Cave holding a poll for possible XBLA title(sorry if repost)

[Momijitsuki]

Now why you gotta cast a dark cloud over it all like that?! (╬ ಠ益ಠ)

The chances are still against us. So far we have 7 retail shmups for the 360, all of which are region locked, except for RFA which is still technically region locked despite being localized.

I really don't understand region locking anyway. If they make it region-free, they can make money from international buyers. ー。ー

[CStarFlare]

But they decrease the chance of a foreign publisher picking up the title and making a licensing fee (and in the case of niche titles, a prospective publisher might be willing to pay less for the rights to release a region free game).

[jefflev13]

I believe the other reason (given) for region locking is due to currency exchange rates. For instance, if you could import and play a game from another country on your machine at a substantial savings due to the currency exchange rate, it could negatively impact sales in one country. So it's sort of like a form of protecting certain markets. In the cases we're concerned with, that obviously doesn't apply, but it's part of an overall strategy some have adopted (same is with the DVD market).

[Taylor]

No publisher is going to avoid picking up a game because people could have imported (see: PS3). And all Japanese games are region locked with very few exceptions, not just the niche ones.

The reason these games are region locked, as far as I know, are because of the submission process. If your game can be played in a region, your game will have to pass submission for that region. Submission is expensive and takes time, it's not something you want to do more than twice. Because nobody imports, relatively speaking, locking the game to Japan only avoids this.

[TodayIsForgotten]

not sure how my post got into here...anyhow, nevermind

[dcharlie]

There is no region locking for any XBLA titles

IP locking is pretty much the same and is in place for a handful of games, but yeah - as a general rule XBLA isn't hard region locked.

[kemical]

No publisher is going to avoid picking up a game because people could have imported (see: PS3). And all Japanese games are region locked with very few exceptions, not just the niche ones.

The reason these games are region locked, as far as I know, are because of the submission process. If your game can be played in a region, your game will have to pass submission for that region. Submission is expensive and takes time, it's not something you want to do more than twice. Because nobody imports, relatively speaking, locking the game to Japan only avoids this.

this sounds correct based on what i know also, the funny thing is, a game I worked on last was released region-free in the US since I tested it on my JPN region 360, right after it was released I noticed Japanese players who had imported it based on the leader boards, as there was no Japanese version available at that time. We had plans to develop a Japanese region version of the game, which required full translation, a bunch of additional features to support Japanese character encoding in the menus (based on flash), and then it was requested by the publisher in Japan (cyberfront) to censor the game so we had to take a pass censoring it... Anyway, towards the end of the whole process they decided that they wanted it uncensored so it was all reverted back, the game finally was released in Japan recently, but it has been about 6 months after the original world-wide release, I think any of the hardcore Japanese players who were interested in playing the game likely have imported it already. I don';t have any any stats on Japanese sales but it was likely a small number of units printed.

*edit*
so what I'm trying to say is, if now our publisher sees that Japan has weak sales it may not put in the time or money to focus on Japanese region releases in the future, but they would be unaware of the Japanese importers that added to our domestic sales since the game was region-free... Then further if they do not release in Japan but end up region-locking the game to US or Europe, the Japanese players who would have imported a region-free game cannot even do that, so it cuts into total sales even more... It would be better for publishers to release their games without region-locking and focus on reducing the amount of time when translating a game, identifying those unknown problems that can come up and preparing for them or at least giving them good consideration it when finishing up development

[Cuilan]

No publisher is going to avoid picking up a game because people could have imported (see: PS3). And all Japanese games are region locked with very few exceptions, not just the niche ones.

The reason these games are region locked, as far as I know, are because of the submission process. If your game can be played in a region, your game will have to pass submission for that region. Submission is expensive and takes time, it's not something you want to do more than twice. Because nobody imports, relatively speaking, locking the game to Japan only avoids this.

Most of the PS3 games that people would want to import from Japan are text-heavy RPG/Adventure games. But since they're so text-heavy, it discourages most people from actually importing them. On top of that, those two genres tend to sell a lot better than shmups, and thus are more likely to get localized anyway.

I don't think the submission process has anything to do with why they're region-locked. There are plenty of US games that are compatible with a JP 360 console, games that have absolutely no Japanese text in them. On the other hand, most shmups are very import-friendly since they have very little (important) text, and most of the important text is already in English.

I think the two main reasons why JP 360 games are region-locked are : for licensing reasons, and to make people import JP 360 consoles.

[Dale]

I think the two main reasons why JP 360 games are region-locked are : for licensing reasons, and to make people import JP 360 consoles.

