I spoke to Brian from Tecmo today, and while he could not tell me anything concrete, he did say that there has been talk around the US office about MR projects. At, this point, though, he isn't allowed to release details. So, as usual, we will know more about the next game when it is almost completed.

What a tease.

Why is it that hardly any tecmo games get released in Australia? There have been at least two tecmo games released in PAL format, so there should be no problem with releasing them in that format.

I want another monster rancher game.

:(

"so there should be no problem with releasing them in that format."

Wrong. Tecmo has never, ever released a game in PAL regions. They do not have an office set up to do so. Every Tecmo game released in PAL regions has been published by another publisher. Take another look at your Monster Rancher game. It was published and localized by SCEE, not Tecmo. Take a look at the XBox games, all published and localized by Microsoft. The old PAL SNES and NES games were all published and localized by outside publishers.

For a Tecmo game to be released by another publisher, that publisher has to be convinced that it's a good business strategy. They need to see that a game has solid sales numbers in the North American market, since the NA market's tastes and trends closely follow trends in the PAL markets (with the exception of some sports titles). That way, they won't lose money on their investment. The MR2 game sold more copies than any other MR title, about 186,403 copies. However, the average PSX title sold about 300,000 copies. And, that 300,000 number is, for most publishers, the break even point where they start to make a little money on a game. SCEE lost money on MR2, so they see no reason to release any other MR titles, particularly any with worse sales numbers. And, convincing another publisher to risk their investment capital is going to be a tough sell. Generally, to make a decent amount of money, particularly on PS2 games which are more work, a publisher must sell well above 300,000 units.

Until the Tecmo games become runaway best sellers here in North America, instead of being a niche market, very few (if any) will ever be licensed by outside publishers to be published in PAL regions.

I spoke to Brian again today, no firm news yet.

Why would you tell us that you spoke to him without any information about what, or even any news.
Thats like me saying
"I heard some things about stuff"

no it's not, eric. it is an update on what is being said by a tecmo employee about the game which this site is about.

I was speaking about the Thursday, January 27 post

Which wouldn't make any sense, seeing as Lisa never said anything about talking to anyone in her post on January 27th.

Now, as for the one on January 11th, that one could be misunderstood.

The basic fact that Lisa is trying to get by: Talk of another MR game has reached the US office, so we might (or will) be getting another MR game. You have to remember that just because a game is released in Japan or elsewhere does not mean it will be released here...