Joystiq just posted a story about bringing future .hack to the North America, quote for the lazy
We also checked in on both the dot Hack title in progress as well as a possible sequel to Solatorobo, but for both of those, Matsuyama says he needs more support from North American publishers. For dot Hack specifically, "as long as we can get more requests from the fans, there's a possibility." But he there are other factors in play as well. "It's not that people don't know about it," he said. "But I think it's more than Namco Bandai Games America is not interested in the typical JRPGs and that's why they're not looking to pick it up."
It's to be expected that Namco Bandai might think about scraping the chances of the next .hack game's localization because they have lost interest in publishing JRPGs that don't stand out. A similar situation happened with .hack//Link, but because the next .hack game will most likely be on the HD consoles, possibly PC, it has better odds than Link did. Unfortunately, I am really concerned as Matsuyama's statement clearly shows some strain between Namco Bandai and Cyber Connect 2 in terms of localizing any of their games outside of the Naruto Ultimate Ninja series.
It is also clear that Cyber Connect 2 is most likely looking to other publishers for their games and localization, due the "Revelaiton" that Asura's Wrath was published by "Capcpom" and the fact that they had "Chanllenges" localizing Solatorobo.
Sadivinedevil wrote:It's to be expected that Namco Bandai might think about scraping the chances of the next .hack game's localization because they have lost interest in publishing JRPGs that don't stand out. A similar situation happened with .hack//Link, but because the next .hack game will most likely be on the HD consoles, possibly PC, it has better odds than Link did. Unfortunately, I am really concerned as Matsuyama's statement clearly shows some strain between Namco Bandai and Cyber Connect 2 in terms of localizing any of their games outside of the Naruto Ultimate Ninja series.
It is also clear that Cyber Connect 2 is most likely looking to other publishers for their games and localization, due the "Revelaiton" that Asura's Wrath was published by "Capcpom" and the fact that they had "Chanllenges" localizing Solatorobo.
Matsuyama definitely called out Namco Bandai - and I am really glad that he did because it confirmed everything we saw during the Link US campaign (we weren't just crazy fans...). I think the solution is to find another publisher for .hack outside of Japan - something we tried to campaign for w/ Link. This time around we can be preemptive about it since the next game is still in development.
d5t wrote:Matsuyama definitely called out Namco Bandai - and I am really glad that he did because it confirmed everything we saw during the Link US campaign (we weren't just crazy fans...). I think the solution is to find another publisher for .hack outside of Japan - something we tried to campaign for w/ Link. This time around we can be preemptive about it since the next game is still in development.
A preemptive strike is always a good thing, but Namco Bandai's track record has been getting worse and worse when it comes to JRPGs. The best and most radical thing that might work in a similar situation, if it isn't good business to work with Namco Bandai anymore, is for them to scrap the project with Namco Bandai take it's current assets and apply them to a new "similar" project with another publisher, Capcom, and rename it something else and change key terms and other things to make it seem different enough so that Namco Bandai doesn't cry fowl. We would essentially get the same game, with a different title and different publisher. This isn't going to happen because it seems Namco Bandai is paying for the project to completion, They wouldn't be advertising it if they didn't.
What could happen and is most likely to happen with this game, other than Namco Bandai publishing it here, is they could outsource it's localization to Xseed, which is my favorite publisher these days, or any other company like you said. Although in terms of Xseed publishing the game they don't have a large group of translators, from what I can tell, and .hack usually has a lot of information to go through, it could take a while to translate without Namco Bandai's help. Then again another company could take up the localization as well, but Xseed seems much more likely in this worst case scenario than Atlus or any other company these days IMO.
As for doing something productive right now. If you haven't bought Link yet buy it "new" from Japan, if you can, and it could increase the odds of the next game being released elsewhere. Not to mention you wouldn't want to miss out on a great game.
This isn't very new, I think. We all expected it to be Bandai Namco's decision to not localize Link. In part I can understand why they don't want to localize. Dot Hack is huge, spanning a decade soon and many, many, many forms of media. Books, manga, anime, OVA, a MOVIE now, and of course games. This is a barrier to entry for new fans, how can you possibly attract new fans (and buyers) by telling them "Hey, we got a great new game with an amazing story unlike anything you've dealt with before. It's just that... well it's somewhat connected to a series a games that came out 9 years ago, and since then the story's evolved but remained similar and connected enough that it's kind of hard to start new since you'll see references to those games. Then there are also lots of manga and side stories, anime, OVA, even a movie now. I know it's hard for you to just jump in, but come try the new game at least. It's still a great game." Most consumers will just think "That's actually kind of cool, but I really don't have the time to go through so much, not to mention the money to start buying more games and stuff too. It's not a bad game, but I don't think its for me."
That last part is what Bamco REALLY needs to fix. Most of the people I talk to recognize .hack, they know what it is superficially, but they never bit the bullet and joined the fandom because to them it seemed like "it's not for me". To an extent this is very true. Link was not for new players or fans, it was made for us, the people who can recognize these characters, relate to their stories, and "connect the dots". a new player playing link will not get much out of it at all, at best they'll be interested in a new series, but more likely they'll be confused and bored and wanting their money back.
In a way it's like an extreme version of World of Warcraft's problem: a large barrier to enter. for WoW it's the expansions, we're getting to the 4th expansion now. That means that a new player needs to buy the basic game, Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and soon Mists of Pandaria. Good luck getting a new player to start playing with that pick up line. That's over $100 just to get into the game. Which is why Blizzard has started lowering the prices of the expansions, making some parts free with a subscription, and even offering the latest expansion free to old players who want to get back into it.
