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Testing the waters for a "Sakura Wars" localization campaign.




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Apollo-kun



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
Posts: 1213
Location: City 7, Macross 7
PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2012 2:29 pm Reply with quote
Recently, I've undertaken the massive goal of getting the PC versions of "Sakura Wars" 1 through 4 localized and brought to North America via digital distribution outlets. The last time I mentioned this on ANN, it was on a barely-read article, yet it netted me a decent amount of followers. I'm going to make an assumption that this is because people who come here regularly have an interest in seeing this happen.

Well, I figured I'd share some more information, and see what people thought. The angle I'm coming in from is that digital distribution is dirt-cheap, and a much better method for releasing such a niche series as opposed to NIS' attempt at retail release. While the translation costs are still an issue, this would ultimately be a low cost way of releasing something, and certainly cheaper than anything Sega has been trying lately.

The dating-sim RPG hybrid has a myriad of media available in North America, from manga to anime, but only one of the five games has been released, and it was the fifth entry to boot. Given that more niche Japanese games have become popular on services such as Steam, I think it would be an appropriate outlet for release.

Any thoughts on this approach? If you're interested in joining the cause (we're trying to get the attention of Operation Rainfall), you can click here. If not, just give me your opinion, and give me ideas on how to better approach this campaign. Thanks for your input.
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dragonmastr



Joined: 09 Feb 2012
Posts: 211
PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:57 pm Reply with quote
I wonder how "So Long My Love" sold in the US? Do you know if NIS released any official sales numbers?
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VORTIA
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Joined: 26 Jul 2005
Posts: 947
PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2012 4:06 pm Reply with quote
It's got my full cash support, but I'm not joining Facebook for this or any other cause.
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Sheleigha



Joined: 09 May 2008
Posts: 1674
PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2012 6:04 pm Reply with quote
dragonmastr wrote:
I wonder how "So Long My Love" sold in the US? Do you know if NIS released any official sales numbers?


Not good, sadly. The story goes that it took a long time in getting the rights and convincing Sega, but in the end all the work brought in not too much... Most likely because it was at the end of PS2's cycle and PS3 already replaced it. If it was an earlier PS2 game or say, a PS3 port, it would've done better.

Also this isn't something to be put in the Anime section, being a game series.
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Haterater



Joined: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 1736
PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2012 9:59 pm Reply with quote
I think word of mouth played a role in bad sales, as I remember hearing it wasn't as good as other games. With some saying they would skip this and hope for the "better" ones. Which isn't really fair for clouding judgments of those who never played the games.
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Apollo-kun



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
Posts: 1213
Location: City 7, Macross 7
PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2012 1:25 pm Reply with quote
Haterater wrote:
I think word of mouth played a role in bad sales, as I remember hearing it wasn't as good as other games. With some saying they would skip this and hope for the "better" ones. Which isn't really fair for clouding judgments of those who never played the games.
I always cracked up when I heard people say that (yeah, I heard that word of mouth as well), because if you look at how it was critically received in North America, gaming publications and websites adored it. Heck, even IGN of all people gave it a 9. Another case of something like "Ico" I suppose.
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Apollo-kun



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
Posts: 1213
Location: City 7, Macross 7
PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2012 1:26 pm Reply with quote
dragonmastr wrote:
I wonder how "So Long My Love" sold in the US? Do you know if NIS released any official sales numbers?
Yeah, it didn't sell too well. But again, this was before indie developers really started taking advantage of Steam and digital distribution like they have been over the past year, so I have a feeling that it would do better on the PC.
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androvsky



Joined: 22 Jul 2003
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2012 3:00 pm Reply with quote
Word of mouth probably didn't help, but there were a ton of things stacked against the release of Sakura Wars. By March of 2010, with as packed with releases as it was, there was little hope of any PS2 or Wii game getting noticed. And with as expensive as the localization, giant dub, and Wii port were, there wasn't much hope of it breaking even with NISA's limited retailer presence.

It was odd that Sega of America felt the burning need to release three rpgs that month; Resonance of Fate, Infinite Space, and Yakuza 3. And it was so important that Yakuza 3 get released that month that Sega had to cut large chunks of the game out.

But it's not completely dead yet. There was a legitimate localized release of the first Sakura Wars (PC version) in Russia a year or so ago, and there's someone working on a fan translation of it into English. Sega didn't do any programming work for the Russian release, so that had to be hacked in anyway. If the fan translator works it right, they could license the translation to a publisher wanting to put it on digital platforms. That's about the only way such a large translation project for an old game could reasonably be expected to make any money.
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