Made a survey about localizing Tales games to send to Namco, so please fill it out!

Hi peoples,
If you're wondering what this post is about, I'm one of the many seemingly cursed fans of the Tales series produced by Bamco (Namdai, whatever) and I would love to see more games localized. However, after reading about multiple failed attempts via email and snail mail to actually get a real answer from them, I decided to try something slightly different. I've put together a 16 question online survey and once I get enough responses or enough time has elapsed, I'm going to mail the results to Bamco (I'll probably eventually send it to the JP branch too, but for now I'm just concentrating on the NA branch) along with a cover letter. Yeah, there's a good chance that they're going to ignore it anyway, but I intend to keep sending it until I get a decent response (read: non-generic) out of them.

If you're interested in filling it out, here's the link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7YGHHLS

It's pretty straightforward, so it shouldn't take more than 20 minutes to complete. If you know some people who would like to take this, please forward the link to them. If you have any comments/questions/suggestions regarding the survey, feel free to post them here or you can PM me through my Youtube account (link is in my sig); be aware that I can't modify the survey too much at this point though since it's already up and running.

I have been posting this on a couple other websites, so pardon the redundancy if you've seen this elsewhere. And just as a heads-up on that note, I'm using referral links to track where my responses are coming from, so don't be surprised if the link on another site is slightly different from the one here: they all go to the same survey.

And lastly, thank you for your time. Especially since I tend to be long-winded. ^^;;

I don't know how successful your efforts will be, but I would like to see Tales of Graces come out here, so I filled it out; figured, "what the hell." At least it's different than your run-of-the-mill petition.

Good luck!

I thought Tales of Graces was coming out in N.A. for Wii. I recall a release date being menitoned awhile back... or was that conjecture/wishful thinking? Maybe E3 will shed some light on it.

I'm sure this will have no effect whatsoever, but I love the Tales games. *completed*

Done. This will do nothing but may as well.

Don't they base releases upon sales? Last time I heard that the last batch of Tales games didn't sell particularly well over here.

Even though it won't do anything, it can't hurt. I filled it out... I'd love to see Vesperia on the PS3.

[quote name='Dead of Knight']Done. This will do nothing but may as well.[/QUOTE]

Pretty much. Although I was disappointed in only picking 3 that I want localized. I really wish it was five so I could have added in Tales of Rebirth and Tales of Destiny Director's Cut. ;(


[quote name='Rozz']Don't they base releases upon sales? Last time I heard that the last batch of Tales games didn't sell particularly well over here.[/QUOTE]

Pretty sure Tales of Vesperia sold fairly well (relatively speaking of course as you can't compare to main stream games here) in the states and of course Symphonia did pretty good too. It would also help if they stopped localizing the crappy off shots of the series like Symphonia 2 and Tales of the World. Then in their places localized ones that we'd take a liking to here in the N.A. sales wise like Tales of Rebirth (PS2/PSP), Tales of Destiny 2 (The real sequel), Tales of Graces (Wii), or Tales of Hearts (DS).

[quote name='Draekon']Pretty sure Tales of Vesperia sold fairly well (relatively speaking of course as you can't compare to main stream games here) in the states and of course Symphonia did pretty good too. It would also help if they stopped localizing the crappy off shots of the series like Symphonia 2 and Tales of the World. Then in their places localized ones that we'd take a liking to here in the N.A. sales wise like Tales of Rebirth (PS2/PSP), Tales of Destiny 2 (The real sequel), Tales of Graces (Wii), or Tales of Hearts (DS).[/QUOTE]

According to the most recent sales data I could find Vesperia sold around 110K before going out of print. Symphonia, on the other hand, was much more successful. It not only cost less to develop but sold 465K. Although Symphonia did very well and even made it to Player's Choice status, the 360 has more systems sold than the GC did (nearly double the GC in units sold) and it still sold worse. With numbers like that I can see why Bandai Namco wouldn't be so enthusiastic about bringing future entries here.

[quote name='Rozz']According to the most recent sales data I could find Vesperia sold around 110K before going out of print. Symphonia, on the other hand, was much more successful. It not only cost less to develop but sold 465K. Although Symphonia did very well and even made it to Player's Choice status, the 360 has more systems sold than the GC did (nearly double the GC in units sold) and it still sold worse. With numbers like that I can see why Bandai Namco wouldn't be so enthusiastic about bringing future entries here.[/QUOTE]

Bandai Namco has always been assholes about localizing games in the states and I don't see it changing (Particularly the Tales series). However, I will say that it doesn't matter how many consoles have been sold of a particular brand if that brand doesn't have the group of owners who will purchase that type of game. While one can't cite numbers outside of basing off of sales, I'd wager a guess that the 360 doesn't sell RPGs at a high percentage because the core just aren't into those types of games. I feel a good case of this would be Final Fantasy XIII, granted I don't have any numbers I can link with relative ease (Possible that Dr. Mario Kart may have them somewhere though).