What I think needs to happen at this point is a remake. Update the first four games to the quality of most games on current gen systems. Make them ONE large game. Do the same with G.U. and make it ONE game. Re-release the anime in a collection set, one for SIGN and another for ROOTS. While they do this they need to advertise, bring awareness to this. If this happens behind the scenes and only us core fans find out, it won't help solve the problem. By making the old games more easily available and easier to pick up, they make it so they can get new players into the franchise easier than before.
That's a lot to do. To remake two games, while working on a new game is a lot to ask. Sadly .hack is one of the franchise that's TOO big. As fans we love how big it is, cause it's OUR world, but for an outsider it's a turn off. If .hack were like the Megami Tensei series, for example, you could get away with not having to play previous games to play the newest one, because the games there are not as interconnected as .hack games. Its the nature of the beast.
Link's a pretty good game for new players too, actually, it is a remake. The story covers everything that's happened in .hack from Epitaph of Twilight to ZERO to whatever obscure thing you can think of, and who all the characters are, down to Kazumi and Emi. Like G.U., it doesn't assume you know anything already, although there is plenty of stuff in there for fans who do. I think the main reasons why it wasn't localized are how long it was (XSeed specifically said this is why it would be suicidal for them to localize Link), and how terrible it was as an actual game. JRPG nothing, it's what I'd call a PSPRPG. If it had 5-star gameplay, it would be great as a standalone game, or to capitalize on .hack brand recognition, but unfortunately it does not. No one wants a 50-hour game where the battle engine is painful.
I think the important thing is more to make good games, and they'll take flight on their own merit. Regardless of whatever's happening outside of Japan right now, Link is the worst-selling .hack game in Japan, probably because of the gameplay. I don't think that the problem is the series is getting too long, each volume of G.U.sold more copies than the one before it--people aren't put off by past story baggage if it's a fun game they can pick up and play. CC2 needs to go back to making games that do that before it's Bandai Namco USA's fault. I guess this is the harshest I've ever been on them, but in the case of Link it doesn't make sense to blame this one on the publisher. For Solatorobo and Asura's Wrath it may be a different story.
Link was insanely good in pretty much every area except gameplay. I think that making their next game on a next-gen platform is a step in the right direction. It will give them a lot more flexibility for designing the battle system, and make the whole thing more cinematic and graphically appealing. Maybe between quality, and fan uproar, we can get this thing brought over. I'll be sad, but I'm betting they won't make it quite as long either.
What seems to be the problem with Cyber Connect 2's games outside of the Naruto series is the lack of great gameplay recently. Of the Three recent games .hack//Link, Solatorobo, and Asura's Wrath only Solatorobo had a decent amount of good gameplay. Both .hack//Link and Asura's Wrath were heavily criticized by their lack of quality gameplay, and even though Solatorobo has good gameplay, IMO, it suffers from the same criticisms of the other two games. There has been a concerning trend with Cyber Connect 2 as they seem to have a story before gameplay mentality recently. Their games these days are simplistic, but have great stories, G.U. had gameplay equal to it's story, and before that the gameplay was arguably better than what they have now. I personally enjoy the original .hack games because the gameplay was actually very in depth and didn't feel extremely simple like most of their recent games. That was the past and the original .hack gameplay isn't as user friendly as gamers want their games to be, and games like WoW, Xenoblade Chronicles, and I guess Final Fantasy XII proved that what .hack did could be done in real time without opening menus. I'm actually concerned now because the next .hack game could fall into the same trap as Link did, have some insanely simple gameplay built around a gimmick. They really need to step up their game in the gameplay department or else they might as well just make movies and TV shows, like many of their critics say.
Now that we know that the next game is a fighter, where do we stand now? Personally I believe that this may be the most likely to be brought over, if it has enough to be a solid game on its own. What worries me is how tied it is to the movie. Is it enough of a game to be sold on its own without being a set with the movie? Because if it's not enough, then I doubt Bamco would localize it. I still see the movie being dubbed and brought over but the game?
At the very least though, I think a fighting game is an interesting way to go. On the one hand, its easier to play and get into most fighters, and it's story would probably not be as intensive as previous games. On the other hand, many times before we've gotten fighting games for games that weren't ever thought of as fighters. Most recently i can think of Castlevania's Judgment.
Would a fighting game be more appealing to localization?
As for which publisher would be good at picking up LINK, i agree with XSEED, but a while ago Aksys games released Hakuoki, which is a visual novel dating sim, there's no battle system or anything like that, but the fact they have good enough translators there to translate a VN definitely is a good sign. Besides, the fact they can release a Blazblue game (or the most recent example, P4 Arena) within a week or two of the japanese release is another good sign that Aksys has some really good translators on their side. As long as someone can bring it over, and show Namco Bandai how much they lost in sales from not bringing over LINK, then all will be good.
A fighting game, depending on the graphics and what system its for, could potentially be more appealing. With the Vita currently out, i want to say that the odds of LINK being released have been lowered slightly. the PSP is still getting some more games for it (like Fate/Extra CCC hopefully) but with the Vita out, they might be focusing on bringing more games over for it, rather than the PSP >: (I wont give up on Link, no matter what! but at the same time...)
