Localisation pays
All savvy businessmen know what fantastic opportunities can be opened up by localisation; whether it be localisation of Websites, Product Manuals, or promotional and sales literature. Indeed, it is a proven statistic that companies who sell their products abroad and who accompany their initial sales launch of a product in a foreign territory with fully localised literature and advertising, are 40% more likely to keep within their projected launch budgets than their less diligent rivals.
In just such a move to steal a march on their competitors, leading games software developer Codemasters, is about to roll out a fully localised version of their most recent release ‘GRID’ in Japanese as part of a major sales push in Japan. The localised game will come in both Xbox 360 and PS3 formats.
GRID, as you might have guessed, is a driving simulator game and the localised Japanese version will come complete with full Japanese speech and text and will also feature localised race locations such as Tokyo Shibuya, Yokohama and Haruna; additionally, it will also feature specifically Japanese events such as Drift and Touge events.
Initial indications are that this localised release of GRID is being eagerly awaited in Japan and should be a runaway success. This once again strongly proves the worth of localisation and the benefits to be accrued from same.