While I get what he is saying, and I know how the "Public" can be annoying as hell and don't understand how a business actually works. But he is putting Nintendo in a bad light with his response even if it has some truth to it. Overall I don't agree with him. The Wii-U name was a horrid choice that confused the mainstream. It was a horrid name in that it reminded the "core" audience of the Wii. As far as I know all copies of Xenoblade were sold in NA. Europe localized it way before the US got it, which is why most were confused and outraged that it wasn't being released in the US as it was already translated into English for the European release. The work had already been done.
The sequel is already coming out in Europe and US without hesitation now, so that must mean Xenoblade must have met expectations in sales in Europe and the U.S. So while yes they don't make as much as a Mario or Zelda game, there is enough of an English speaking audience to support the localization. Namco learned this with Tales. They left the U.S. and Europe to dry for a while until their Facebook was overrun with disgruntled English speaking fans and now we have gotten pretty much every iteration of Tales.
JRPG's don't bring in the cash like they used too, but the cost of localization isn't that much and they usually sell enough copies to make a small return. The problem is these companies expect every game to pull in 5-10 million copies in the US alone and the ones that don't get shoved aside. Slowly they are realizing that any profit is good, even if its a million and not 5-10 million.
Log in to comment