics are beautiful, and everything is just perfect.
But…that’s probably not possible, since the game came out waaay back in 1999 on PS1, even though it’s still the best dating simulation game ever.
Love Plus is not a game already, its LIFE, so it doesn’t count.
Gladly bought Senritsu no Stratus some time ago. It’s great
Though, I’d really like them NOT to make that “live-2D” or whatever they used in TokiMemo4. The game was great, but it really looks off when 2D drawings are moving like that. Nothing better than old way of doing it. TokiMemo2 had it – lip sync, and no unnecessary movements, perfect.

Gatchaman1
I cant get past the first boss

epy
Suikoden must get absolute priority! As much as I want to try Stratus, new Suikoden is a must!
“…Maybe half or more than half of those players may have bought hardware
just to play that game and no other games. They only have one game and
they keep purchasing downloadable maps, additional content, DLC, DLC,
DLC. And then a new one comes out and they just buy it. They never play
sports games, action games, and have no interest in Japanese games.”
And yet companies find them more important than people that actually have interest in japanese games. They’re like the people that think the whole internet exists mainly for Facebook…
Its nice that videogames are more mainstream now… there are positive things about it, but sometimes I miss the times when regular people (casuals?! FLAMESHIELDON) dared not enter the Geek Realms (totally just named that now).
Göran Isacson
Oh Tak Fuji, you’re straight-shooting ways is such a fresh breeze. He’s a pretty confident guy, I must admit.
While most people here have already debated his FPS-analogy, I have to admit that I find his talk regarding MIcrosoft interesting. Microsoft changed the face of console gaming from being predominantly based on Eastern design philosophies in every market, for better and for worse. The console-ification of gaming that so many PC-gamers and graphic whores complain about is really Microsofts “fault”, in a way. Pretty interesting, because I don’t see many bringing that up. Consoles were consoles and PC’s were PC’s until the Xbox.
Anyhow it turns, it will be interesting to see where the gaming world goes next with these strange fusions…

http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-Pierre-Louis/667684607 Steven Pierre-Louis
I think this can only be good for the gaming industry as a whole. Japanese devs should see this as an opportunity, rather than just a threat.
What got me into gaming was mainly shooters like the original Doom and sports games. These weren’t the only games I played, but they were my favorites by a large margin. I didn’t even know what an RPG was until I played Mario RPG. The rest is pretty much history from there.
Yeah I still love the shooters and the sports games, but I also play fighting games, rpgs, puzzle games, even the one or two visual novels. this didn’t all happen immediately, by the way, but due to a lot of exposure to genres that I didn’t normally used to play.
What should be gleaned from all of this? Instead of saying that you can’t crack the market and choosing not to release many quality games in the west (or put little to no effort to promote the games that you do), I think that Japan should be trying to make as much noise as possible. This is a risky plan of action I’m sure no one will follow, but I believe it’ll pay off for those that do in the long run.
Gatchaman1
Microsoft is like Hollywood

http://twitter.com/ExceptionL ExceptionL
Numbers aren’t everything, and developers need to see building the niche here, as something which can return later for an increase in sales in the future. I thought Japanese people *stereotype* are business men?! It’s like giving samples, and taking a loss for a greater gain in the future. think of it as an investment. I currently buy all SUDA 51 games simply out of support. I sacrifice buying titles like Uncharted 3 and things that are surely great games, but will sell well without me purchasing to support devs I want to see more work from. If I had the money I’d buy multiple copies, and give them to other gamers who don’t know these titles, because the market is so saturated with crap, it’s not worth taking a risk to try something new, not for 60$ plus tax. So what do they do? buy the new version of the game they already like.
.

theworldofnoboundries
The truth is “Number is everything” in business especially in this fragile time.
As economy is not a really good at the moment even one wrong step for a small company could bring a disaster to the company which is the reason why company nowadays is looking for away to gain those FPS fans into their market.
In the end, nowadays “ideals” will only ended up as “ideals” as if u are only following the ideals and not prioritizing ur economy, one miss step and u are screwed.(Remember Sega? with their DreamCast and Shenmue?)

