N-Philes

Everybody knows that Japan is different. It's a land where cute pink kittens can become a national phenomenon, where tradition and technology fuse seamlessly, and where gigantic mutant monster attacks occur on a regular basis. Of course, Japan's tastes in games differ than those of their worldly brethren; first person shooters fly off American shelves, but in Japan, they're only really used to prop up in-store displays for the latest Anime-inspired releases. As a result, there are so many games that are released in Japan that never make it to US shores. Sometimes it's because we don't know the anime off which the games are based, other times it's because the publishers feel that the game's wackiness just won't sell, or that the game is simply too hard for Americans. Whatever that means.

Occasionally, a publisher will bring over a game in hopes that it will find a (profitable) niche market, like Atlus with Touch Detective and Cubivore. Even rarer, a developer will retool one of their older games and send it overseas just to see how well it does, much like Capcom did transforming Gyakuten Saiban into Phoenix Wright. Perhaps rarest of all is releasing a game in Japan on a current-gen platform, then to the world on a next-gen platform in hopes that it can better find an audience. Nintendo most notably released Dobutsu no Mori on the N64 in Japan before optimizing it for the GameCube, then releasing it as Animal Crossing the US (of course, poor Europe and Australia had to wait a wee bit longer).

The GameCube didn't see a great number of games over its five-year tenure as Nintendo's current-gen platform, but it did have a few titles that left non-Japanese gamers more and more sad as international releases seemed less and less likely. However, there is hope. Ideologically, Wii is a much different system than its predecessor, but underneath the hood, they share much of the same technology. Nintendo is hoping that gamers and non-gamers of all kinds with buy into Wii. This means, of course, that there is a potentially wider audience to pick up all kinds of software titles, and that optimizing a GameCube game for the new system won't break a developer's sweat (or their wallet). Miyamoto himself said that he would like to see some GameCube games remade to breathe new life on Wii. The big question becomes, which games should be given new worldly life? Here's my expert opinion on the four most likely candidates.

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