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Forum - View topicNEWS: Producer Tells Why Bandai Namco Has Not Localized Gundam Vs. Games
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5530 |
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Makes sense I guess. I'd prefer gundam over Rise tho. Mecha ftw
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Gasero
 Posts: 939 Location: USA |
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I have Gundam Battle Assault 2 still. I'm good for now.
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13230 |
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While it's true Gundam isn't very big over here, that doesn't stop us from getting all the Dynasty Warriors games.
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smokeyjoey8
 Posts: 89 |
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I have a feeling Bandai leaving the Anime business in the US dealt a mighty blow to the Gundam franchise in America. Gundam used to be pretty popular here, especially around the early to mid 2000s. It was still pretty popular when Unicorn began, which was why it was releasing in English and Japanese at the same time. Then Bandai quit and Gundam was without a distributor for awhile. Now Sunrise itself just handles the franchise, and other then finishing off their Unicorn releases here, they don't seem all that interested in bringing anything else Gundam here.
Its a shame. American's love mecha series. Everyone loves giant robots. I think these things can do pretty well here. Look at the Vita. A majority of the top selling Vita games in August were all very Japanese, with SAO taking the most sales. You put a Gundam game on the Vita here - a good Gundam game - and it'll sell well. Don't judge America's awareness and interest in Gundam only on the Dynasty Warriors games, and the lack of the anime being released here. Dynasty Warriors only appeals to so many people, and the repetitive nature of the game bores most. And we can't help not having any Gundam anime here. We just don't get any. I imagine if one were to look at the pirated and illegal streaming numbers for the Gundam series, one would find them to be quite popular. |
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Amiantos
Posts: 342 |
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Yeah...lame excuse. They don't bother bringing the stuff over due to them being lazy and greedy. They pulled out of NA after talking about bringing all the unlicensed gundam over and refuse to let companies like funimation use the NA rights. It's a case of scamco bandit being a crapcom with lame excuses.
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scchan
 Posts: 143 Location: Exeter, UK |
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Historically, many anime publishers struggle in the American market, so I think risk aversion could be a big factor; going full out in one of the most prestigious Sci-Fi series is a struggling market is risky. In the end, Bandai-Namco is a for-profit public company listed in the Japanese stock market; it has explaining to do to its shareholders if something doesn't work. One can even argue that companies have no responsibility to be nice to a small group of niche consumers if there are trouble making the bottom line.
That said, it is a shame we don't get more Gundam outside Asia. In defence of Bandai-Namco, they did release some of the best console games available (and to my understanding financially successful). But business is business. It is a simply a fact anime publishing remains highly unprofitable in the American market. Japanese bosses are not particular well known as risk takers. |
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LaSean
Posts: 94 |
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But yet they kept giving us the crappy gundam/dynasty warriors crossover games.
Anyway I have a question unrelated to the games. Do you guys think we will get anymore dubbed Gundam shows here? |
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AmuroNT1
Posts: 106 |
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Speaking as someone who's been on the forefront of campaigns to get the Vs. Series brought to the West, my response to Mr. Baba is: "So if we choke down your lazy, derivative little clone fighter, some day you MIGHT deign to release the Vs. Series over here? ...Yeah, sorry, I'm going to have to go with 'no' on that one."
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Tylerr
Posts: 475 |
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at the very least they could do what pirate warriors does, and just release a digital english text version.
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#823637
Posts: 1 Location: Sulphur Louisiana |
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Tailored to the western audience? Sounds like they are stereotyping us. Gundam is big enough in the US to hold a round of the Gundam World Builders Cup but we get crappy gundam games. Sounds like a load of horse crap to me. Download Animania app on your phone for subtitled gundam because unless you learn Japanese that will probably be the only gundam you are gonna be able to watch.
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Gasero
Posts: 939 Location: USA |
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I don't think Bandai is intentionally keeping Gundam out of Western markets so much as they are overpricing it because of how popular it is in Japan.
