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Friday, February 19, 2010

Cave Statement: Ominous and a Bit Clammy

After the utter joy that fans outside of Japan must have felt about the ability to play the regular edition of ESPGaluda II on their domestic consoles, Cave has issued the following statement on their blogsite:

2010年2月18日 (木)

Thank you

Thank you for the warm messages from all over the world.
Espgaluda II Black Label Normal Edition is region free.
But I'm afraid new games after Espgaluda II Black Label won't be region free.
I assure you that Espgaluda II Black Label Normal Edition will be the last region free game for the time being.

Cave

Makoto Asada


Wow. What happened? My heart is broken. But perhaps this is a good sign? That maybe a publisher here is interested in localizing their future games? If you think about it for a moment, it will not make sense for them to release region-free games if those same games are going to be released officially for the North American or European market because then who is going to buy those games a year after the region-free release? Then again, does it make sense to region-code games anymore? Sony has abandoned that ancient practice with the PlayStation 3 and almost all North American X-Box 360 releases are not region-locked. This world is filled with draconian sensibilities wherever you turn and that applies to the gaming industry as well. I guess everything was just too good to be true after all. Well, I did suggest that maybe Cave should invest on an outside publisher for simultaneous worldwide releases of their future games in my recent thank you letter. I'm just hoping that some good will come out of this rather cryptic and disappointing announcement from Cave.

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