There's a number of reasons why NBGI won't do a im@s 2 release outside of Japan. You can fan rage over this as much as you like, but this doesn't change reality.
I had the luck to lunch with an NBGI exec and slugged it out for an hour (via translator) over the business case over it about fifteen months ago (just im@s 2 X360), over the business case. (He's a friend of mine, but it doesn't mean I don't spare him any quarter. Journalists don't generally do that, and besides, he likes me and finds me interesting because I challenge him a lot and I'm just a touch audacious.)
Some of the reasons can change rather quickly, others are more difficult (and require more time.) I'm only going to bother outlining the biggest reason why the business case will NEVER, EVER work as it stands.
- At the time, DLC sale rates for im@s L4U were about 20% of the whole catalog on average per copy (Bear in mind, that this is an average revenue, and M@D requesters generally get virtually everything, skewering these stats.) Considering it platinumed, and there sold about 70000MS points (Before everything went to 50% off), you can probably do the math at about 120-140US for 7000 MS points. (If you're wondering, it's only, uh, about $1000-1200 US total, or at the percentages $200-280US on top of EVERY COPY EVER SOLD. Mull those figures for a bit.)
From what info I got, he told me most of it was from songs, which are higher ticket items. He also told me during certain events, the DLC purchase rate spikes. (Some DLC are more popular than others, as you can guess.
(In a later discussion some time later, he told me that the rates of Kyun! Vampire Girl spiked compared to the rest. He didn't tell me how much and challenged me to try dig up the sales rates without him. I've yet to pull that one off accurately, although I do know the number's sufficently scary. *sigh*)
Now, here's the thing. You might want to sit down before you read the figures below.
The game sells for about 7850 yen. (About 100US - Scary, I know.)
The DLC per month sells for 10000-11000 yen (About 150-160 US) PER MONTH. (X360 is slightly cheaper at about 6500 MS points, or just shy of 140US a month)
This is fairly big money, as you can guess, even when you apply the 20%-33% sales rule. (About 2000-3500 yen for every copy sold - Or for reference, about 30-45 dollars US)
It's not much of a secret that NBGI make more from the DLC (it was in 2008/09's NBGI's annual report as a LINE ITEM) than they make from the game. Bear in mind part of the cost inflation is due to the fact that there's a PSN service charge factored into those prices. (And it's higher than the XBLA equilivant that they were charged when they had a deal with MS)
Now, that alone should explain why the business case for a US release is in fact suicide for im@s, but I don't expect everyone to understand it, so I'll explain it in full detail.
The point comes from 3 facts:
a) No one in the US in their right minds would spend 100 US on a locally translated game. There's been significant resistence beyond $60 US. Even though, I might add, the US pays less for a full price retail game than EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD, even to the point of resisting inflation.
(For an idea, the retail price of a new game locally is about 7000-8000 yen (the 100), 90-100 AU (Which in turn is... uh, about 100 US), 30-40 quid (Which in turn is about... 100 US)... you can probably see where this is going.)
b) No one in their right minds would spend 3x the cost of a game PER MONTH on DLC. Over the course of the game, maybe, but it's usually something called an expansion pack - See Disagea 3's DLC, or the numerous other packs.
Even if we kept the cost ratios the same, we'd still be at 1.2x the cost of the game (Give or take a bit). Now if we kept the ratio, we run across a third problem which will (unsurprisingly)blow any attempted business case out of the water.
This point is:
c) If they reduce the DLC by any non trivial amount (Of more than say 10-15%), they will see a MASSIVE, MASSIVE loss in revenue (in the order of 50%+!) as the Japanese market move to to the cheaper market.
Basically this would destroy the im@s revenue stream in its entirety. They sort of need it, since it finances their other promotional operations.
Why is this?
Well, you tell me. If you could import a copy of the game at half price, then pay only 3000-4000 yen importing US PSN cards for something that costs 10000-11000 yen, then why wouldn't you do it? We're only talking a 50-66% discount. Permament, effective immediately.