The 2nd reason makes since for the hardware maker and no one else. I know they're in bed together but still I would have already bought a bunch of Japanese games for 360 if this weren't the case. Being forced to pay 300 more dollars to get a Japanese unit only discourages people from buying the actual games. Their in no good reason to region lock.

[CHR_AeON]

this sounds correct based on what i know also, the funny thing is, a game I worked on last was released region-free in the US since I tested it on my JPN region 360, right after it was released I noticed Japanese players who had imported it based on the leader boards, as there was no Japanese version available at that time. We had plans to develop a Japanese region version of the game, which required full translation, a bunch of additional features to support Japanese character encoding in the menus (based on flash), and then it was requested by the publisher in Japan (cyberfront) to censor the game so we had to take a pass censoring it... Anyway, towards the end of the whole process they decided that they wanted it uncensored so it was all reverted back, the game finally was released in Japan recently, but it has been about 6 months after the original world-wide release, I think any of the hardcore Japanese players who were interested in playing the game likely have imported it already. I don';t have any any stats on Japanese sales but it was likely a small number of units printed.

*edit*
so what I'm trying to say is, if now our publisher sees that Japan has weak sales it may not put in the time or money to focus on Japanese region releases in the future, but they would be unaware of the Japanese importers that added to our domestic sales since the game was region-free... Then further if they do not release in Japan but end up region-locking the game to US or Europe, the Japanese players who would have imported a region-free game cannot even do that, so it cuts into total sales even more... It would be better for publishers to release their games without region-locking and focus on reducing the amount of time when translating a game, identifying those unknown problems that can come up and preparing for them or at least giving them good consideration it when finishing up development

If you're talking about FEAR2, it sold ~3000 units in the first week in Japan (XB360-Version). Judging by the leaderboards, the US-version was played by ~1000 japanese players. That's both pretty low numbers.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like region locking either. But my guess is that if the US version would have been region locked right from the start, Cyberfront would have had at least sth like 500 - 1000 more sales of the japanese version.

[Cuilan]

kemical's post just reminded me of something. Since most US games work on a Japanese 360 console, it would make the 360 seem like a slightly more attractive purchase for gamers in Japan. They would be able to import the US versions of many western games before they're localized (if they're ever localized), which can take a while in some cases. As an added benefit, it also makes a Japanese 360 a bit more import-friendly to those living in North America.

The 2nd reason makes since for the hardware maker and no one else. I know they're in bed together but still I would have already bought a bunch of Japanese games for 360 if this weren't the case. Being forced to pay 300 more dollars to get a Japanese unit only discourages people from buying the actual games. Their in no good reason to region lock.

You don't have to "pay 300 more dollars". You could always sell off the 360 you have now to help pay for a Japanese one. Though buying a Japanese 360 instead of a US one is what shmup fans living in the US should be doing anyway. There's really no good reason to get a US 360 over a Japanese one, import fees aside.

[Elixir]

I really really doubt that they're doing this so people import 360s. The number of people importing 360s is insignificant/non-existent in comparison to how Trusty Bell, Tales of Vesperia and Blue Dragon (plus others) pushed sales for Japanese users. That kind of thing is what pushes JP 360 sales, not region locking games so people import the consoles.

Of course the PS3 and Wii are more popular, they're Japanese-made and run better. Wii is really accessible now (and typical people are going to go "hey that's that game I played when I was 11!" and buy VC games, because people like to feel like they're contributing, compared to emulating and feeling like you're not even playing the game), PS3 has the whole success of Blu-Ray and the online is free.

Everyone here knows I swear by the JP 360 and even have a tutorial thread for it. But reverse the situation a minute, and pretend I don't like shmups. If I was in Japan right now, knew fluent Japanese and was going "hm, maybe I should buy one of these consoles" I'd go for the PS3. Vesperia and Eternal Sonata/Trusty Bell both have superior versions on the PS3, online is free (big plus for BlazBlue and SF4), Yakuza 3 would be in a language I understand (;_;) and then there's Blu-Ray. Or I could go for the Wii and get lagless online Monster Hunter 3, but that costs apparently.

Region locking on a console with partial region locking is really dumb, but there's nothing we can do about it. I bet if you asked Asada why people region lock games he'd also go "I don't know" or "it's for Japan only".

[Cuilan]

I really really doubt that they're doing this so people import 360s. The number of people importing 360s is insignificant/non-existent in comparison to how Trusty Bell, Tales of Vesperia and Blue Dragon (plus others) pushed sales for Japanese users. That kind of thing is what pushes JP 360 sales, not region locking games so people import the consoles.

