[QUOTE="LongZhiZi"][QUOTE="Arach666"]
That´s not a surprise to me,the Japanese audience is very ethnocentric and is usually only focused on their market,with very few exceptions.
The Japanese should open their mind and broaden their horizons about western developed games,they are way to close minded about them,unlike we are.
They are just limiting themselves,and that´s a damn shame.
Arach666
I'm just going to throw this out there because you're a PC gamer (as am I) and I've read your posts so I know you're a pretty balanced guy.I think you'd agree that PC gaming is a very non-Japanese thing. So if you were to make a PC game/port, it would be only appealing to non-Japanese consumers. If Japanese gamers are so closed-minded and Western consumers are so open-minded, why do we typically not see JRPGs on the PC? It's not like Square-Enix has an aversion to PC gaming, as they publish all of their Western developed games on the PC. Logically, if Western-gamers were truly so open-minded, certainly you'd want to get it on every platform possible (and if I recall correctly, the engine that powers FF13 was also designed for the PC) so a PC version would be a no-brainer.
Well,I believe that the question you ask can only be answered by SE,they are the ones that have the power to release the FF SP games on the PC,and yet they don´t.
There are some explanations to that though.
First,the PC gaming market is more oriented to PC franchises,not console ports or franchises that have origins on the consoles. The FF franchise is clearly a console oriented franchise,it´s not because it´s of Japanese origin.
You can see that FFXIII sold exteremely well in here on both consoles(and one of those consoles isn´t Japanese),and that is kind of my point.They are console franchises,they will always sell better on consoles.
Piracy can be another barrier for SE,but considering that many PC games(keyword being PC) sell by the millions,that really isn´t an excuse.
Besides,western consumers are indeed more open minded to Japanese games,if you see the sales numbers in the US and Europe of games like SMG2 or FFXIII(among many others),you can state that they sell millions,while the top US/EU games seel very poorly there.
Let me give you an example: Little big Planet is a game that,considering the taste of Japanese gamers for platformers and for the style of the game itself,should have been a success in Japan.
Why wasn´t it then? Because it wasn´t developed by a Japanese company...
SE is indeed focusing their efforts on a PC FF game though,and that will come at least 6 months before the console version,wich is something,I guess.
Then again,it´s an MMO,and SE knows that the PC market is way stronger than the console market in that regard,and it´s the comple opposite for usual SP JRPG´s.
Just my 2 cents but you probably shouldn't include Nintendo in this type of discussion. They have a heavy hand start since they propelled console gaming to the path its on now. no western or Japanese company has ever had as successful games worldwide as they have and you don't even need to look at this gen to see that.
The west is more open to different cultured games I agree to a point but that also has a lot to do with genre kings. What was the last JRPG that isn't FF that sold very well in NA? Pretty much non existant. Its easy to point out super successful games and say hey, here's proof but hnoestly, while Japanese games sell better in the West, unless you pour millions into marketing or are already popular due to simple creation of said franchise when console gaming was dominated by the Japanese, they don't sell as much as people would lead you to believe.
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