The issue with Publishers and I think what might be part of the issue with bringing these games over is something that I've heard come up from the anime publishers, which is that Japanese companies tend to charge an arm and leg to get publishing rights outside of their country. I think this is why we see such a huge gulf in the genre with people like Vanillaware and Atlus publishing smaller obscure games (because its probably cheaper than trying to bring out something bigger) and why the main big JRPGs are published in-house by big studios like Square-Enix and Sega, the issue for smaller companies is that sometimes, these publishing fees and the actual sales don't work out for them and so they may see a huge loss. Sometimes the gamble works, Atlus made a killing with Demon's Souls but due to the game's popularity, Atlus lost the publishing rights to its spiritual sequel Dark Souls because Sony outbid them when the publishing rights came up.Originally Posted by Shadowdust
For the big titles, I think we are seeing fewer because the sales don't equal the costs to produce and we're reaching a point where JRPGs that don't have a major company funding and publishing it or they are not small enough to be cheaply translated, tend to fall into the cracks. I think the idea of digital distribution will help publishers and frankly Square-Enix and Atlus have been making good use of things like Steam or the Big 3 Online shops, but this is of course only going to work on how much Steam and the Big 3 try to screw the publishers when it comes to allowing them to have their games on their distribution networks. I mean if Atlus has to pay a Japanese company a certain amount of money and sign over a generous percentage of total sales, spend money to translate, possibly VA work plus advertising, and then turn around and have to pay another generous amount of money to Steam for the privilege of selling their product on it, then the bottom line is probably going to be too small to bother unless they feel the game will be so successful that its high sales will offset their losses. Course that's assuming it work this way but considering you get free advertizing and don't have to deal with distributors, I'm certain whatever price tag Steam is offering is quite nice for a company that can do the translation work in house. I'm not sure how well it would work out for a company that is mostly dealing with being the middle man between Japanese development studios and the actual consumer.
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On a different note, there is also the issue of the dwindling big console JRPGs, we can agree the genre lives on with handhelds but what do you suppose is the real reason behind the genre slowly disappearing on the main three consoles. I mean at the start of the generation there was a ton of JRPGs released and then it kind of just stopped happening as often. I mean the WRPGs came to be but I don't really feel like they really overshadowed actual JRPGs because I don't really feel like any Big Budget titles came out at the same time as them.
If the genre is alive and well, why does it seem to be retreating from the big consoles, have we simply been living in the delusion that this genre was really designed fro handhelds and that's why they are taking off on them because they finally found their true home, or do you feel there is a reason JRPG companies are too afraid to make titles for the big boy consoles?
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