About the region lock

[Aya]

Smart move making a PC game exclusive to a country that will never take PC gaming seriously. Japan will default to the PS4 version, just so you know.

I actually thought that this game being on PC was more or less a confirmation of a western release BECAUSE Japan hates PC gaming

In any case, I hope the developers plan to curb their expectations for the PC version of this game, though if the past 8 years observing the PC gaming scene in Japan tell me anything, I'm better off hoping for an Epic Games Store exclusivity deal for Tales of Arise and all future Bandai Namco Studios games moving forward

[Evangela]

That's an old stereotype. Japanese do play games on PC and the userbase has been growing a lot in the last few years.

If there's anyone who hate PC gaming in Japan, it's the publishers themselves. Some of them still think that the existence of PC gaming is the cause that make their games sell less copies on consoles. Bannam is a very good example, they region locked Japan out of so many games they released on Steam and even removed Japanese text out of the version they sell overseas to prevent Japanese PC gamers to access the PC version. It's like they're trying their best to stop PC gaming in Japan to grow any larger.

[Mokachino]

that's a really weird stereotypes man, game also release in south east asia, and people in japan not into pc gaming is so 2010, most japanese play pc game now

[Aya]

Originally posted by Mokachino:

that's a really weird stereotypes man, game also release in south east asia, and people in japan not into pc gaming is so 2010, most japanese play pc game now

There is enough truth for this "stereotype" for Gundam Extreme VS Maxi Boost On to not be on PC. Keep in mind that EXVSMBON is from the same developers as this game

[Jeffer'son Airship]

Originally posted by Evangela:

That's an old stereotype. Japanese do play games on PC and the userbase has been growing a lot in the last few years.

It's still a pretty small minority of gamers in Japan but you're certainly correct the publishers really want to keep it that way (mostly due to PC games being cheaper on average.)

[Aya]

Originally posted by Mokinokaro:

Originally posted by Evangela:

That's an old stereotype. Japanese do play games on PC and the userbase has been growing a lot in the last few years.

It's still a pretty small minority of gamers in Japan but you're certainly correct the publishers really want to keep it that way (mostly due to PC games being cheaper on average.)

It also doesn't help that anti-PC elitists outright demand to see the failure of Japanese PC ports just so that the devs won't make PC games ever again. Guess they'll finally get what they want in the end in the case of Bandai Namco Studios.

[Evangela]

Originally posted by Aya Shameimaru:

Originally posted by Mokinokaro:

It's still a pretty small minority of gamers in Japan but you're certainly correct the publishers really want to keep it that way (mostly due to PC games being cheaper on average.)

It also doesn't help that anti-PC elitists outright demand to see the failure of Japanese PC ports just so that the devs won't make PC games ever again. Guess they'll finally get what they want in the end in the case of Bandai Namco Studios.

How? Bandai Namco is still making PC ports.

[Aya]

Originally posted by Evangela:

Originally posted by Aya Shameimaru:

It also doesn't help that anti-PC elitists outright demand to see the failure of Japanese PC ports just so that the devs won't make PC games ever again. Guess they'll finally get what they want in the end in the case of Bandai Namco Studios.

How? Bandai Namco is still making PC ports.

Even if they're making PC games, doesn't mean they like the platform. Most Japanese game developers begrudge their PC support including Bandai Namco Studios. When this game flops, they'll have their reason to stay on consoles.

[Evangela]

Originally posted by Aya Shameimaru:

Originally posted by Evangela:

How? Bandai Namco is still making PC ports.

Even if they're making PC games, doesn't mean they like the platform. Most Japanese game developers begrudge their PC support including Bandai Namco Studios. When this game flops, they'll have their reason to stay on consoles.

I agree that they probably hate PC, but I don't think they'll stop making PC ports. It's making them enough money from overseas.

At worst, they'll just keep region locking Japan out, and/or remove Japanese text from PC ports like they've been doing. Even so, they seem to get a little bit better with newer releases that also included Japanese text and no region lock in Japan like SAO games, Vesperia, Code Vein, and DBZ Kakarot, while most DBZ games in the past are not available on Japanese Steam.

It's probably just about licensing anyway. Bandai's games that are based on popular anime (mostly Shounen Jump) are not available on Japanese Steam. Maybe it's not Bandai but it's the anime studios themselves that don't want these games to be on PC in Japan for some reason.

[Aya]

Originally posted by Evangela:

Originally posted by Aya Shameimaru:

Even if they're making PC games, doesn't mean they like the platform. Most Japanese game developers begrudge their PC support including Bandai Namco Studios. When this game flops, they'll have their reason to stay on consoles.

I agree that they probably hate PC, but I don't think they'll stop making PC ports. It's making them enough money from overseas.

