In reality, however, games localization has not captured much interest outside of its own group of practitioners – until recently, that is. (Read The GILT Industry and the Cultural Gap and Challenges in Video Games Localization) Given the increasing interest in games research and the growing business implications, the tide is about to turn, though – we will be hearing a lot more about games localization in the near future. This makes TGS a highly relevant topic for our readers. In an attempt to convey the excitement and the sense of new opportunities opening up for the localization industry, this article reports a few highlights from TGS 2006.

Largest Game Show in the World

Being the largest of its kind, TGS every year draws from all over the world tens of thousands of attendants who are game fans, along with those who have business interests. This year was the 10th anniversary of the event and drew the biggest number of visitors ever – close to 200,000. Exhibitors filled up nearly 1,500 booth spaces at the international convention and exhibition center, Makuhari Messe, located some 40 minutes train-ride away from central Tokyo. While fans simply want to have a go at the latest game titles, TGS is also a fantastic arena for game developers and publishers to promote their current product line-ups and to showcase “up-and-coming” game titles. Exhibitors this year included Japanese educational institutions that offer specialized courses to train future professionals to work in the game industry.

TGS kicked off with Business Day on September 23, with the streets leading to Messe literally lined with people, many heading to the first keynote session by Ken Kutaragi, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment. Among the participants were those sharply dressed in business suits mingled with hip-hop types – mostly male, but with a good dose of females scattered throughout the crowd. There was also a noticeable presence of non-Japanese, including those from other parts of Asia, endorsing the game boom in recent years – particularly Korea and China.

The seminar hall was packed with several hundred people seated and nearly a hundred standing, squeezed around the sides and back of the room – all waiting to hear what Kutaragi would have to say about the PlayStation3 (PS3) and its delayed release schedule. Establishing the theme of his presentation as the future of games, Kutaragi started with brief demo visuals of PS3 games, including Ridge Rider 7, Virtual Fighter 5, Final Fantasy XIII and Gundam: Target in Sight. The HD quality picture of the play scenes for each game was so compelling that it almost made the usual distinction with the resolution quality of pre-rendered movies disappear. Kutaragi stressed the new features of PS3 to be superior, real-time play dimensions and responsiveness. For example, one area of technological innovation is the advancement of the controller to reflect intuitive, secure and accurate control by the player. Anybody who has played console games is familiar with the frustration caused by the time delay between pressing the button on the controller and waiting for the action to actually take place on the screen. The responsiveness is crucial in games such as racing titles. It is also a big issue for localization, particularly when the game is converted between NTSC and PAL.

The Marriage Between Computer and Entertainment

Kutaragi insisted that it is the marriage between computer and entertainment that makes video games such an exciting and innovative platform – obviously illustrated by the name of his own company, i.e., Sony Computer Entertainment. The use of the computer is indeed what makes video games different from other conventional forms of entertainment. And this is also what makes localization different from other types of translation that are geared primarily for conventional print media. Just as the game industry becomes more and more sophisticated with the latest technologies, it in turn creates new challenges for the translator and the localizer alike. (Read Current Trends in Games Localization.)

Kutaragi talked about the exciting scope of breaking the conventional mold of pre-packaged software to venture into games that exploit the network capability to allow players to procure the necessary components for the game. The client-server model is used by many different applications and services today, including translation services where the translation function is placed on the server, or where translation memory or a terminology management system is located there. So this concept is not new, but it is new for console games and appears set to become one of the standard characteristics of the next generation. However, today’s internet is still not robust enough and has vulnerabilities in coping with the demand which this kind of real-time game playing will generate. For example, HD quality images currently cannot be achieved in network mode. However, it is just a matter of time before this will be overcome with the advent of Web 2.0 and beyond.

Looking toward the future, Kutaragi envisions the potential use of increasingly available map data on the internet. His vision is to combine such data and individual building blueprint information to reveal minute details on each building and to use them in games in real-time. It was interesting to learn that racing titles such as Grand Turismo use information based on actual location research and car data made available by car manufacturers. If what Kutaragi calls the global map system (GMS) becomes available and open to the public, he sees players uploading a local map showing their own office, living room or any other locality familiar to them, to create a customized setting in a game. Given the already high penetration of GPS (global positioning systems) and the increasing accessibility to geographical maps on the internet, the concept of GMS does not sound far-fetched at all.

