How come Europe seemed to get more niche Japanese Playstation titles localized compared to America?

How come Europe seemed to get more niche Japanese Playstation titles localized compared to America? It's something that seemed to continue on PS2, with Shinobido only getting a PAL release for example.

Like this game for example, or Crisis Beat. You might say they aren't amazing games, but you can definitely have fun with them. Was Sony of America just being dickish here?

Isn't localizing in Europe actually more expensive, since you have to adjust the game to run at 50hz and translate it into multiple languages?

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  1. 7 months ago
    Anonymous

    Americans tend to have lower intelligence on average and so they struggle with anything that can be perceived as experimental, different, outside the norm, etc.

    • 7 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Americans tend to have lower intelligence on average

      Is this actually what it is lmfao

      • 7 months ago
        Anonymous

        Yes.

    • 7 months ago
      Anonymous

      Especially during the MTV-era of the 90s, where crass and low intelligence was the norm.

    • 7 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Americans tend to have lower intelligence on average

      Is this actually what it is lmfao

      americans have a lower level of sophistication. avant garde music has always been more popular in europe and the culture permits being open to foreign or unorthodox ideas.

      >muh Americans

      There it is. There's a good chance the posters are self hating American weebs too.

      • 7 months ago
        Anonymous

        Is it wrong? Look at NA vs PAL vs JP game covers.

      • 7 months ago
        Anonymous

        Years ago I would definitely say this is kind of a thing to be quite honest, people need to understand that the chaps in charge of what got introduced to America with the most out of touch boomers ever. EU tended to more fun orientated whether as US was more family orientated.

        • 7 months ago
          Anonymous

          were the*

      • 7 months ago
        Anonymous

        People around here tend to forget the reason why these games remained untranslated on the console is less because Americans are dumb and more console players want something simple. If you look at ports of complex computer games or the esoteric Nip games that did get a release, you can see that they did okay at best, outright tanked at worst. Perhaps even the only audience for these games in the west were people on Ganker who just can't let the past go. Sometimes these games didn't even do that well in Europe and Japan either.

        • 7 months ago
          Anonymous

          They never did well anywhere. Largely, hit games that proved themselves in one territory tended to be good sellers elsewhere. The audience for esoteric games has and will always remain relegated to enthusiasts.

          • 7 months ago
            Anonymous

            Is that why so many people had to import games they saw in magazines that never made it out of japan?

    • 7 months ago
      Anonymous

      50hz (:

  2. 7 months ago
    Anonymous

    >How come Europe seemed to get more niche Japanese Playstation titles localized compared to America?
    Yuropoors are more open minded about Japanese games than dumbass burgers so they give the lesser known titles a chance instead of gutting it and turning it into a power fantasy without substance.

    • 7 months ago
      Anonymous

      They come from the jank released on amiger, commodoor and speccy. Of course they'd enjoy those janky weird games.

      • 7 months ago
        Anonymous

        So only the Americans could make video games right? Americhads win again!

      • 7 months ago
        Anonymous

        >Commodore and Atari: Founded in USA with games that are dirt cheap and easy piracy, is also a computer and can do other things (run by israelites)
        UGH no thx
        >NES and SNES: Made in Nippon, games cost $70+, tightly controlled by Nintendo, can only play games
        OMGOMGOMG!!!

  3. 7 months ago
    Anonymous

    During the 8-16 bit era Europe was not "a" publishing area. It was either per country, each having their own publishing, although there were some exceptions 1-3 countries grouped together with shared releases. By the 5th gen some big publishers got a hold of bigger markets and were able to publish simultaneously in many countries, but it was still hardly "Europe" as a whole.

    Even big name publishers like Capcom or Enix would be their games published by others in Europe. Anyway, those European publishers made their own decisions, which is why some things got released over here that didn't release in NA and vice-versa.
    This is why your cost analogy doesn't always work, for example it is possible that it wasn't Capcom which was paying for a translated 50hz version of Resident Evil to release in Europe, possibly Eidos was.

  4. 7 months ago
    Anonymous

    I guess it was due to anime already having a strong presence in Europe, starting with France (look at the multiple Japanese-French coproductions) and Italy and rapidly gaining foothold in other countries. Don't quote me on this, it's a guess, but I think we were more into the aesthetic for a while and the Japanese decided to cash in on it. But if a game wouldn't sell good here, they wouldn't bother with the US release to cut down on the possible losses.

  5. 7 months ago
    Anonymous

    US ps1 library was better tho
    EU PS2 library utterly mogs the US one tho

  6. 7 months ago
    Anonymous

    americans have a lower level of sophistication. avant garde music has always been more popular in europe and the culture permits being open to foreign or unorthodox ideas.

    • 7 months ago
      Anonymous

      >open to foreign or unorthodox ideas.
      That's what fricked up the west to begin with.

      • 7 months ago
        Anonymous

        Do you use Roman numbers or Arabic numbers in your daily activities?

    • 7 months ago
      Anonymous

      >americans have a lower level of sophistication.

      What does sophistication have to do with the willingness to adopt new ideas though

  7. 7 months ago
    Anonymous

    >Shinobido
    SCEE translated it for Acquire but SCEA didn't want it and they couldn't find another American publisher willing to release a niche PS2 game in 2007 when PS3 and 360 were already on the market. Late era Japanese games miss the boat as publishers move on to next-gen.

    >In response to a large number of e-mails that we've been receiving, we want to let our fans know that we'd love to release Shinobido in North America. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, it doesn't look like that's going to happen. We apologize to everyone who so eagerly awaited its release.

  8. 7 months ago
    Anonymous

    I think We got dem niche gaems for not getting the others gaems mostly square titles not released in EU

  9. 7 months ago
    Anonymous

    AmeriKKKa only play murder sims on the N64 and PC plus PS1

    • 7 months ago
      Anonymous

      >AmeriKKKa
      Funny how you go there while Americans love Black folk more than anywhere else.

  10. 7 months ago
    Anonymous

    I reckon it is because the cost of publishing a game in a European territory was lower, so small publishers were willing to take a risk. Whereas, in the USA, publishing meant going nationwide so there were larger upfront costs. But there were many titles that were released in the USA and not in PAL territories, particularly Nintendo console titles.

  11. 7 months ago
    Anonymous

    Englishman reporting in, my favourite Americans are from the south. Frick the west coast.

  12. 7 months ago
    Anonymous

    Europe got way more games then American that were either considered too "anime" or "cute" for them back in the day. It's also like how Sonic CD kept the JP soundtrack when released in Europe because they knew that they'd enjoy the more electronic soundtrack compared to the US which had it replaced.

  13. 7 months ago
    Anonymous

    europe has a history of a grey market.

    it's a country by country basis though. like France had the pc engine imported, and the dragon ball fighters got localized

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