General Video Game Question

[VampireFangs103]

Alrighty. So I was thinking about it the other day, and there are at least five video games out in Japan that I'm dying to have. Sadly, despite my three years of Japanese class, I still don't know much Japanese. ;.; So I was wondering, how likely is it that games that come out in Japan will come out in America as well?

[superjaz]

yeah peeps have been wishing for mother 3 like forever

[tofutakeout]

well like Patrick says it does depend on the company and production studios. it also depends on the popularity of the game or just if people over here want to license something new. there's a lot of games and other things over their that I want also but sadly are either not coming over here or wont be here for a few years. :/

[princessmoon]

Hmmm, play with someone who knows Japanese...that's always fun.

Or sometimes you can find guides online that can give you directions/translations.  Games for the US really depends on many factors, such as, popularity, revenue, and all the industry schmo...

I've seen some taking several years before release in the US... 

playing games in japanese will be your homework for japanese class! get to it. lol.

[superjaz]

there are some patches made for some games, by fans who got tired of waiting, so you can play it in english

i have one for mother 3

[KogaRyu]

Copyright and licensing issues play a pretty big part aswell wich prevents alot of stuff from making it over here.

[DancingTofu]

Kojima stuff is pretty much guaranteed to pop up here unmodified.

Bemani stuff rarely makes it to the US without heavy modifications, but you can get European versions of some of their games which are pretty accurate.

Capcom pays attention to export sales and works to release popular import games with few to no modifications.

With a lot of games, especially popular games, enough English characters and geometric symbols are used that they're playable despite not being completely in English.