Would Japanese companies even last without the American audience?

[JM]

Look at how many japanese titles don't come out over here. The companies that made them didn't go out of business because of it, so I guess they can exist without the american market.

If you want to get really anal about the question, It all depends on the size of the company, how many people they are paying, how many copies of the games they make, how many they sell, & countless other economical points. What means a decent existence for one company may mean a cruel death for another. The question is just too subjective.

JM

[Psx]

It boils down to cultural differences,lack of translators, other problems, etc. This is why some NA/Europe games never get released in Japan, same thing for Japanese games that never get released in NA/Europe.

[StriderKyo]

Since several small Japanese developers do survive without their games ever leaving Japan, the answer is yes.

But without the money from US sales, you wouldn't see insane-budget projects like MGS2 or FFX.

[Captain Vegetable]

Originally posted by Zerodash
*WARNING: Zerodash is about to make a controversal statement*

Whatever the economics of the issue are- Japanese developers simply make better games than American developers.

I'll agree with a slight modification. They make better "console" games.

But then there's ED.

[dog$]

Japanese software companies have, do, and will do just fine if they don't see an American penny come into their accounts.

In regards to some Japanese companies releasting titles elsewhere before Japan, it's mostly done to try to curb importing and foreign pirating. Most of the companies there really couldn't give a shit about any country other than Japan.

[zidane747]

Originally posted by dog$
Japanese software companies have, do, and will do just fine if they don't see an American penny come into their accounts.

In regards to some Japanese companies releasting titles elsewhere before Japan, it's mostly done to try to curb importing and foreign pirating. Most of the companies there really couldn't give a shit about any country other than Japan.

Well, to respond to that: I was thinking about the Square/EA label that took shape back in the late 90's. It was an effort to bring Japanese games over to America,and vice versa. Yes, I know that about 99% of American games don't do well over there, but for every failure, you have a Crash Bandicoot, that did well and was popular in Japan. Japanese really don't care for American consoles/games that much, unless they have that slightly wacky feel to it. Just look at how poorly Xbox is doing in Japan; a little over 800 units sold in a week?! I'm sure if MS released a DDR game or dating sim, the # of Xboxes sold would rise tremendously, but that won't happen. If anyone can recall ECM's Strider 2 review, he went on to say that the Japanese only care about these "niche" games now(aside from the occasional FF, occasional being the wrong word....annual is better ^_^), as evidenced by the death of the DC, and the crap sales of JSR. It's getting even harder and harder to appeal to the Japanese market, who has been raised on those dating sims and music games. Madness I tell ya......madness.

[Frogacuda]

SNK... well seeing as they didn't make it even with the american audience's support I would say no.

Treasure... I'm inclined to say no, but they're a very small company, with a very low overhead, so it doesn't take much for them to turn a profit. I think that's kind of how they manage to stay in th eblack despite having never had a hit game. So, maybe.

[dog$]

1. The Square/EA partnership made sense because Square would have wanted a large company to distribute their RPGs and have enough marketing to back it up. Besides having large accounts, EA doesn't really have any console RPG series to worry about so adopting FF certainly seemed like a boon to them. Conversely, EA used Square's power in Japan much the same way, finally having a stable Japanese company as a route to distribute all of their sports titles.

2. 99% of American games are sports games, FPSs, or 3D0 pap. If Japanese people want sports games they already have Sega, Konami, Square, and Enix making a substantial amount of sports titles before they even consider EA titles. If they want cheap titles they have the Success Superlite series, among a few. Ultimately, I can see why many Japanese gamers would have no real immediate reason to get any American software.

3. Bistro Cupid is a dating sim available on X Box right now. Much like its lone shooter Shikigami no Shiro, a PS2 version will be available in the future. Also much like Shikigami no Shiro being on X Box, having a Japanese genre catered to on X Box automatically equates to nothing in and of itself.

4. The death of DC and poor Sega software sales has a lot more to do with completely inane marketing and managerial strategies in Japan than it did here, at least. Just because (Jet Set Radio) didn't sell well in Japan doesn't mean that the entire country suddenly dropped 50 IQ points or something, nor does it point to their demographic as being harder to appeal to.

5. Beatmania started in 1996. Unless you're talking about a giant glut of 6 year olds that have some new market share cornered in Japan, your comment about catering to people that were "raised on music games" is slightly invalid at this time.