Titanfall Devs Surprised At Japan's Positive Reaction

At this year's Tokyo Game Show, the surprise show-stealer was Respawn Entertainment's Titanfall, which by the end of the show had four-hour-long queues snaking around the Xbox One booth. What's particularly surprising about this is A) it's on the Xbox, which historically hasn't performed well in Japan, and B) it's a first-person-shooter, which is not as big of a genre in Japan as it is in the west. Respawn's community manager Abbie Heppe was just as surprised by the game's positive reaction, telling Xbox One Magazine "It was crazy."

"We weren't really exactly sure how Titanfall would read with the Japanese audience. It's a first-person shooter and that hasn't always been the biggest genre there, so it was like 'Eh, we'll go to Japan and see what happens' and the coolest thing was that we came away and got a ton of feedback about the Titans from the Japanese audience there, and it was really nice."

Anyone who has delved into Japanese anime or videogames will know that mechs are kind of a big deal to Japanese people. "It's probably the biggest compliment you can get, that you take mechs to Japan and they like them. That was awesome," commented Heppe.

Heppe says that while Western audiences were most impressed with the speed and velocity of the game,for the Japanese, it was all about the mechs, something she found amusing because "When we were first starting to figure out how we were going to talk about Titanfall it was like 'lets not use the word mech'. Because mech has, especially with Western gamers, an association of slow and heavy, and you have these expectations of gameplay that really wasn't what Titanfall is."

However, going to Japan changed the team's perception. "We really shied away from the word and then we went to Japan and it was really embraced there. 'Ok, so we are going to talk about mech here.'"

Shooters, like Call of Duty and Battlefield are slowly starting to gain traction in Japan in recent times. Maybe it won't be a "big-name Japanese RPG" that sways the Japanese to the Xbox One, but Titanfall.

Source: Xbox One Magazine

Read more at

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130104-Titanfall-Devs-Surprised-At-Japans-Positive-Reaction-to-its-Game

Why? It has mechs... Japan fap to mechs.

The 20 Japanese Xbone owners will be thrilled.

The 21 Japanese Xbone owners will be thrilled.

Thats Mecha for Japan. Stuff like NGE and Gundam. Over here, we seen mechs like the ones in my sig.

please guys dont show me Titanfall, it makes the entire library of PS4 looks boring just stop the pain.

Why? It has mechs.

I hope thats a really bad joke...

Titanfall is going to dominate! even the japs are having buyers remorse over the PS4!

its not, lems brains aren't working properly since ps4's launch. A cod clone with mechs running IN SEVEN TWENTY P with an engine from 04 that supports only 12-14players makes something like BF4 which is already released boring? LOL

well duh, Japan loves mechs

Oh Yeah, Hot Mech Porn !

So whatever happened to Lost Planet 3 anyway? :p

I'm not sure if this is a PR thing "Oh wow even Japan loves us!!!" or they were pretty ill informed of Japans gaming culture being huge on mech-type games.

@silversix_: but you said it was coming to ps4 lol

This. Too bad it means nothing for respawn unless those interested have a good enough PC, you know they won't be buying up X1's just to play titanfall.

People in Japan loves everything with robots/mechs

I don't think they even know what's pc gaming

Yup, they must be really ignorant to not know that. :P

Japan has a fetish for robots, humanoid animals ( furry's ) and tentacles.

Japan gets on mechs like Westerners get on guns and blood.

and boobs, don't forget the boobs.

@Joedgabe: oh yes, how did I forget? ><

Yeah, not surprising at all.

You live in Japan?

Something tells me that most Japs who are gamers (which is damn near all of them) already have a good enough PC to run Titanfail.

After all, aren't these the most tech savvy people of the planet?

I don't think PC gaming is very popular in Japan.... you got the wrong country i think.. i know it's the #1 gamers choice in south korea though.

Put some generic anime decals of scantily dressed pre-pubescent kids on the mechs and they'll be all over it. It's a recurring theme in JRPGs.

@ -Unreal-

Its theres nothing wrong with that, its the gameplay thats the reall problem

I'm not seeing the problem with the gameplay. Rather, dare I say it actually looks fun.

@ nervmeister

It never evolves every time they try to improve the gameplay of any JRPG fans act like their baby is being stolen from them. They just want it to be longer and more complicated.

could told you that... 90% anime i watch has mechs

but When is the x1 planned to release in japan lol

They aren't going to play the game on the X1, you know that right?

And apparently they forgot that people don't need to own an X1 to play the damn game, lol.

Someone needs to make a "how to build a pc guide" Japanese version on youtube, dedicated to Titanfall and Japanese fans.

It'll be all kawaii and shit.

And yet still better than anything I've seen on the PS4, it must be hard to be a PS fan these days. Each to their own though, Sony first party has always catered to a certain breed of gamer.

Really? They are surprised a game with mechs would garner attention in Japan? How stupid are they?

Cool opinion you got there bra. For me TitanFall looks as generic as they come. No more than CoD with mechs. Gosh, I hope this game flops HARD. It'll be a full day on SW

Theyll get it when it comes to PS4. This is even more reason for EA to bring it to PS4. Either its sequel or Titanfall with something else in its name and more content.

A game with giant robots excite Japanese more news at 10..

They love mech games,Gundan and many others are loved there,+ basically any series that was worth seeing in cartoon about robots was make by the Japanese including Mazinger z and even Voltron.

This thread is getting abit Racy.

I'd prefer a japanese version with Gundams and huge boobs honestly.

Get on it Bamco.

@Joedgabe: I would agree in general, but there are plenty of hardcore Japanese PC gamers. I remember for a while the top Battlefield 2 player was a Japanese guy.

FPSs are obviously picking up traction in the Japanese market, especially with certain shooter attributes being put into games like MGS and Lost Planet. Even if the Japanese don't take to the Xbox One, they can always get Titanfall on PC.