Eidos, Spike in publishing deal

Gamasutra announced today that Eidos and Spike have a publishing deal for three games to be released in Japan.

Now I'd be the first to congratulate Spike on their bold move. I really think more Western games need to infiltrate the Japanese market. The market here is shrinking, the quality and technology (and home sales) of Western games has shot up; Japan could do with a taste of that right now.

However, the deal seems to be for console and PC versions. The PC market in Japan is tiny. 10k units is considered a big hit ("daihit"). And the games they have lined up... Tomb Raider, Commandos and Urban Chaos aren't exactly the kind of thing the Japanese market is hungry for. Even a massive title like Tomb Raider simply doesn't carry the weight over here as it does in the West. And Spike, bless 'em, don't exactly have the name recognition and muscle that is needed to mount a massive PR push that would seem necessary if any of these titles are going to make any significant sales.

If I let myself be cynical for a moment, I doubt this deal will make a massive impact. I hope it does, though. Then maybe other publishers will try their luck too, opening the floodgates.

Good luck to Spike! I hope they can make something of it.

3 comments:

  1. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to all the gangsta games and whatever else happens to be flavour of the month appearing on the shelves around here and making me feel embarrassed because people might think I actually like that sort of crap*.

    Most of the big games seem to make it over here (well, I've seen Prince of Persia, God of War, Halo, GTA, etc.), and I'm not really bothered if the shit ones don't. Also, with most of the next gen systems being a lot less strict about regions, it shouldn't be a hassle to import a lot of the stuff you might want.

    PC games are increasingly being offered for (legal) download online, so I'm actually not that bothered what happens from this same self-interested point of view.

    Mind you, it might be interesting to see Japanese gamers buying Western games and getting used to Western design differences - such as being able to save without having to locate a giant pink save vibrator and taking four AA batteries.

    Actually, I wish they would get into FP games so that I could make environments that are seen through the players eyes, not over the shoulder of some annoying git. I don't see that happening any time soon though.

    -YMLL

    *I like GTA though ;)

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