Fatal Frame: a true story?
Not likely, though apparently this is how the game was advertised outside of Japan.

I remember hearing something about this a long time ago. Naturally I dismissed it, but it turns out it has been doing the rounds on the 'net since 2002. Feeding off the fanfare from import remakes of the time (like Ring) there were tons of websites, not only claiming to be the true mythology of the Himuro Mansion, but also some saying, (and here's an example of the worst), that someone was AT the mansion surrounded by ghosts, being forced to try and shoot themselves.
The problems with that story was that the spelling and grammar was worse than my own, and I'm pretty sure guns are illegal in Tokyo.

But people continue to believe for the very reason survival horror is popular, because people want to believe its true, and people want to be scared. Since the release of the first game the creator has stated that Fatal Frame was actually based on two stories, an urban legend about a murdered family, and a ghost story about a hanged woman.

Another example being these two examples for the video game Forbidden Siren:
http://www.occultland.com/e/top.html
and
http://www.shibito.com/e/top_hp.html
These are listed on wikipedia AS hoax sites but I've still found examples in forums and on sites like Yahoo Answers about people who are genuinely asking if it's true that blood red rain turned people into monsters. Granted, there are some who TRY to give it a more feasible narrative, like a chemical accident that caused psychosis in a secluded community or something, (not unlike the plot of George A Romero's "The Crazies"). The story was totally false but again people WANTED to believe them, these horrifying situations were willed to be by these people fascinated with the possibility of such events being possible.

Why?

Because people love to be scared. It's why the horror genre is so popular, and why people like me have sites like this. This comes to a head in these Japanese games were there isolated culture cultivated such a rich and unique folklore that's so foreign and intriguing to Western folks. Its in Japan so its far away, it can't reach you, you're safe even if it is real.