I know games like those have a far greater impact on sales. But this one-way region-locking does provide a very small sales boost, one that I'm sure takes little (if any) effort on Microsoft's part to obtain. But as I said, this isn't just for a small sales boost, it's also because of licensing.

[CStarFlare]

There's really no good reason to get a US 360 over a Japanese one, import fees aside.

There are a handful of good US games that are region locked. I know Oblivion, the Rock Bands, and the Guitar Heroes are; I assume Fallout 3 is the same. If you have a PS3 it might not be a big deal, but if you're an xbox kind of guy there's still many reasons to have a US to compliment your JP.

[originalz]

There's really no good reason to get a US 360 over a Japanese one, import fees aside.

There are a handful of good US games that are region locked. I know Oblivion, the Rock Bands, and the Guitar Heroes are; I assume Fallout 3 is the same. If you have a PS3 it might not be a big deal, but if you're an xbox kind of guy there's still many reasons to have a US to compliment your JP.

Guitar Hero is region free, Oblivion and Fallout 3 have English Asian versions, the only one you're out of luck on is Rock Band.

this sounds correct based on what i know also, the funny thing is, a game I worked on last was released region-free in the US since I tested it on my JPN region 360, right after it was released I noticed Japanese players who had imported it based on the leader boards, as there was no Japanese version available at that time. We had plans to develop a Japanese region version of the game, which required full translation, a bunch of additional features to support Japanese character encoding in the menus (based on flash), and then it was requested by the publisher in Japan (cyberfront) to censor the game so we had to take a pass censoring it... Anyway, towards the end of the whole process they decided that they wanted it uncensored so it was all reverted back, the game finally was released in Japan recently, but it has been about 6 months after the original world-wide release, I think any of the hardcore Japanese players who were interested in playing the game likely have imported it already. I don';t have any any stats on Japanese sales but it was likely a small number of units printed.

*edit*
so what I'm trying to say is, if now our publisher sees that Japan has weak sales it may not put in the time or money to focus on Japanese region releases in the future, but they would be unaware of the Japanese importers that added to our domestic sales since the game was region-free... Then further if they do not release in Japan but end up region-locking the game to US or Europe, the Japanese players who would have imported a region-free game cannot even do that, so it cuts into total sales even more... It would be better for publishers to release their games without region-locking and focus on reducing the amount of time when translating a game, identifying those unknown problems that can come up and preparing for them or at least giving them good consideration it when finishing up development

If you're talking about FEAR2, it sold ~3000 units in the first week in Japan (XB360-Version). Judging by the leaderboards, the US-version was played by ~1000 japanese players. That's both pretty low numbers.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like region locking either. But my guess is that if the US version would have been region locked right from the start, Cyberfront would have had at least sth like 500 - 1000 more sales of the japanese version.

My guess is that he's talking about Gears 2? Would make sense since it was a big import here and was going to be censored for the Japanese release. I didn't follow it so I don't know if it got uncensored or not. Either way, the game has sold around 50,000 copies so far, which is pretty damn good for that type of game here, especially one that got a late release.

[lgb]

oh god Enhasa that guy ruined his review in the first 2-3 sentences

I feel bad

It's a girl. Chicks dig Atlus cuz Persona 3 is like animes.

I never even noticed that which is not like me, because of this applying to the latter fact the situation is 2x as bad

[bcass]

There's really no good reason to get a US 360 over a Japanese one, import fees aside.

There are a handful of good US games that are region locked. I know Oblivion, the Rock Bands, and the Guitar Heroes are; I assume Fallout 3 is the same.

The Asian version of Fallout 3 is in English and is region-free. Oblivion is better on the PC so you'd be buying an inferior version if you bought the PS3 or 360 versions. All the Rock Bands are available on the PS3. All the must-haves in my collection are region free.

[CHR_AeON]

My guess is that he's talking about Gears 2? Would make sense since it was a big import here and was going to be censored for the Japanese release. I didn't follow it so I don't know if it got uncensored or not. Either way, the game has sold around 50,000 copies so far, which is pretty damn good for that type of game here, especially one that got a late release.

Since he's mentioning the publisher (Cyberfront) he's definitely talking about F.E.A.R. 2. That was the only 360-game Cyberfront recently published in Japan. Gears 2 was published by MS themselves.

