Can Oblivion Survive In Japan?

Bethesda walks on Square Enix turf and says "we're here to pwn the RPG segment, step off." Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but Bethesda is bringing Oblivion to Japan... Bethesda producer Ashley Chang wrote in the companies blog (everyone has a blog!) stating:

"Oblivion is the first Elder Scrolls game to ever be localized into Japanese. Japan is about to experience an open-ended RPG, the likes they’ve never seen before. The Elder Scrolls is a very different breed of RPG from Japanese RPGs, and we can’t wait to see how it does. Hopefully our initial Famitsu scores are a pretty good indicator that we’ll do well."

Historically, Famitsu score helps dictate success in Japan (still up for debate on if they're paid to get higher scores) so Elder Scrolls does have a chance. The biggest uphill battle will be to get Xbox 360's into the hands of Japanese RPG fans that are current Wii and PlayStation 2 owners.

The fact that Blue Dragon did well in Japan and sold consoles is some solace but that had ex-Final Fantasy designers working on it. Bethesda is very much a western RPG company trying their hand in Japan.

They're looking on the bright side of the release:

"Now I’m no industry analyst, but IMHO, Oblivion will be a breakout hit in Japan. Early feedback is that the preorders have been very good. It has the potential to drive 360 sales much like Blue Dragon did. However, the PS3 does have a larger install base in Japan, so we do have the PS3 version of Oblivion Japanese coming later this year."

Bethesda developers are thinking "hit," what do you folks think? Can it overtake the land of the rising RPG?

source: joystiq