[quote name='Rozz']According to the most recent sales data I could find Vesperia sold around 110K before going out of print. Symphonia, on the other hand, was much more successful. It not only cost less to develop but sold 465K. Although Symphonia did very well and even made it to Player's Choice status, the 360 has more systems sold than the GC did (nearly double the GC in units sold) and it still sold worse. With numbers like that I can see why Bandai Namco wouldn't be so enthusiastic about bringing future entries here.[/QUOTE]

The thing is the game is already made. There's a big difference between just localization compare to development cost. I know Namco got burned really bad with rpg like Xenosaga series, but they release titles that have a much smaller brand names like Manga Carta 2, Hack Series or Baten Kaitos over Tales' game. I'm pretty sure a smaller third party company like Atlus, Xseed, NIS or Ansys will localize it if the licensing cost was low. These smaller niche companies would gladly take 50k in sales, which rarely occur if count the majority of games they release. Atlus was able to nab Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier from Namco with KOS-MOS character from Xenosaga.

Filled out the survey. I hope someone at Namco Bandai reads it and it makes a difference. PS3 owners are getting the shaft by NB.

Filled it out, while I'd like to see the newer games come out in America I'd really like to see Tales of Rebirth PSP port, I only own the import of that game and I can barely understand Japanese so I can't really figure out what the plot is about or where to go sometimes, but I really love the combat system.

Alright, I filled it out. Kudos for keeping it short and to the point. Now I'm excited to see Vesperia come out here on the PS3.

Thanks for the responses, everyone. ^^ I know that this is hardly going to turn heads, but I at least want to see if it it changes anything.

[quote name='soonersfan60']I thought Tales of Graces was coming out in N.A. for Wii. I recall a release date being menitoned awhile back... or was that conjecture/wishful thinking? Maybe E3 will shed some light on it.[/QUOTE]

As far as I know, there haven't been any announcements for ToG in North America (well, aside from the April Fools Day joke on RPGamer or some site like that). There was a preview in ONM that had a Summer 2010 date for Europe, but pretty much everyone agrees that it was some sort of a mistake at this point.

[quote name='Rozz']Don't they base releases upon sales? Last time I heard that the last batch of Tales games didn't sell particularly well over here.[/QUOTE]

My understanding is that Vesperia and Dawn of the New World were among the top 3 selling Tales games in NA (the other one being the original Symphonia on the GC), but I don't know how reliable the VGchartz sales numbers are. I'm guessing that ToV and ToS: DotNW sold better than Legendia, Abyss, and RadiMyth though.

[quote name='Draekon']Pretty much. Although I was disappointed in only picking 3 that I want localized. I really wish it was five so I could have added in Tales of Rebirth and Tales of Destiny Director's Cut. ;([/QUOTE]

Sorry, this is my first time making a survey, so I wasn't completely sure how to go about this. ^^;; I was just thinking that maybe for now at least, it would be best to focus on the top 3 games that people want so that it wouldn't look overwhelming to them or something.

[quote name='thelonepig']Alright, I filled it out. Kudos for keeping it short and to the point. Now I'm excited to see Vesperia come out here on the PS3.[/QUOTE]

Glad to hear it. I hate filling out long surveys myself. ^^;;

Agreed this wont really do anything, but it wont hurt either.
If game companies would release more traditional rpgs, I'd probably buy more then like 1 or 2 games a year.

I wold love to play more of the Tales series, so I filled this out. Hopefully Namco listens!

[quote name='momouchi']I wold love to play more of the Tales series, so I filled this out. Hopefully Namco listens![/QUOTE]

I think the thing I like the most about the Tales series is the battle system. There have been several times that I was playing FF13 and wished I could tell one of my guys to focus on one particular enemy. In Tales of Symphonia, you could control your party and tell them to attack the same enemy or all different enemies, etc.

Agreed, and I told Namco that as well.

Why not, survey complete.

I'd love to see more console Tales games. It's funny that portables are over saturated with JRPGs while consoles are starving for them. I'd also like to see them break away from the cliche' JRPG story plot that all Tales games seem to follow. Imagine a plot like Lost Odyssey combine with Tales' battle system. I think something like that would make a killer JRPG.