So let me see if I get your point. THEY release a game in Japanese, and if I dont support it because I dont know Japanese it's my fault? Your argument'd be correct if the game was released world-wide (in English) BUT only sold well in Japan. In that case, you're right. But you are giving merit to Japanese because they played a Japanese game and we Western didnt.
Nagoshi and the other producers said countless of times
that the whole series was never meant to be some kind of international hit.
The games were designed for japanese adult men. Thats it.
What was the japanese console for japanese adult men
who wanted to play adult themed games in the time frame 2006-2017?
Playstation consoles. The support of westerners was not their main goal at all.
These games were never made for me or you. So we dont have to discuss this part,
there is clear evidence that our market was not the main goal.
It was a nice side effect after they released a couple of games.
But still, their whole plan was to make these games for a adult japanese audience.
Why do you think that the japanese versions always came first, sometimes even without announcing a english version?
Because it was their main target market.
And to answer your question 'Your argument'd be correct if the game was released world-wide (in English)
BUT only sold well in Japan', well not that it sold amazingly well in Japan
but why do you think Sega struggled with the english Y5 announcement
or why they dropped the english dub after one game?
Because it sold so well in the west? Eh probably not.
We are talking about times way before this 2017+ Japan hype.
Yakuza games were ultra niche before that. Like they showed gameplay footage
of new titles in western gameshows in 2012 and so on and the audience was like '???'.
And i'm not talking about Playstation audience, i'm talking about gamers on all platforms.
There was absolutely no hype at all.
Completely different times. There was no big Persona hype or whatever.
There was no Youtube Anime Man or Abroad in Japan channel.
The only popular japanese stuff in the west were games like Resident Evil, Final Fantasy etc.
But guess what, it was never a problem for the japanese original versions.
They still made them, and a new one, and a new one, and a new one, and a new one.
Year after year after year. The english versions were the problem.
The japanese sales numbers were good enough because that was their main target market.
Every other region was pretty much nothing else than hardcore fan support.
Like Shenmue kind of level. Yakuza was not a big IP at all.
Still, the hardcore western fans on Playstation were the ones who kept the english translated series alive.
I mean Sega was at a point where they didnt even knew if they should translate Y5 or not.
What do you think would have happened without these hardcore fans who pushed Sega?
Sega would have dropped the international versions after Y4 and thats it, game over.
No english Y5, Y6, no multi language Judgment etc.
Do you think Sega would have tried it on Xbox or PC after four games when Playstation is already a failure?
They would have stopped the international releases once and for all.
And as a nice big thank you for over ten years of support and keeping a ultra niche IP alive,
we should now celebrate if Microsoft comes in with 10000 bags of money
so that they can take away all of that to be able to announce that this awesome game universe
is now exclusive on Xbox and PC? Ehhhhh ... hell no.
Why should i or any oldschool fan support that?
What did Microsoft do for me that i should welcome exclusive Xbox and PC games?
Did they pay for the english translation of Yakuza 0-6 or Judgment or whatever? No.
Does any of these games only exist because of Microsofts support? No.
They came in in the absolute peak phase of the series, had nothing to do with any of the struggle at all
and now i should support it, if they exclude Playstation players just so that Microsoft can
present themselfs like winners because they have the IP now? Eeehhh, forget it.
I'm not talking about more players playing these games, thats fine,
i'm talking about that it would be complete bs if Microsoft gets a exclusive game in this series
and we are supposed to act like Microsoft is the savior of all things even tho
all of these games exists without Microsoft.
You cant just come on board after 10 years with one fan base who did their best in the hardest times
and be like 'well i think i joined at a good time, these japanese games are more popular now,
what about kicking your original fan base out, so that you can make something exclusive for us now,
even tho until recently we had nothing to do with this series at all but whatever.'
Yeah sure, i mean that sounds great, right? Every Playstation player should support that.