Allowing Players to Create Their Own Content

Another interesting possibility Kutaragi discussed was his desire for openness and cooperation in creating game content. He suggested that the communication between the creator and the player through games should be open to allow the user to participate in content creation. Referring to the new phenomenon of podcasting, where amateurs broadcast their own production through various media on the internet, Kutaragi talked about a serious role to be played by amateur creators contributing their productions as part of game content. He suggested that new-generation games should be open to incorporate feedback from players, industry and news media.

Fan-subs and Scanlation

The idea of creating a superior product in collaboration between amateur and expert is particularly interesting in light of a similar development in the area of translation, where fan-based translation activities are spreading on the internet in the form of fan-subs and scanlation. The former refer to subtitles produced for Japanese animation, and the latter to translations of manga entirely produced by fans and distributed worldwide on the internet. In a very similar way to games, the increasing volume and popularity of fan-based translation activities may give rise to the possibility of some form of collaborative translation between professional and amateur translators. Amateurs often have subject-specialist knowledge in a particular genre of anime or manga that can complement the professional translator’s knowledge in those areas. It is interesting to note that even large commercial enterprises are recognizing the potential power of tapping into lay people’s talent, which would never have been possible prior to the internet. (For more on anime, read From Tokyo to Barcelona: Translating Japanese Anime into Catalan and Bringing Fantasy to Reality: Localizing Final Fantasy.

The game industry has already involved amateur players for beta testing of games. However, Kutaragi’s suggestion seems to take the current consumer participation a step further. This provides food for thought for the translation and localization industry as well. The argument is convincing, given that the direction is in keeping with the original cooperative spirit introduced by the internet and, to some extent, with the concept of open source computer programs. We may see in the future the breakdown of the “closed shop mode” that has been responsible for products remaining stuck in the mold of pre-packaged, static content.

Kutaragi also suggested that the next decade would be even more dynamic and interesting than the previous one for the game industry. As a complete change from super-modern and mechanistic images of the world around us, Kutaragi finished his session with fantastic images of wildlife from the new PS3 game title, Afrika, which is currently under production (Afrika is the Swahili term for Africa).

Sony PS3 to Debut November 11 in Japan

Gazing into the future is interesting enough, but I suspect that the best news from Kutaragi for ardent PlayStation fans was the fact that the price for the PS3 will be lowered to 49,800 yen (USD 430 / Euro 400), and that it will be released in Japan on November 11, well in advance of Christmas.

Nintendo on the Edge

The first day’s business sessions included a number of specialized seminars. One of the most popular sessions was mobile gaming, which is clearly a trend for translators and localizers to watch vis-a-vis the severe limitations on space. Throughout the seminars, the recent phenomenal success of Nintendo DS (a handheld game machine) and its impact on the Japanese game industry was talked about, making Nintendo’s complete absence at TGS rather ironic.

One of the best-selling game titles for Nintendo DS in Japan has been a series of brain teasers designed for Japan’s aging population. The nifty machine has elements of speech recognition functionality, as well as handwriting recognition, all of which are cleverly combined into games to exercise different parts of the brain. I hope to see these games localized for other markets, as I can vouch for these games being good, regardless of age. (For an update on how Nintendo is now allowing gamers to create characters within games, read Nintendo Gives Design Power to the Player.)

I returned to the Messe once again for the public day session on Sunday to find out why the general public flocks to TGS. Each booth had a varying scale of promotional activities going on, with some companies hosting game developers, designers and popular voice talents from their game titles or providing the opportunity for attendees to compete against each other in public on a new game. Huge queues were everywhere as people waited to try out new game titles by their favorite game publishers. Particularly popular were the booths of Sager, the game developer/publisher Square Enix, and, of course, Sony, where people could try out the yet-to-be-publicly-unveiled PS3.

Also eye-catching was a crowd of cos-play (costume-play) people who were clad in self-made costumes of their favorite characters from different games and animes being photographed by other participants. There were many Japanese families with young children who did not even blink upon encountering some of these outrageously dressed characters. Young and old mingled at the TGS (remember – who plays Nintendo DS?!), Japanese and non-Japanese, mixed with way-out cos-play parties and revealingly dressed young female companions – all of whom created an unexpected harmony linked by their love of games. TGS may not be for the faint-hearted or those moralists who can only see the negative aspects of games, but I found it to be a great source for inspiration for thinking about the future of translation and localization.