Tales of Vesperia Not For Europe?

[Penance]

Recently the contract for Atari to gain European rights to Namco's works went into effect, which should naturally mean that Atari would have the rights to Vesperia (and Dawn of the New World).
However, Atari have said they have no plans what so ever to release Vesperia (and Dawn of the New World) in Europe.
Ultimately that could mean that unless another company has the rights to Vesperia (and Dawn of the New World) Europe may not get to see the game.

Are any Tales players from him Europe?
I am, and I for one will be royally pissed off if I won't get to play Vesperia because I have been looking forward to it since the first revalation of the game in Japan.

Discuss!

[Shawn]

If the e-mail from Namdai UK was correct, I wonder what's going to happen, then...

[PikoPiko]

It kind of reminds me of how Apollo Justice has been released in Europe but not Phoenix Wright:Trials and Tribulations. And if Atari has no interest in Vesperia, then every Tales game is at their mercy for a European release. Such a shame, especially since the X360 is region locked.

[Rhapsody]

Such a shame, especially since the X360 is region locked.

Actually, the Xbox 360 regional lockout is optional. Developers may choose to make their games region free, and at least some have. So if Tales of Vesperia is region locked, it's because Namco wanted it to be. It's the perfect situation for Microsoft really, since developers can region lock their games if they want to, but gamers have no reason to blame Microsoft since it's up to the developers whether they want to use the regional lockout or not.

[Yetika]

It kind of reminds me of how Apollo Justice has been released in Europe but not Phoenix Wright:Trials and Tribulations.

Just a heads-up on this one. While it was shamefully late, Trials and Tribulations did finally get released last October in Europe. Five whole months after it got Apollo Justice! D:

Considering all the lack of information about Vesperia coming out in Europe/Australia, it's seriously soul-crushing to get nothing and expect it to never arrive. Track record speaks for itself.

[rant] Sometimes I kinda' wish Australia weren't part of the Commonwealth. When it comes to gaming, all that seems to do is prevent most games from reaching these shores because everything has to go through Europe's localisation process first (and we only speak English here!), and even then it doesn't guarantee that a game's gonna' hit the shelves here. But then again, there are no localisation companies based here as far as I know, so we'd probably get nothing at all if we didn't have those European ties. It's no wonder it's legal in this country to have a system modded for playing imports. [/rant]

[Shawn]

Considering all the lack of information about Vesperia coming out in Europe/Australia, it's seriously soul-crushing to get nothing and expect it to never arrive. Track record speaks for itself.

http://forum.tales-cless.org/tales-series/omgtyvmttyliirc/msg14561/#msg14561

We do have official word from part of the dev. team, which I guess is a good sign.

[bungiefan]

I've had several gamers I know suggest to me that I get a Japanese 360, since most Japanee games are region locked, but most American releases aren't. Maybe someone here can verify if Vesperia is region-locked for the NA version. If it's not, you could just import it and play without hassle.

[Shawn]

IIRC, Vesperia is region locked in each area.

[Craymel]

Region locking is stupid. All it really does is encourage people to make "illegal" copies of games or hack the system.

[Datschge]

(by Android18a on NeoGAF)

[Craymel]

I love it!

[Penance]

I just died a little inside...

[Joseph]

I absolutely don't understand the practice of region-locking. If you have a game released in one English-speaking country and someone from another English-speaking country wants to play it, what's the problem with letting them play the same version? I mean, if Europeans buy American copies of Vesperia, that money still goes to Namco and the people who distribute their games right?

Moreover, if an American decides they want to play the Japanese version of a game before its released in English, then why try to impede them? We're talking potential advertising, of the free variety. Imports help build buzz for the American/Euro release. And since they usually don't feature English text/speech, Japanese versions don't eat away at the market for localized games.

God damn.

[Yetika]

The point is that they're buying games that were released in a different region, thereby meaning less profit when they're trying to sell it in the same region. Even though this is rendered a bit pointless when they don't release the game in the region people are importing the games into; The idea is to gauge interest/sales and gain profit in the region it's released in, and if everyone's getting the game from elsewhere instead, then it won't sell very much (or even at all), not to mention the money won't be staying inside the region it's being spent from (even resellers have to buy it from where it came from).

So yeah, it's not really a matter of language barriers, but money.

[Penance]

That's correct but if Namco decides not to release Vesperia in Europe all together then they are only losing money because Europeans have absolutley no chance of playing it.

[Yetika]

Considering the costs of localising for Europe (different languages and translation standards), they could lose even more money by trying to release it there, especially when there's very little advertising (maybe they can't afford it? Advertising is pretty expensive). Word of mouth can only get so far in drumming up interest, and trying to make it sound appealing to the average person can be a very difficult task indeed. If they can't be assured of a substantial amount of profit from it, then it's too risky to take the chance.

I live in Australia, and I desperately want the game to come out here, but so few people know about the game that it worries me that it'll never come out Down Under, especially if it doesn't sell well enough in the US or Europe. The Tales fanbase tends to stick with its own niche group instead of respectfully encouraging others to try it out, but again, word of mouth only goes so far.