The reason main Tales entries have not been released outside Japan.

[DuskShark]

http://www.siliconera.com/2009/08/05/namco-bandai-games-americas-iwai-talks-about-tales/

Some food for thought. Basically, Namdai would love to bring more Tales over but they're being really selective about which ones to bring over. What do you think?

[pedrocasilva]

I think they are really clueless about how to grow their own brand.

Knowing the game will come no matter what helps people, print media and internet to antecipate it regardless; for instance, no one hyped Tales of Destony Director's Cut since they knew it wasn't coming over.

Plus, people waiting for Tales of Hearts/Tales of Innocence will only be left down when the games don't make it across.

"If" they wanted to raise awareness of the product, they'd have to be consistent with releases and confirm them from the bat, at least. The morrons don't even know how to estabilize and secure their userbase.

[Craymel]

Bla bla bla excuses bla bla bla. Anyone notice how there was no mention of tales of hearts? I'm really just getting tired of namco's attitude toward the tales series. There is a serious lack of confidence in their own brand that just shows so much...

[Datschge]

I'll never understand why Namco never thought about creating small subsidiaries in NA and EU with few dedicated staff which could run official Tales fan clubs which would allow them to consistently gather feedback and bring over most wanted series entries on a regular guaranteed basis.

Instead the whole brand is pretty much *****ed up for over a decade now, basically random entries are brought over, apparently no single dedicated staff with any clue exists at all as can been seen looking at the official NA Tales site, and all dedicated Tales fans outside Japan turned into game-importing cynics.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

it's not THAT random...

Game - US Release Date
---
ToS - Jul 2004
ToL - Feb 2006
ToP - Mar 2006
ToA - Oct 2006
RM - July 2007
ToV - Aug 2008
ToSKoR - Nov 2008

rebirth (JP: Dec 2004) might not have come out simply due to lack of funding or something. tempest didn't come out probably because of bad sales, and i imagine that they didn't bring over Destiny R (JP: Nov 2006) due to the PS2 being on its way out (and also possibly due to the whole 2D/3D thing, though that would be a bad reason), hence the choice of RM. innocence (japan: Dec 2007) basically didn't come out because they were busy with ToV and ToSKoR, i assume. so it's not really so random. ToP was sort of a crappy pick, but it was basically the only full-on Tales game for the GBA.

i have no idea why hearts isn't coming out, though... if it's because it's lol 2D, that's just stupid. i would hope the reason is that they're busy with graces and possibly ToV PS3 or Tales of VS. i would think hearts a far better choice than Tales of VS, though, seeing as how they haven't tapped the DS market yet, and VS is a fangame for a series that's still not that popular in the US, on a semi-proven platform though it may be.

there's also the sad possibility that their budget got cut, and so they're basically not doing anything right now :/

[ClesStahn]

there's also the sad possibility that their budget got cut, and so they're basically not doing anything right now :/

I definitely see the reasoning behind that, but my question would be how? I mean, when we used to track the series in the past when they'd release, like, ONE title every two-three years on average (it SEEMED like anyway  ), the American versions of those games obviously didn't have near as much success as Japanese versions. But now with bigger successes in America like Symphonia (especially), Abyss, and Vesperia, why would the American "branch" have such a lower budget? Unless they siphoned off a large percentage of the revenue earned from the American successes in the series BACK to Japan? 

[Cless]

I've been saying this forever, but Namco needs to approach the series the same way Atlus does with damn near everything they publish. Namco simply aims too high. Tales is not going to be the next Pokemon or Final Fantasy in the US no matter what they do.

Vesperia and Dawn of the New World did numbers that are likely comparable to those of what Atlus achieved with Persona 3, Persona 4, Disgaea (before GH release), and Odin Sphere (before GH release), which are considered tremendous successes for them.

Both current-gen Tales games did significantly better than Legendia or Abyss did on the PS2. Vesperia's sales only "hurt" since they were trying to recoup development costs through worldwide sales. But relative to previous releases in the US, they were weren't bad at all, considering the level of marketing.

Recently, Victor Ireland stated that recouping the costs of a good RPG dub only amounts to about 3,000-5,000 units of sales (presumably at full price). The rest of the translation and localization probably double that at the very most. I don't know about manufacturing, distribution and marketing, though. With the way Namco does things here, I can't really see how they're not profiting after going past the 15k-20k sales range.

