Titanfall Devs Surprised At Japan's Positive Reaction to its Game

[fix-the-spade]

It must take a special kind of myopic to look at a game about giant robots killing each other and think 'yeah, Japan's not going to be into this,' it's not like there's an existing market on that island or anything.

If Microsoft run it right, Titanfall could be what breaks Xbox into Japan, just like Halo got Xbox into the rest of the world's consciousness (and lets face it, without Halo 1 and 2 Xbox would have been deader than dead).

 

[Someone Depressing]

A Japanese FPS that isn't Maken... which isn't even and FPS because you fight with a sword. Seems interesting.

It's nice that Japan is finally warming back up to console gaming.

 

[AstaresPanda]

lol why are they surprised ? Its got cool mechs. Simple. Have they not seen any anime ?

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

It must take a special kind of myopic to look at a game about giant robots killing each other and think 'yeah, Japan's not going to be into this,' it's not like there's an existing market on that island or anything.

Its more due to the fact that the mechs are more 'western' with passing nods to things like inertia and weight. Combined with the FPS format (which is nowhere as big a genre there as the western world) you get a game which would normally be regarded as a niche product, rather like some JRPG series are in the west.

The fact that it appears to strike a chord with many would be like if a say Persona game grabbed the attention of the fratboy demographic in America, a noticeable shift in demographics and a possible foot in the door for other games of a similar genre at getting a larger audience.

I don't know if this will pull sales away from the PS4, even if they release before Feb MS has yet to make any headway in that market before despite multiple tries.

 

[misg]

PS4 fanboys are out in full force for this one. They must be something bitter to turn a simple article about a new FPS getting a good reaction into about how it's not truly an exclusive for X1, especially when that has nothing to do with this article. Fact is they played it on the X1 not a pc, having to wait four hours to try it must of been really good to get that many people in line. I just see this as a good sign, giving me more reasons to play attention to this game coming out.

 

[Evonisia]

This is actually kinda cool. I actually want to see a Japanese made FPS just to see how that would work. Maybe Titanfall may convince some Japanese Devs to make one.

It'd probably be Resident Evil 4 but in first person and without the health management and third person gun/knife controls.

 

[Kittyhawk]

You guys can't see it, can you? Titanfall was designed from the get go to be that kind of game, taking the best of BF/CoD and mashing it with sci-fi/Mechs. This was tried before on PC in Shogo, years ago (a combo of FPS and mech combat).

I think exclusivity was sought by MS, because Halo has kind of burnt itself out and something new was needed to help push Xbox One. Yes, its on PC too, but Japan has never embraced PC gaming (while I'm sure we'd all love to see that change, as they are missing out on so much games), that leaves Titanfall as an Xbox One lead game, many gamers in Japan will crave. Doesn't matter if some don't like the facts of it, but it is exclusive to Xbox until the sequel comes out (ages away). If you have a PS4 and want a dose, just buy the PC version, if buying an Xbox One is too much for you.

When Xbox One is released in Japan in 2014, with Titanfall alongside it sales will be high. in fact I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Xbox One shortage because of it. I just hope MS get their act together to benefit from it.

As for japanese gamers liking Titanfall, I'm not surprised by this news (four hour line...wow). Gundam and other mech games from japan, have yet to make a convincing enough world for their mechs to inhabit (possibly due to their lack of capable 3D artists etc. They focus too much on the mechs looking good and not enough on the characters, environments, effects etc etc, making these games look sparse and cheap. An arcade fighting game might look good for the arcade, but its a quick fix by design. I believe that japanese mecha fan want something deeper, but have never really got it.

Pacific Rim showed what could be done with film through good 3d and special effects, which also went down well in Japan, so I expect Titanfall to do huge sales there too. Make sure you keep watching March 2014, to see how MS play this one out.


As for RE4/5/6, you'll notice those are Capcom games. Capcom are devs that have adjusted well with changes in 3D dev software over the years, when many smaller japanese devs might have done the opposite, hence Capcom getting TPS/FPS games done so well, while other japanese studios struggle.

 

[DarklordKyo]

This is actually kinda cool. I actually want to see a Japanese made FPS just to see how that would work. Maybe Titanfall may convince some Japanese Devs to make one.

It would be interesting, it has been shown that Japan can produce decent shooters (if Resident Evil 4 & Vanquish are of any indication).

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Am I the only one happy enough to see Titanfall being so successful for being an awesome concept?

I do find it awesome that Japan thinks that our mech concepts are awesome, given how their reactions to other examples have been lukewarm at best. Not gonna get a Xbox One, but I will see into getting into Titanfall for PC.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

This is actually kinda cool. I actually want to see a Japanese made FPS just to see how that would work. Maybe Titanfall may convince some Japanese Devs to make one.

It would be interesting, it has been shown that Japan can produce decent shooters (if Resident Evil 4 & Vanquish are of any indication).

I would think that the way for Japan to compete with shooters from the West is by making unique concepts, Resident Evil was a reversion of horror that used the mechanics in conjunction with the Horror while Vanquish was a combination of the faster gameplay of hack and slash or arcade games with shooters (was a bit smashed because of short amount of content and odd vision being made given what the dev video was like).

I would like them to make a combination of Vanquish, Anarchy Reigns, and Max Paine which would create a unique blend of abnormal scale, kinetic movement, and unique weapons

 

[Zetatrain]

I don't think "western mechs = slower, Eastern mechs faster" argument is relevant because Titanfall plays exactly like Gundam Battle Operation and that game was even "slower paced" than Titanfall and people loved that game anyway.

true but two things

1)Gundam is extremely popular in Japan (as far as mecha goes) so even if the the gameplay is a bit slower than the norm people will still most likely enjoy it for being Gundam.

2)The mechs in Titanfall are not your average western mechs. While the gameplay in the video is slower than the Titanfall gameplay I've seen, its still much faster than your average western mech game (mechwarrior/mechassault, chrome hounds, Steel Battalion, etc.).

 

[DarkhoIlow]

This just in: Japan likes Titanfall..a game that include mechs! News at eleven!

Kidding aside...it's quite obvious that this game would apply to Japan, but it's rather a double edge sword for them. Japan doesn't really like PC gaming and the Xbox brand is barely bought there as well. These are the only two platforms that the game releases on so I do wonder what they will do. Will they buy a PC or an Xbone to play it ?