I doubt many Western production companies want to take on that licensing and cost burden without a guaranteed payout. Last edited by Gasero on Sat Sep 20, 2014 1:48 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2403 |
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Am I missing something, I don't think a Western company had to license the Gundam Musou games to get them here did they? If they just removed the vocal tracks so they didn't have to license the songs, would anything else they have to license really cost more than paying for the man hours to create an entire new game? And a crappier version apparently... RoI is apparently slower and has no stepping. So basically they went back 5 years to N+. Even if the gameplay is attractive (and if it stays like Next +, I really doubt it will be to anyone who imported EXVS/FB), it is a new IP being released as free to play on PC. They're going to need some serious marketing if they want it to stand out of the crowd. In fact, is there even a large fighting game player base on PC? PC does quite well with certain types of games, but are fighting games one of those types? |
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Strike105
Posts: 41 |
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No. Gundam WING was popular, and that was in 2000. All series released in North America after Wing never lived up to its success, and Gundam eventually just ended up fading into obscurity. When Toonami followed up Wing with the original MSG, it flopped, and it flopped hard, with much of the blame going towards its heavily dated animation and the fact that it was practically nothing like Wing. Even though both Toonami and Adult Swim aired it, it was taken off the air both times before it completed its run due to lack of viewers (Yes, the official reason given for the Toonami cancellation was because of 9/11, but MSG was struggling, and the fact that it didn't return when many other shows did was taken by many to mean that they just didn't want to risk bringing it back. Toonami actually said in their Tumblr Q&A a year or so ago that the reason they didn't air Zeta Gundam when they were given the chance was because of MSG's failure). The only Gundam series released in North America that ever came close to Wing's popularity was probably G Gundam. I haven't heard much about exactly how well 08th MS Team, 0083, 0080, or 00 did, but I know SEED and SD Gundam Force were not very popular when they aired (No, not because of the "SEED SUCKS ASS! UC FOREVARRR!!!!" crap that still rages to this day, annoying the living Christ out of the rest of us. I actually heard a number of things about SEED's run on Toonami, ranging from unnecessary and weird TV edits such as the infamous "disco guns" to just simple "Gundam fatigue". I don't know about what all these "edits" entailed, but I remember watching SEED when it aired, and I think I remember that a fair number of, if not all of the scenes in episode 16 featuring Fllay in Kira's bed were left surprisingly intact.) I know for a fact that 00 and all the other anime on Sci-Fi Channel/Syfy's "Ani-Monday" block were never given any individual advertisement of any kind outside of the "Coming up next:" bumpers. The only people who knew that 00 was going to air were the ones that found the information themselves on ANN or other sites. If you look around a bit, you'll find that Sunrise, Bandai, and a number of other Japanese companies tend to STRICTLY adhere to certain business tactics that mainly work in their home territory, but don't always work elsewhere. Bandai Entertainment NA itself was a shining example of this. From what I understand, BE NA employees actually wanted to do things to make their titles more accessible to western audiences, but the Japanese parent company were always in absolute control, and gave them very little wiggle room in that regard. They were forced to sell 3-4 episode DVDs at $30+ a pop, even though they knew it wasn't going to be nearly as profitable as their parent company was hoping. As far as Gundam is concerned, it's Sunrise's cash cow, and they have a very tight grasp on its licenses. If anyone wants to license one Gundam show, they have to be ready to license all of them, because that is the usual ridiculous asking price. As anime in general is a niche market in North America, and Gundam is a niche within that niche, any company that would attempt to go through with those demands would be committing financial suicide. There was a whole lot of other things going on behind the scenes, but long story short, instead of trying to adapt to a foreign market, Bandai corporate thought it was a better idea to cut off the NA branch and sell the licenses to whoever would buy them. Funimation and other companies have expressed interest in Gundam, but they are not going to pay ridiculous prices to get it. This interview with BE NA's former Director of Marketing is worth a listen: animenewsnetwork.com/anncast/2013-02-27 As far as Gundam video games are concerned, even though some of the PS2 games released were very good, they were never given TV advertisements like Dragon Ball and Naruto games usually get to spark interest, meaning that only people who came across information for them in magazines or online, or people who eventually just come across them in stores know that they're available, and the ones interested are usually the ones who are already fans. Dynasty Warriors Gundam Reborn got the best advertisement out of all the Gundam games in North America simply because it showed up in the PS3's Newsfeed and "What's New" menu a couple of weeks before and after it was released as an undubbed downloadable-only release. The reason we are getting the Dynasty Warriors Gundam games and nothing else is more because of the Dynasty Warriors name rather than Gundam, because Dynasty Warriors itself is still fairly popular. I don't like to shoot down anyone's hopes, I'm a hardcore Gundam fan myself, but I know that Gundam will never be as popular as it was in 2000. It was just a fad, and there will never be any big resurgence. It will just continue to fade further into obscurity. It's sad, but that's how it is. Last edited by Strike105 on Sun Sep 21, 2014 6:02 am; edited 1 time in total |
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2403 |
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The SEED edits were pretty bad. Gunshots got replaced with his pressurizing air sound. Guns had neon green bars painted on the sides and orange barrels. Hard to take Andrew seriously when he is trying to talk to Kira about evolution / racism / war and he is holding something that looks like its from the kids toy's section of Wal-mart.
I also personally just thought that the dub was a lot worse. G Gundam did an amazing job with the dub matching the absurdity of the show (the original japanese VAs did too). Wing did a pretty good job too. Some of the lines came off cheesy but they come off that way in japanese too (not a native speaker though), and the voices seemed pretty good for the characters. The SEED dub VAs just didn't seem to fit right to me, especially Lacus. |
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