Square Enix Wants the U.S.

Square Enix is apparently looking to increase their performance in the U.S. and Europe by 50% in the next three years, according to an article published in the Financial Times.

The United States is the worlds largest and fastest growing gaming market, making it particularly important to the Japanese publisher. Success overseas will help Square Enix to counterbalance the stagnant demand for games in Japan. Only 10 to 20 per cent of Square Enix's revenues came from overseas markets. However, they're hoping to increase that to as high as 50% over the next three years.

"We need to seek co-operation with a US publisher - we need local content," Mr Sasaki, senior vice-president of Square Enix, said at the Tokyo Game Show. "Our strength is in role-playing games and fantasy titles, so it is a bit difficult to appeal to the US market."

Read the full article here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5fac144a-68a4-11dc-b475-0000779fd2ac.html

Square Enix is pretty big here, but I don't know if it's EVER going to become as big as it is in Japan. Sure, there are a lot of gamers here, but a lot of U.S. gamers prefer shooters, sports games and racing games rather than RPGs... and plenty of American RPG fans prefer American style games like Oblivion as opposed to Japanese ones like Final Fantasy. I know I do...

Still, Square Enix is certainly having less trouble conquering the U.S. market than most North American companies have moving into Japan. The Japanese just don't like our games.

New Lost Odyssey Details

Straight from TGS, Mistwalker has revealed some new Lost Odyssey details.

First off, the game will be an Xbox 360 record setting FOUR DVDs long. Mistwalker's previous title, Blue Dragon, was the original record holder at three DVDs.

The second juicy bit of information is that all voice acting in the game will be lip synced to English. There will still be multiple language options, including Japanese, but all voice acting will be synced to English. The reason for this is that Japanese fans are used to voices not matching lips due to imported American movies. Mistwalker also wanted to show thanks to English speaking fans around the world!

Despite the English lip syncing, the Japanese gamers still win because Lost Odyssey will be released in Japan in December. North American gamers will have to wait until February to get ahold of this highly anticipated Xbox 360 RPG.

GameTrailers at TGS

GameTrailers has announced that they will be attending the upcoming Tokyo Game Show September 20 - 28.

Users can log-in to GameTrailers.com for the latest trailers, announcements, interviews, developer walkthroughs, press conferences and more, and straight from TGS! GameTrailers promises to do around the clock updates, so gamers get the latest info.

They've even dedicated a special page on their site to the upcoming show, so check it out starting September 20th for the latest TGS news!

You can be sure there will be plenty of RPG announcements at this years TGS, because the Japanese love their RPGs! Although, the big question will be whether or not the games make it to North America...