TV ads might help boost sales, and lots of people seem to think that's the end all, be all solution to this. It's not foolproof. TV ads are insanely expensive, and a decent campaign would almost certainly cost more than anything else. They'd have huge losses if it failed.

[Kogahazan]

TV ads might help boost sales, and lots of people seem to think that's the end all, be all solution to this. It's not foolproof. TV ads are insanely expensive, and a decent campaign would almost certainly cost more than anything else. They'd have huge losses if it failed.

I remember seeing ads for Vesperia on late-night TV. I don't think that was the best time slot to reach their target audience though. The commercials themselves weren't very good either, just some generic babble about the game.

[Joseph]

Cless is right. Namco needs to think smaller, not bigger. Budget the projects efficiently, rely on word of mouth for marketing, and aim for moderate sales. There's no reason for theme to be "selective" about these games. If they were smart, they could be making some decent money on both the console and portable front. Instead they're sitting on a nice library of titles that have a built-in audience.

But there's no point in saying any of this, because Namco has shown again and again that they either don't care or don't have the motivation to see things through. My best hope is that they shut down the studio that handles Tales localizations and finally have the good sense to let other parties handle that brand, like Atlus or Gaijinworks.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

the studio seems just fine; they need to work on marketing and decision making. and seriously, the official tales forums have like 19000 members registered. if it's really true that you're looking at about 10k copies sold to break even, i'm pretty sure they can at least break even no matter what. there's really no good reason not to push forward for working on a game or two all the time, e.g. graces and hearts.

[DuskShark]

If I read the posts right, Namco won't release anything because what was released didn't give FF a run for it's money?

[ClesStahn]

TV ads might help boost sales, and lots of people seem to think that's the end all, be all solution to this. It's not foolproof. TV ads are insanely expensive, and a decent campaign would almost certainly cost more than anything else. They'd have huge losses if it failed.

Agreed--point in case, the Tales of Destiny II (localized Tales of Eternia) commercials I remember seeing on television here in the States.

the studio seems just fine; they need to work on marketing and decision making.

This is a good point--this puts into words something I've thought on for a while now. You can definitely see Namco/Bandai's style and similarities, across multiple different series they've got their hands into; similarities exist in animation, gameplay (button-mashing, at times). For example, some of the recent "Tales of..." games that've been released by Namco/Bandai, like Abyss and Vesperia, seem similar in these ways to games like the Dragonball Z Budokai/Tenkaichi games which are also produced by Namco/Bandai. And I mean, these are things that seem to attract the American gamer and do well. Therefore one wonders why the "Tales of..." series is still dragging a bit in the states, and "marketing and decision making" are two of the main things.

On the bright side of it, I don't particularly mind that the series I choose to follow isn't as big as the Final Fantasy series--that bothers me not one single bit.

[Cless]

If I read the posts right, Namco won't release anything because what was released didn't give FF a run for it's money?

Well, it's a bit hyperbolic. But it seems that in order for Namco to be happy, they want every game to be at least a mid-level success on a GENERAL scale; for each game to do about as well as Symphonia GC did. The games as they are now do absolutely fine from a niche perspective. There's no way they're actually losing money on every title they bring over. They aren't making hand over fist on the sales, but the numbers would satisfy any niche game publisher very well. The cost of a localization is peanuts compared to making an entirely new game, and Namco doesn't even need to pay any licensing fees.

So basically, it's pretty obvious they feel they aren't making enough profit off of every release. Their very selective nature is very disconcerting to fans, and isn't doing a whole lot in helping make the series more popular here. I know one thing...I'm getting very sick of the game they play. My patience for playing through a game in Japanese has worn EXTREMELY thin over the last decade. The only Tales game I've completed in Japanese since Tales of Eternia is Rebirth. I probably only got halfway through Destiny 2, and only sampled Legendia, Abyss, Innocence, Hearts, and Destiny remake from 30 minutes to two hours in Japanese. Haven't even touched a lot of the other ports and spinoffs.

I'm beginning to feel like I'm slipping away from the series. The high-ups at Namco USA don't give a rat's ass about making its fans happy. They just want a 20x+ or so return of investment, cause apparently 3-6x isn't enough. I almost want to drop the series completely and switch to being a Shin Megami Tensei fan or something, because those games are awesome and Atlus USA absolutely does not treat its fanbase like slime.

