During this past weekend’s Japan expo, French Tales fan site Kingdom of Tales sat down with Namco Tales Studio exec Makoto Yoshizumi to talk the series’ status in the west.
Asked if Tales of Xillia‘s European arrival depends on sales of Tales of Graces F (and we’re assuming if it comes there, it will come to the U.S., too), Yoshizumi responded: “No, no, its [localization] is completely independent of Graces F‘s sales. Xillia will come if fans show they are really enthusiastic about the game.”
Kingdom of Tales joked, asking if this means fans should spam Namco’s Facebook page once again. Yoshizumi laughed and said: “Yes, that’s one example.”
On Graces F, Yoshizumi said the game would come out in Europe by summer 2012. He couldn’t say anything regarding whether or not the downloadable content that released in Japan would come west.
Regarding whether or not Tales of Graces for Wii will come west, Yoshizumi said it’s pretty much “impossible,” given the fact that the PlayStation 3 version has so much extra content. “We wish to deliver the best and most complete experience to U.S. and European fans,” said Yoshizumi. “Therefore, we’re localizing Tales of Graces F. The PS3 version is on a blu-ray disc, so it would be next to impossible to condense all the game’s data to [fit on] a Wii disc. Unfortunately, there will be no Wii release.”
On the subject of high-definition ports of older games, Yoshizumi said: “This is something we’d like to do and we’re working to see if it would be possible to port older games like Phantasia, Destiny, and Eternia — not only in Japan, but throughout the world. However, I still can not give much information about this. We’re still discussing whether this project can be done and which game console ports would be made.”
Tales of the Abyss, which is coming to Nintendo 3DS this year, sold 250,000 copies in Japan already, according to Yoshizumi. “Well, I’d say [we sold] 250,000 copies,” he said. “We also hope we’ll be able to release more Tales games on the 3DS.”
Finally, concerning Tales of Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss director Yoshito Higuchi, who isn’t directing Tales of Xillia, Yoshizumi says he is working on a new game that is not part of the Tales series. He labeled the project “important” and said we’ll “hear about it soon,” but not at the Tokyo Game Show. “You’ll have to wait a little longer [than that],” he teased.
The latest Tales release, Tales of the Abyss for Nintendo 3DS, hits the United States and Europe this year. A concrete U.S. date has not been set, but it is scheduled for November 11, 2011 in Europe.