http://twitter.com/Megawarrior345 Elle
Yes, so many beloved companies shut down just because a couple games underperformed.

theworldofnoboundries
Thats why i kinda understand what Tak Fujii is talking about and i am not really happy with fans complaining that what Tak Fujii is saying is wrong.
Fans should understand that in the end Numbers is important. If Tak Fujii wanted to create a good game for a small and niche fans and unable to bring profit to the sales, he will get fired and his life will be kinda unsafe which shows that designer in the end have more other than just pleasing fans.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-Pierre-Louis/667684607 Steven Pierre-Louis
very true, but if they play it too safe then Japanese devs may find themselves confined to the Japanese market. You have to spend money to make money, the old cliche goes.

theworldofnoboundries
Yeah i know. The problem with the Jap developers. They only know two method.
Super Safe? or Super Risky? With those two kind of view Jap developer mostly will of course choose Super Safe.
Well with LV 5 at the moment i can safely said that in this upcoming future, they will be the powerhorse that will lead Japanese gaming company. Lets hope that more new company will be able to revitalize Jrpg and their industry.

http://twitter.com/Unorfind Unorfind
but our niche often is too small for big AAA games, modern day titles with hd graphic need at least 1 million sold units and even the it’s called barley a success.But there is solution digital distribution games there don’t need amazing graphic that costs ton of $$$ and takes a lot of time

http://twitter.com/SEGA_PORTUGUESE SEGA_PORTUGUESE
love this guy. I was so happy when he sang the Daytonaaaaa in his twitter XD. Thanks, Siliconera
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=685220688 Vince Vazquez
I really like the part where he said, “We don’t want to have a localization like, “My name is blah blah blah.
We have battle! Hey, you bastard!” [Laughs.] We don’t want to do that
anymore. It has to be well translated and it’s got to feel native in the
West.” Because that IS a huge part of it. Far too many Japanese games aspire to do nothing more than regurgitate the storytelling complexity in Shonen or Shojo manga – bad ones. Nowadays, with developers like Bioware and Bethesda making consoles games, and guys like Naughty Dog having stepped up their game significantly, we NEED dialogue that sounds natural. We want game characters to sound like real people, instead of stupid anime cliches. Which is part of the reason FFXIII found so much ire – just look at characters like Vanille, Hope or Snow and tell me they’re not imitations of hundreds of others characters. Many from previous Final Fantasy games. The same animations, the same facial expressions even – I hate them.
But really man, he’s gotta remember that back on the PSOne, EVERY major game was Japanese. Tons of gamers in the west here have loved eastern games in the past, and would gladly play them again if they were made available for platforms we play. I can’t stress this enough – all the interesting Japanese games are on PSP, and NO ONE PLAYS PSP BESIDES JAPAN!!! It’s incredibly frustrating that there’s so few Japanese studios seem to acknowledge that XBLA and PSN exist, or Steam. The PSP is garbage hardware and I cannot believe how strongly supported it is in the east, but I sure as heck wish that we got ports of those games for GOOD platforms. PSP games, up-res’d into HD, and made compatible with console controllers, would make for fine $15 downloads. I’d MUCH RATHER do that than play it on the PSP. Until Japanese acknowledge that, and stop making games exclusively for the thing, than they really shouldn’t complain.
Bring us your games, and you’ll see that we will play them!

theworldofnoboundries
I can only said one thing to u lol. PSP in Japan is still one of the best console that almost all Japanese use and developing game for those “Good” platform u said needs lots of money. If they are releasing most of the game on PSP not localizing the game is the best choice as like what u said, outside of the “east” PSP is garbage.
Lastly u can said that the Japanese is not as picky as the west about graphics which allowed many new games without a good graphics still be able to attract attention.

kuro_chan666
Well, yes, something you said is true – outside Japan, many of their devices will fail. Though, PSP did succeed, so it’s probably not one of them, though lately I read more and more rage comments about PSP being “garbage”, but those usually come from raging kids, who play Heavy Rain squealing about how cool it is(usually, because of graphics, of course), so I don’t really mind or anything.
I do know that some of games I call “graphics-garbage” succeded in Japan, though it’s beyond my understanding why, but that’s probably not of my concern. The current generation might just be the same everywhere, eh.