At worst, they'll just keep region locking Japan out, and/or remove Japanese text from PC ports like they've been doing. Even so, they seem to get a little bit better with newer releases that also included Japanese text and no region lock in Japan like SAO games, Vesperia, Code Vein, and DBZ Kakarot, while most DBZ games in the past are not available on Japanese Steam.

It's probably just about licensing anyway. Bandai's games that are based on popular anime (mostly Shounen Jump) are not available on Japanese Steam. Maybe it's not Bandai but it's the anime studios themselves that don't want these games to be on PC in Japan for some reason.

Thingy is, Idolmaster: Starlit Season is made by the same studio that has worked on Ace Combat, SoulCalibur, Code Vein, Tales Of, God Eater and Tekken. And the past 8 years of the Japanese PC gaming scene has taught me that Japanese game developers maintain this expectation that fans of ANY of their franchises will like ALL of them just cuz the consumer chose to game on PC. They already have enough reasons to not like PC gaming if our complaining about Ace Combat 7 and Code Vein have anything to say.

I doubt they'll be willing to overlook this game failing just cuz they region locked it to Japan.

[Aya]

Originally posted by askasys:

I appreciate your opinion about a possible other reason about the region block.
And I could fill your idea with this other statement:
Japanese publishers and companies in general really hate piracy, and PC = Piracy.

And this automatically means that fans of Tales, Tekken, Ace Combat SoulCalibur should also like this game because...?

[Aya]

Originally posted by askasys:

Originally posted by Aya Shameimaru:

And this automatically means that fans of Tales, Tekken, Ace Combat SoulCalibur should also like this game because...?

Those are mainstream games.
Bandai Namco expects a number of losses due to piracy, they are aware of this, but they still have considerable income with the mainstream titles, especially with Dragon Ball and Naruto games. Instead, The idolm@ster is a niche game and sales are mostly done through DLCs. Remember that the idolm@ster games are maybe the most or one of the most expensive of all the videogames.

They still have the expectation that fans of any of their franchises will like all of them just cuz the consumer chose to game on PC.

The fact of the matter is that even though Japanese game developers do not like PC gaming, Steam has grown to such a degree that it is way too big for them to ignore, and rather than sucking it up and adjusting their business decisions around a booming platform, they instead expect the consumer to adjust their purchasing decisions around their dislike towards the platform they're gaming on.

This is an unwinnable situation for people that want Bandai Namco Studios to continue their PC support so rather than adhering to the rule of "if you've got nothing to say, don't say anything at all", I think I should say what needs to be said: The developers are way over their heads if they think that the Steam version of Starlit Season will sell enough units to satisfy whatever asinine expectations that they've been harboring for the past however many years. I will admit that we sorta kinda did deserve the devs responding to our AC7 complaints by not porting EXVSMBON to PC, but I'd love to see how they'll justify cancelling Tales of Arise's PC release just cuz they region locked this game.

The blame for why we're even at this point ultimately lies in a seemingly unrelated company: Nippon Ichi Software, for they wrote the book on how Japanese game developers should approach the PC market back in the summer of 2012.

[BlackKite2128]

Originally posted by Aya Shameimaru:

Originally posted by Mokachino:

that's a really weird stereotypes man, game also release in south east asia, and people in japan not into pc gaming is so 2010, most japanese play pc game now

There is enough truth for this "stereotype" for Gundam Extreme VS Maxi Boost On to not be on PC. Keep in mind that EXVSMBON is from the same developers as this game

The developer teams are actually different though. Gundam VS always has had its own dedicated dev team (VSTG Project) inside Bamco Studios.

I remember reading a Japanese article[www.inside-games.jp] which basically implied that VSTG prefers to release their games on consoles because they have a more unified spec system just like the original arcade machines. In the current times, the only spec differences would be between PS4, PS4 Pro, & PS5 so they just need to ensure the regular PS4 can get optimized constant 60fps just like arcade.

It's really only the case with the VS games, because the other Gundam games developed by other different teams (Gundam Breaker, SD Gundam) have no problems getting a PC version. I wonder if they dread a potato PC that couldn't even get 30fps would ruin online multiplayer if there were a PC version of EXVS

[WeltonCitan]

Argue all you want, speculation all you like, this particular game still lock in Asia, with no English at this time speaking, and Bandai is stubborn as hell when it comes to fan pleading for English. We need something else.

[Aya]

Originally posted by IdeaWelton:

Argue all you want, speculation all you like, this particular game still lock in Asia, with no English at this time speaking, and Bandai is stubborn as hell when it comes to fan pleading for English. We need something else.

I think what we need is some form of reassurance that the devs are actually taking PC gaming seriously. I might not even be here if I knew as an objective truth that they actually care about putting their games on Steam.

[Evangela]

My suggestion is that people should learn Japanese. Not only that you can play all these games and understand everything they speak originally, but you can also cut off the middlemen aka the English translators/localizers who (in this days & ages) frequently alter the content for political purpose.