The regional unpublished games thread

[Shifty Geezer]

Hitting the news I read about two XB360 games getting regional setbacks.

1) Gears of War 2 : Not for Germany or Japan
2) Fallout 3 : Not for India

There's no reason given for GoW2's lack of a Japanese release, though the German release was due to lack of certification by the censors. Fallout 3 is being held back by Microsoft India for 'cultural sensitivities'. Presuably this only affects XB360, as I don't think MS are publishing on PC, and they have no say over PS3, if the games even being released for PS3 over there.

 

[Rangers]

Gears 2 sold well for a western, 360 game in Japan (33k it's first week, and given the current situation G3 might have say, tripled that).

Where there any censorship issues involved, I wonder? Or just not worth Ms $ to publish there?? Again given how much they've tried to woo the Japanese market in the past, the latter seems unliklely

 

[slider]

Where there any censorship issues involved, I wonder? Or just not worth Ms $ to publish there?? Again given how much they've tried to woo the Japanese market in the past, the latter seems unliklely

Quite. Given the positive buzz combined with the numbers the 360 is doing in Japan (ok, only some weeks and driven by RPGs, but still...) I'm surprised such a big hitter isn't going to be released.

It must be a censorship issue. I'm pretty sure Resistance 1 had blood turned off in the Japanese version. And Gears has a lot of blood...

 

[obonicus]

I wonder if the FO3 India problems have to do with the fact that the two-headed cows are called Brahmin.