Gatchaman1
Thats why I like Yakuza

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_J24UY7QAEKQY576PHZYS3EN6BA Celine
“This is my personal guess, but many Western gamers don’t play Japanese
games anymore or maybe they never played Japanese games. They have no
interest in Japanese games”
Fucking hell. T_T That’s the last thing I want any Japanese producer to be thinking. 99% of my game library is Japanese. Maybe it’s just me, but I sure hope it’s not.

http://twitter.com/Unorfind Unorfind
but it’s true we are minority and our numbers decrease the new generation of gamers is all about action orientated Hollywood movie style games like cod,uncharted,gers of war etc they are mainstream biggest part of market and I don’t like it :/

kuro_chan666
Can’t agree with you more.
I don’t like all those mainstream games too.
It’s sad that the new generation won’t play those great NES/SNES/Megadrive/PSX/Saturn games I did.
Most of them won’t understand me or you, seeing their happiness over GTA5 announcement, while paying no attention to something really worthy. Then again, what should one expect from generation that can’t tell time, if the clock’s not digital.
Sad, but true.

Gatchaman1
Well….Japanese developers keep making games for PSP and handhelds when handhelds are no where near as popular in the West as they are in Japan so that is one problem. Second problem is not willing to try new design ideas and sticking to cliche tropes which has annoyed many Western players.
Though on the flip side of things, I myself get annoyed by Western tropes and cliches (FPS, steroid buff bald space marine skinhead characters, Medieval LotR/D&D settings, silent protagonist open world boredom, dull color palette and textures, glitches, freezes and bugs in AAA games etc)

kuro_chan666
They probably are annoyed because only “cliched” japanese games are getting localized, so they don’t know that japanese games have a great variety.
I once thought so too, but that was a looong time ago, before I started learning japanese. After that I perfectly understood, that most games that get localized are not even nearly as good as those that don’t, and that japanese games have much more than those tropes and cliches known to any western gamer without japanese knowledge.

sandra10
From my personal experience, I find that there are many gamers who want to play Japanese games and JRPGs (they always reference the PS2 era when doing so). There are just some problems with these people: they’re either ignorant of where to get these games (handhelds) and/or they have misconceptions of these systems (PSP is garbage/port machine, Vita is a portable PS3/haz no gaemz, 3DS is for children, blah, blah, blah).
The solution for both? I send them to Siliconera and Andriasang. Let them educate themselves about what they’re missing out since places like Kotaku and IGN suck at covering Japanese games. The result? They’re going to buy handhelds and keep up with Japanese gaming. But I’m only one person. Can’t change the whole Western world (even if I really want to).
http://twitter.com/ChestnutBowl Chestnut Bowl
Interesting interview, especially regarding how the success of Microsoft has changed things. Also,
“Actually, there are tons of people that want to bring Tokimeki Memorial to the States.”
I don’t know about ‘tons’, but I personally would welcome a localized or region-free New Love Plus.
brian yep
I really think he should get someone at Konami to have (new) Love Plus (+) to come out in english.
Or maybe he could do it.
caddyalan
Every now and then, there’s a vague rumor about localizing a Tokimemo game, or some version of LovePlus. But none of the rumors have ever been confirmed.
Meanwhile, the fan translation community has finished work on the first two Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side games for the DS. All the text in LovePlus is now translated, and it will likely be just a month or two before any bugs or mistakes are corrected.
Only a few small companies are currently translating romance games, and their products rarely appear outside of iOS and PC formats. And only a modest number of English speaking indie game creators are selling their games. It’s a small fandom, and I don’t expect it will grow much. But at least things are better than they used to be in the early 2000s, when it was difficult to find anything other than porn stories in English.

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