BMC: The Japanese video game industry has found itself in a puzzling conundrum lately, one that even the great Professor Hershel Layton would likely find difficult to solve.
At its core, the problem is simple: Japanese games don't sell very well in America. Franchises like Grand Theft Auto, Halo, and BioShock - all created by American companies - have risen to the top of the industry, earning their studios more money and acclaim worldwide than their Japanese counterparts..
A list of games that are great when you are on the go and only have a few moments to play. They can also be enjoyed for hours of gaming fun.
With Professor Layton's 3D debut literally just around the corner, we take a look at just why we love this more recent Nintendo classic, born on the Nintendo DS.
Sunday is Mother's Day. Instead of getting her flowers or a cheap card, why not get Mom into gaming? Cassidee from Leviathyn.com gives us a rundown of ten games any Mom can get into.
Most I ever got my mom to play was Wii Sports and even then it was just the bowling.
My mom stopped playing games with me when I was six and I told her that the Super Nintendo controller "was too complicated" for her.
Six-year-old me ruined it for current me. What a brat.
My mom is addicted to angry birds and fruit ninja. She started gaming at age 50; and to think that we've had a console in the house since the early days of the Sega master system ( she refers to every gaming console I've own as "a nintendo"), tsk tsk tsk. She does enjoy some motion controlled games, she's a total sucker for casual gaming, hehe.
Sadly even Fruit Ninja gives her anxiety, though she likes to play the classic Resident Evil.
my mom doesn't know a thing about video games. When she comes into my room, I tell her to look at this cutscene, she looks at it and says " it looks like every other game you play"... apparently every game looks the same to her lol
... I think one of the main problems with Japanese games 'not succeeding' in the west, is because they usually force a localisation upon the west that the gamers who are actually interested in Japanese games, DO NOT WANT!
For example, there are a bunch of Japanese games I potentially WOULD have bought, but didn't, because maybe some content was cut (Yakuza 3) or we got stuck with a horrible english dub only (Metroid Other M, some of the Tales games, among MANY others...)
I'm really glad games like Naruto UNS2 and Vanguish will offers us the CHOICE if we want to play the game with the original japanese voices, or the english dub.
I think, in this day and age, that choice is an absolute must. There's absolutely no reason whatsoever to release a modern game with a horrible dub only, or with content cut.
Most gamers who are into japanese games, are already into anime and japanese culture etc, so they WANT those games to reflect that japanese special something.
Another example of this is Recettear. An incredibly well executed localization that gave that little game a certain charm.
This article is right; core mechanics and games as a whole can stay Japanese, but what I love, as well as other people, I'm sure, is when a game was quality writting and really just focuses on doing its thing.
Wich is why the concept of Westernization -in my opinion- is completly wrong, and why Japanese developers should just stick to making great games, instead of attempting "something else".
Nintendo's Treehouse team does an amazing job with localization. I'm kind of wary that Level-5 wants to handle the franchise on their own now.