If you're going to claim 'But it'd be region locked and the Japanese will stay within their own borders' uh... You've been ignoring the entirety of the PS3 discussion here, since uh, the current im@s efforts are people breaking the Japanese ones, barriers or not.
Now if you can look at a business in the eye and tell them "Oh, we want you to lose oh, about 6-10 million US in secured revenue per year to make an unproven unknown size market happy" without the other party telling you rightfully to get the hell lost, I'd be impressed, and would advise you to go into business. (Possibly trying to land the im@s 2 PS3/X360 deal.)
Problem is, to make the game salable (even remotely so) you'd have to keep it to ratios at the very minimum. Namely, $50 for the game /$60 per catalog. (Or for comparison about 3500 yen/4000 yen)
The only way you can make this work is if you can prove that there's a proven 300k people in the US who will buy the game, assuming DLC rates hold and NISA do it for literally nothing.
On a realistic basis (namely NISA or the party doing the translation and localisation work actually get paid for their efforts) to make the same numbers add up, you'd need closer to 350k. If you assume DLC sales rates are half in the US (It wouldn't be a bad analytical estimate) you'd only need to get something closer to 650k in sales to justify losing that guranteed stream. (Because then, the statistics say you're about 66% likely to replace it with US subscribers, and remember, you're going to LOSE virtually ALL of your Japanese fanbase at those discount rates!)
Now, if you can prove that there's a decent chance of that fanbase magically showing up immediately, please let me know. I've been unable to prove there's a chance inside six standard deviations or so (Namely more than 0.005% and I've TRIED it using the statistics I have) that it'd happen.
You'd need it to basically be a megablockbuster right off the bat, rivalling the likes of say Battlefield 3 or something. You'd need significant cutthrough and well...
For the tl;dr crowd, just read the lovely line bolded, underlined and in red. That should explain why it won't happen.
There's OTHER reasons (cultural and other brand concerns) but the business case note as per above is the big hurdle. They report all their earnings in yen, which in turn causes further issues.
The easiest way to fix this problem is actually pretty simple - fix the US economy and actually make it perform well so that the exchange rate is closer to 200 yen to the USD, then they'd be jumping at the bit.
... Although that SOUNDS really easy, even though US congress is struggling so much with it at the moment. But I'm not a US citizen, so that's your problem to solve.
It'd probably be easier to carpet nuclear bomb Japan to destroy its economy if you wanted that result, although this would most likely destroy NBGI in the process, and consequently no further im@s.
I will also note, ironically, it's easier to release it to the rest of the world and skip the US as a market, since the ratios would actually hold and the costs would be more or less similar. (Australia would be a good example of this - the cost of games is about the same as the Japanese counterparts after exchange rates.)
Namely after exchange rates, the discount would be only about 5-10%, or basically, any attempts to import will lose that margin due to the fact middlemen and logistics would eat into the savings, making it a bit of a moot point.
Then again, it may not be worth the initial investment - If we saw 10k copies of im@s 2 sell in Australia, I'd actually be impressed, and the profits wouldn't offset the costs involved in translating and bringing the game over.
Take it as you will, but until you address the point in red, no way in hell. You're asking NBGI to bet destroying their franchise just to make an unknown market happy.
Edit: Oh I forgot the other counter argument.
They could make the business case work, ONCE the game is completed and the DLC discount rates are applied to im@s 2.
There's only one problem with that.
Live for you applied this discount rate in late 2010.
When did the game come out? Uh, Spring 2007!
The catalogs completed in late 2009/early 2010 from memory.
Essentially the only way to surmount this business case is to wait literally, 2 and a half years after release, or more accurately about 9 to 12 months after the last Japanese catalog finished.
It's an easier swallow, but would a two and a half year old game be an easy sell? Well, NISA got burnt after dealing with STV, so they're not that eager to get into that...
