[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

They should just do what anime studios do; just have English subtitles and an English distribution website. As in, don't bother try to mass-market it in the West when there isn't a large market anyway. Make it available for English speakers to buy the game from them directly.

As far as I can tell, the only people who would buy the game are those who already know what Project Diva is. So they can just use viral marketing and leave the rest to the internet.

Originally Posted by RRW

I doubt is too awkward to localize. This is music game. While it is nice to have English version to understand the music. i don't think it stops anyone to enjoy music, even if they don't understand it. Sega can provide subtitle anyway.

i doubt translation cost of Diva F is expansive. They can easily cover even if thousand is been sold. Assuming it been sold digitally to ignore retail cost (and sega situation is not that bad)

Like I said, the target market for PD is a no brainer, but the problem lies elsewhere. I don't agree with the analogy with anime editors selling their licenses without english dubs, as the products themselves are basically cut for anime fans in general, so the lack of dubs is largely less detrimental than for a video game (which is the very reason why you very rarely see any game without any english dubs nowadays).

It isn't really like you need to understand lyrics to enjoy music, but from a marketing and purpose perspective, having completely foreign songs being hardly understandable for those who don't have Japanese knowledge wouldn't work (it will surely bug a lot of people who would like to directly understand what they hear).

Subs and all are obviously not expensive to implement, but you must take in consideration that you don't have much possibility to read the lyrics while playing, which make the purpose a bit moot (while there are lyrics for original JP games, it only supplement what they actually listen already, while foreigners would have to pick the subs thoroughly if they don't get Japanese at all).

In theory, PD is absolutely not difficult to introduce to the western market. In practice, it hardly sounds as profitable as fans might think, from a company perspective.
Of course, since US got a concert in LA last year, it doesn't sound that unreasonable for us. But I can see why Sega is carefully testing the waters first before doing anything (prime example: Miku Flick, and PD f E3 demo). If anything, if Vocaloid 2 series is released in English later as Crypton promised before, that could definitely change their mind.

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

By the way, I haven't heard anything about Sega being in financial trouble. And anyway Miku is one of their profitable properties right now.

Lots of projects being canned for low cut consoles (primary example: Valkyria Chronicle switching to PSP for 2 and 3, without any plan of localization for 3) hints a little bit, but it is more like the recent decision of closing Sega Europe offices left and right that doesn't bode too well.

Generally speaking, Sega franchises are far less healthy than years before, with a tendency of leaving things to team like Sonic Team, which doesn't have its original prime rep nowadays.

That's why I'm not exactly surprised Sega is going full force with sure hit franchises like Project Diva, but at the same time, the company isn't really in a safe position, and recent issues in Europe make things even more complicated. Although I don't think Sega will have any trouble in Japan, it is a complete different matter in the west.