There's always a chance, albiet slim.
Funnily enough, the first occurance of mecha was actually from France in 1880, 'The Steam House' which featured a piloted mechanical elephant. Since that time though, it's not like the West has been all that interested, in comparison with the East. Take the Gundam series, orginating in 1979, it's spinoffs and sequels are running right up to now in 2008 with Gundam 00. The whole thing is a massive culture icon to Japan. Char Aznable from the orginal Gundam has been compared to Darth Vader, in terms of icon recognition.
There's the truth right there. Is that the West isn't being shut out of the market, but isn't actually that interested in it. Gundam is an anime turned game series, Star Wars is a film turned game series. How many dedicated mecha films have you seen produced by the West in the last decade? A film set in the Mechwarrior universe was pitched a while back, but couldn't get funding, so now it's in development hell. If it had been made (which it still may possibly, but probably not) it would have generated the kind of interest needed to get Western mecha (games) back on their feet. Probably. It's economics 101, sell what people are in to. As it stands though, what people in the West are in to is World of Warcraft and various fps's.
The Japanese can afford to create mecha games because they'll sell, in Japan, as proven by the popularity of at 'least', Gundam which is nearly 30 years old. In the West most developers wouldn't stray away from such cash cows as WoW and the fps's to take a chance on something that likly wouldn't sell enough or be a huge success. Not to mention they'll be missing a base from which to work. When creating a Gundam game, there's a rich story to draw on and put into the game. What does the West have? Battletech and Mechwarrior, which both seem to be utterly lifeless from a mainstream point of view. Unless a (daredevil) developer wants to create a brand new mech ethos, which 'doesn't' resemble Gundam, Mechwarrior, Battletech or any of the others for legality reasons, then the chance of seeing a Western made mech game remains slim to the point of being two dimensional.
I find the whole turn of events regretable being an avid mecha fan myself. I'd love to see some quality mech games produced competitivly. I doubt i'll ever get that wish, seeing as Bandai makes basically all of them. Many of which never even see release here in the West.
What is comming out though, is 'Mobile Ops: The One Year War' scheduled for 2008. So you might want to check that out. Honestly though it seems to suffer from the same problems as all mecha games of its type. The prime examples being lackluster graphics and uninspired (often totally flat) terrain/maps. These are things i'm perfectly willing to forgive (although certainly not understand) if the gameplay is good.
