Let's face it. Without the XSEEDs, Atluses, and Working Designs of the world, playing these odd games from Japan in English with no real Western backing would be a wet dream. We would at the mercy of the giant publishers and their wholly-established brand names, and at the general blandness of video games today. The mainstream US publishers have stopped to consider what Japan has to offer, and even the big publishers from Japan only localize their bigger games.

But these are the companies that release license and release these scraps, these quirky games stateside and brighten up the brown and gray gaming landscape in the West.

Gamasutra was able to talk with Ken Berry, director of publishing from XSEED Games, Atlus USA director of production Bill Alexander, GaijinWorks company president Victor Ireland. Each talk about their methods of obtaining and approaching these niche games that were cast aside by the Square Enixs and the Namco Bandais.

Most of the mainstream publishers -- other than those Japan-based companies which release their own catalogues in the West -- may have lost interest in licensing Japanese console and handheld games for U.S. consumption. But not a growing number of small-scale publishers who are all vying for the same pool of products and seem to be immersed in a rough-and-tumble bidding war.

Winning, they say, depends not so much on who spends the most, but on whose connections and relationships are the tightest. And on whose localization skills are the most impressive.
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The expanding competition for imports is due mainly to a challenging economy that puts a premium on games that can be had for a lot less than Western-developed games. Not only is there an abundance of unlicensed console/handheld games in Japan available for cherry-picking, but in many cases the games are already finished and their quality can be easily gauged.

Akira_EX via gamasutra.com »