lordnikon wrote:The PS3 is not this generation's Saturn in the sense that there is a huge untapped cache if Japanese imports awaiting you across the Pacific. The state of the PS3 in Japan is abysmal from a software standpoint. In previous console generations for the PS1 and PS2 Japan's game releases outnumbered those in the west by an estimated ratio of 3 to 1. This time, North America has far more PS3 releases than Japan. Not only this, but the majority of Japan's PS3 releases are actually by western development studios.
Here is a current breakdown of statistical information on retail disc releases for the Playstation 3 in Japan (Note this data does not include Budget re-releases, Limited Editions, or Hardware bundles):
167 total games have been released in Japan from 11/2006 till 3/2009.
99 of these games are by western developers
This means only 68 games originated from japanese development studios.
Just to put this into perspective... Roughly 60-70 Japanese developed games were released for the Saturn in North America during its 3 year lifecycle in the region. So the only comparison to the saturn that can be made, is that the Japanese PS3 environment is like the US's Saturn market. Which is horribly depressing.
That being said, there are still some great Japanese imports that have not and may never be released to western shores. I combed through every single Japanese import exclusive, stripped out the baseball, derby, and pachislot/mahjong games and here is pretty much every single import PS3 game one might consider purchasing at this time:
AFRIKA
Aquanaut's Holiday
Agarest Senki
Battle Fantasia (Retail Disc exclusive to Japan, PSN download coming to other regions)
Boku no Natsuyasumi 3
Demon's Souls
Initial D Extreme Stage
MegaZone 23
Mist of Chaos
Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan
Ryu Ga Gotoku 3
Sega Golf Club
SIREN: New Translation (Retail Disc exclusive to Japan and PAL, US has PSN download)
Tears to Tiara: Kakan no Daichi
Wangan Midnight
Way of the Samurai 3
I might bother updating this from time to time. Feel free to post updates if you care...
