MGS Creators on 'Masochistic' PS2, U.S. Popularity 46
Thanks to GameSpy for its article interviewing Hideo Kojima and Scott Dolph of Konami about the continuation of the Metal Gear Solid series. Notable sections include Kojima's comments about the programming difficulties of Sony hardware: "People on my team are masochistic. They enjoy the difficulty of working with PlayStation 2 and we assume that PlayStation 3 will be even more difficult. We know nothing about the system; but it's from Sony, so we assume so", as well as Dolph discussing Metal Gear Solid's regional popularity: "You know, it sells better in the United States. There are more people who buy the game and are waiting for the game. Also, the hype from the U.S. travels and that helps sales in Japan. If the game is big in the U.S., it will do better in Japan. And I do not think that the hype works for you the other way around."
MGS, still playing it (Score:1, Interesting)
Worked all my way up to the PSX version, PC version, PS2 version and last but not least, the GC version (which is just a remake of the PSX version with updated graphics and a Nintendo reference here and there that could have been kept out of there in my opinion).
From what I've seen online (movies, interviews, snippets, rumors), MGS3 is going to be one hell of a game.
In this episode, you also have to kee
Eastern focus (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a pretty big understatement. Even now, with more games being released than ever, many of the huge games in Japan are either too complicated to translate (See: Mojib Ribbon) or the developers don't think that American audiences will like the game. On the other hand, games like Ratchet and Clank made a big splash here and went to sell millions in Japan. The Japaense are warming up to games coming from the West, so why aren't we working to bring more games from the East?
Re:Eastern focus (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Eastern focus (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Eastern focus (Score:1)
And I wouldn't say it's totally commonplace there. I'm sure some of those games are considered innovative even there.
Re:Eastern focus (Score:1)
or a "Matrix" instead of a "Rocky XXVII" or a "Spiderman 14".
Re:Eastern focus (Score:1, Insightful)
For every innovative Japanese game, I can name two innovative non-Japanese games.
Re:Eastern focus (Score:2)
The markets are identical and the organization
resources marshalled to exploit those markets are
similarly identical.
Okay, I'm being sarcastic. I admit it.
You have a good point that franchises work in both
markets, and organizations use that in both markets.
However, I think that my underlying point remains
well-justified by the body of games. The chances
that any given console game made in japan is an
innovative departure from the then-current formulae
seem to be
Re:Eastern focus (Score:2)
Re:Eastern focus (Score:2)
Re:Eastern focus (Score:1, Flamebait)
For some reason I feel like I didn't make much sense...oh well.
Re:Eastern focus (Score:4, Funny)
http://www.sixsixfive.com/229.html
I can't see Sony bringing out this game and its peripheral for the US and Europe somehow...
Re:Eastern focus (Score:2)
Re:Eastern focus (Score:2)
if there wasnt any region coding, if games that have text came with optional english/foreign subtitles or optional western/asian numbering, then I'm sure a lot more people would be importing games both ways.
Re:Eastern focus (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe things work better in the opposite direction. I don't really have any insight into this as there aren't that many _good_ games t
Re:Eastern focus (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, western successes in Japan are the exception, rather than the rule. Naughty Dog, working very closely with Sony, made a lot of changes to Crash Bandicoot to mak
Hype (Score:1)
RTFA (Score:2)
It's said by Scott Dolph guy of the marketing department, NOT Kojima.
Why Japanese hype doesn't always translate (Score:4, Insightful)
Feel free to disagree or disabuse any of these notions.
Re:Why Japanese hype doesn't always translate (Score:1, Interesting)
It's more than just that. Japanese humor and culture in general is very quirky. You can see it in a good deal of their television (not just anime, although a good deal of anime is indeed quirky as all hell), as well as in their comics and contemporary writing. If you get the jokes, they're often very funny. If you don't, well, it's just alienating and weird. And it takes a good deal of cultural immersion to even begin to understand the culture of any country.
So yeah, I think you have a point, but ther
Last Page (Score:3, Informative)
If That's So... (Score:3, Interesting)
If that's the case, then why not release those sweet limited edition packages in the U.S.? I realize that LE packages for games are considered something for the eastern market only, but why? I would buy a Limited Edition Metal Gear Solid 3 package for sure if it came with the U.S. version of MGS3.
I got trolled for saying that... (Score:3, Funny)
PS2 difficult??!!?? Ugh?!? Unbeliever must DIE!!!
Q.
Re:I got trolled for saying that... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, the MIPS instruction set is great. The tricky bit is orchestrating 4 processors, each connected through a different bus, with differing (some secret) protocols, different instruction sets, and different RAM areas (VU0 can access EE memory, but everything else goes through DMA). Plus there's a sound core, an MPEG accelerator, and the graphics chip, all of which need to be addressed at a hardware register level to achieve best performance.
Speaking as a console developer, the instruction set of the core processor is generally the least of our worries.
Re:I got trolled for saying that... (Score:2)
Re:I got trolled for saying that... (Score:2)
Re:I got trolled for saying that... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I got trolled for saying that... (Score:2)
Earth to Squaresoft (Score:2)
"Earth to Squaresoft...Squaresoft, come in. Square, *listen* to the man!"
Re:Earth to Squaresoft (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Earth to Squaresoft (Score:1)
Exactly...
Squaresoft was hoping (I assume) that the popularity of FFXI in Japan would just magically carry over to the release in the NA market. It did not.
Sure the game is popular here, but not because of Japanese hype.
First off, popularity is gaining slowly. It has been more than two weeks since this game came out in NA and the numbers are only now starting to raise quickly on the servers. That means there weren't many waiting
Re:More popular in the US (Score:2)
If something is not selling well, you try and add extra incentives to drive sales. If it is already selling well, well, why change something that seems to be working?
The Not-So-Obvious Answer (Score:2)
This differs from Eidos' "Fresh Games" (ugh) label in that Eidos started it shortly before their entire company went to pot (around the time of the Tomb Raider movie, 'coincidentally') a
Ahh, so *that's* why MGS2 sucked (Score:2)
Learning (Score:2)
but Final Fantasy was too much like a game, and sucked as a movie, and MGS2 was too much like a movie, and that distracted a lot of people from its awsome gameplay.
If you'll read the article, Hideo says he thinks games should be games, and not try to be movies.
He learned his lesson.
Re:These people are idiots. (Score:1)
what eastern influence? (Score:2)