The PS4 has started strong this year, with lots of look-forward to titles coming out during the last two months like Dissidia: Final Fantasy NT and Digimon Cyber Sleuth: Hacker’s Memory. We’ve also gotten some good third-party games like Monster Hunter World, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet, and Dragon Ball Figther Z. Not to mention we’re expecting even more good games later in the year like God of War, Call of Duty Black Ops 4, and Persona 5: Dancing All Night. There are also a lot of the so-called “complete” editions coming out, like the Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition.
Even with all these high profile titles coming out, I feel like it’s quite dull that some of the games we can look forward to are just basically a better version of a game that came out last year. While it can be profitable, it just feels dull that the year is mostly gonna get filled with rehashes.
What I realized is that the Western side of Sony has not yet tapped into the demographics of the “weaboo”. Japan-based games are too few and the release are far from that we rarely see any Japanese game in a year. Not that I’m ungrateful about the ones we do get because at least we’re getting some games. But the point is that WE WANT MORE.
A lot of good gems in the Japanese market that would definitely be a hit never reach Western shores, and that means we are also missing out. For example, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Zero and Fate Extra: CCC never hit western shores, even if previous titles in the series (and even sequels managed to get localized). Not to mention that very popular franchises and popular anime are also getting game adaptations, that fans will be most willing to buy just to immerse further with their waifus.
Japan can manage to make players buy limited editions of games that also have store exclusives because of their dedication to their 2D waifu. The perks are also pretty good compared to some perks we get in Western games. And some perks are also are a downsized version of what we’d get from Japan; for example, Fate/Extella’s Noble Phantasm Edition never had the Nero Claudius mousepad that was available in the Japanese equivalent.
I believe that the weab demographic can be a good boost for the PS4 if we get more localizations of Japanese games. We have a good start right now with Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online. They were pretty popular shows in their own right and it’s a good way to start dipping into the fanbase, but as the anime industry changes show every few months, it would be good to start riding the hype train that every new anime brings to the table.
With the popularity that the anime expos has in the United States, I’m reasonably confident that the fans would be willing to support games that have their favorite characters given the chance they’d be able to play the games without having to learn Japanese first.
TL;DR MORE WEAB GAMES PLEASE.