[Danbo]

In the japanese version of fallout 3 you can't nuke megaton. nothing much to do with the topic at hand, i just think it's a little funny - but being able to play a pretty poor game on xbox 360 in all its uncensored glory isn't much of a reason to get a western 360 over a japanese one

[bcass]

In the japanese version of fallout 3 you can't nuke megaton. nothing much to do with the topic at hand, i just think it's a little funny - but being able to play a pretty poor game on xbox 360 in all its uncensored glory isn't much of a reason to get a western 360 over a japanese one

Then buy the Asian version instead then. Problem solved.

[Elixir]

What's wrong with Fallout 3? I didn't buy it but I played it at Etrian's and well, it was Elixir playing a first person shooter and enjoying it.

[Danbo]

let's not talk about fallout 3. only brought it up because it was mentioned to be in english and region free

Then buy the Asian version instead then. Problem solved.

i figured they'd be the same thing...

[bcass]

No, IIRC the Asian version is not censored.

[Enhasa]

Then buy the Asian version instead then. Problem solved.

i figured they'd be the same thing...

Well, only Japan was nuked, and they were committing atrocities against the rest of Asia, so...
Still funny though.


Fallout 3 is ok if you like Elder Scrolls, but if you've only played 3 and not 1-2, you might as well chop off your balls and mail them to Bethesda.

[Game Rogue]

Trying to wadethrough / make sense of these posts and I still do not understand if we will be getting domestic releases of one or more Cave games on XBLA or possibly even a Retail Sku in the future.

Could someone be so kind as to summarize what our expectations (if any) are for Cave games on the domestic 360?

Thanks in advance.

[Elixir]

Trying to wadethrough / make sense of these posts and I still do not understand if we will be getting domestic releases of one or more Cave games on XBLA or possibly even a Retail Sku in the future.

Could someone be so kind as to summarize what our expectations (if any) are for Cave games on the domestic 360?

Thanks in advance.

Well I wrote a page-long response, hit Submit and it cleared. So I'll sum up what I said: I have come to the conclusion that I can predict the future.

I predicted Guwange being ported, Futari having Xbox 360 modes and being like the Death Smiles port, Black Label for it and all modern Cave shmups going the 360 route. Galuda II just going to be the same. I have a bad feeling that Asada doesn't know much about region locking, and he'll approach Cave only for them to forget about it 20 minutes later. The possibility of Futari being region free is.. well, still a possibility. Guwange is coming to XBLA, but it would need modifying in order to be released on international stores (can't have white people going "AWESOME. I just passed ８０万!", can we) and has a fair amount of text.

So as for expectations on a "domestic" release, Futari maybe, Guwange maybe. Still way too early to tell.

It's not like XBLA is a problem though, just get yourself a JP account and some points, and download the game that way. Before someone says "all XBLA titles are worldwide", Japan didn't get Megaman 9 until recent, Japan still doesn't have SF2HD, and Japan still doesn't have Outrun XBLA. But they're just doing the same as us, making foreign accounts and downloading that way.

[brentsg]

I have come to the conclusion that I can predict the future.

Can you please put your hands to your head, close your eyes, and think of the Ketsui port...?

[Elixir]

I have come to the conclusion that I can predict the future.

Can you please put your hands to your head, close your eyes, and think of the Ketsui port...?

Outlook not so good.

There's no way Ketsui will come this year. I wouldn't be surprised if it was released sometime August/September next year. They're deliberately keeping quiet on it (evident of the latest Matsuri), so either the port is a complete mess and they don't want to announce anything, or it's progressing nicely but the revoked license/daioujou scandal has prolonged the release. I'm willing to bet on the latter.

I am surprised, however, at the fact that we're going to be playing Futari on consoles before Ketsui.

[Icarus]

szI am surprised, however, at the fact that we're going to be playing Futari on consoles before Ketsui.

Ketsui is generally considered to be Cave's best designed game on both sides of the planet - Futari a very close second - and therefore, anything less than a 95% accurate port is unacceptable. I think the delays are expected, and fine, as long as the end product turns out to be better than Arika's stuff, or what Cave is putting out at the moment.

RE topic: I would have liked a disc-based version of Guwange with all the bells and whistles of the recent and forthcoming Cave-produced ports, but meh, whatever. Beggers can't be choosers, and I've got the PCB if I want the original to play on. More exposure for one of Cave's most artistically accomplished games is good in my book.

[brentsg]

Beggers can't be choosers, and I've got the PCB if I want the original to play on. More exposure for one of Cave's most artistically accomplished games is good in my book.

But hey, beggars can always keep begging!

How cool would it be for Cave to recognize the worldwide interest in these games and milk us for a series of XBL ports to cover all of their catalog that doesn't get released on disk? Heck they could even milk us periodically with DLC to enhance them...