[DuskShark]

I'm beginning to feel like I'm slipping away from the series. The high-ups at Namco USA don't give a rat's ass about making its fans happy. They just want a 20x+ or so return of investment, cause apparently 3-6x isn't enough. I almost want to drop the series completely and switch to being a Shin Megami Tensei fan or something, because those games are awesome and Atlus USA absolutely does not treat its fanbase like slime.

You summed up my last two weeks. If Graces gets skipped, bye-bye Tales. Hello Disgaea and Shin Megami Tensei. I only had the patience to beat Rebirth due to a little project I'm making.

Then again, all I want from Namco is a Mothership title after Eternia ported to PSP(and in English). Then I'll never ask for more Tales again[spoiler/]

[lonerurouni187]

Unfortunately, I must agree with DuskShark and Cless. I dont think I'll ever completely just abandon Tales, but my patience for running thru the jp games just to experience it, is growing thin. If not for the few translation patches out there, and lanyn's guides, I wouldve barely touched the jp Tales. Srry, but if Graces doesnt make it over(which is looking hot btw), I wont be as enthusiastic a Tales fan anymore.
Knowing me tho, I'll probably cave in and by a wii for TOG anyway.

[Carnivol]

The high-ups at Namco USA don't give a rat's ass about making its fans happy. They just want a 20x+ or so return of investment, cause apparently 3-6x isn't enough. I almost want to drop the series completely and switch to being a Shin Megami Tensei fan or something, because those games are awesome and Atlus USA absolutely does not treat its fanbase like slime.

I've often questioned the profitability of the localization efforts. Of course, when you compare a small publisher to a big one, there's of course at least 100+ more staff (in various positions) within the company that needs to get paid for all sorts of stuff, so it's of course obvious that a bigger company has to shift more units for it to be entirely profitable, but something that struck me when I read that was the whole sales thing.

I recently used (Activision+)Blizzard as a sample of a company that is in this disgusting pit of self-centeredness. Basically, what I'm getting at is the whole "brand" thing. It doesn't look "good" for the brand image if a title doesn't sell millions, basically. Even if the title sells enough to cover its own ass and evt. also (along with several other titles) please the investors and share holders. Now, what about Activision/Blizzard?  They didn't want "Brutal Legend", 'cause they couldn't turn it into a franchise, apparently, but the moment some other publisher picked it up and talk in general seemed to indicate that the title WILL and CAN sell pretty darned well, Activision was all pissy about having rejected the publishing of Brutal Legend (more or less claiming that they had exclusive rights to the title, or something, even though they'd decided not to publish the game... go figure)

Now, that's the Activision side of things, now, let's look at Blizzard... known incredibly well for StarCraft, Diablo and World of Warcraft.

In the past, Blizzard has turned down "Warcraft Adventures - Lords of the Clans (or whatever)", a point and click game that was to be based on the Warcraft franchise. They boxed Starcraft: Ghost, a third person action/stealth title set in the Starcraft universe. And in more recent times... we know they went with a more "World of Warcraft-ish" visual style for Diablo. Thinking about those things... what strikes me is that Blizzard will probably never do a game that they can't sell to "everyone" (or the majority, to put it in a more realistic way). So even if there was a huge portion of non-Warcraft (but adventure game) fans that were looking forward to Lords of the Clans (or whatever it was called) + maybe at least "some" Warcraft fans, that wasn't enough... 'cause it's "bad for the brand", basically, that the game doesn't appeal to the everyone. Same with Starcraft: Ghost... and same with Diablo 1-2's art style, sure, it might still be Diablo, but it doesn't change the fact that the art direction draws heavy inspiration now from World of Warcraft's god awful design failure art direction, with it's terrible color abuse, awkwardly cheesy equipment design, absurd detail inconsistencies, etc...

Activision-Blizzard simply wont do something that they don't think will appeal to "everyone", 'cause it "on paper" is bad for their brand name.

I suppose something along the same lines could be the case for Bandai Namco too... they simply wont do a title that doesn't look good on paper. It'd be a pretty easy thing to fix from a business perspective, though... They could just hide it away under some sub-company or franchise name, enabling them to say that "Tales" has sold ########## this year (combined, instead of focusing on individual titles) And there really is enough Tales games and fans out there for them to pretty much keep a localization team busy almost the entire year... so toss in some random publishing/localization deals to fill in the dead periods and they'd be a go go!