Hideo Baba, producer and brand manager of the Tales of series, has suggested a Western release of Tales of Innocence R is possible, if enough people play Tales of Hearts R.
In an in-depth interview with JPGames, Baba was first asked about the decision for Bandai Namco games to release Tales of Hearts R, the PS Vita role-playing game, in the West. Baba said the vocal support for releasing Tales of Heart R and Tales of Innocence R in Western territories were the result of Bandai Namco promoting the RPG series more actively in North America and Europe. With Tales of Hearts R being a recent release from the company, it was decided the game would be localized for PS Vita owners outside Japan. When asked if there’s a chance Tales of Innocence R could get a Western release as well, Baba said the game was only meant for the Japanese gaming market. However, he did say Tales of Hearts R was also never meant for Western territories.
“The localization of Tales of Hearts R really was an exception,” Baba said. “Because so many fans asked us to bring the game to the west, we wanted to fulfill the fans’ wishes. Like with Hearts R, Innocence R was not intended to be localized in the first place, and that is still the case now. So presently I cannot answer if Tales of Innocence R will ever be released on European markets.” Does Tales of Innocence R release in North America and Europe depend of sales performance of Tales of Hearts R in the West? Baba said it’s a combination of that and how many people will play Tales of Hearts R. “Not only the sales figures matter. The more people play the game the more likely it is [that Tales of Innocence R will be released in the west].”
Tales of Hearts R for the PS Vita will be released in North America in winter 2014. The game will be available to purchase as a digital title, while physical copies will be sold exclusively at GameStop.
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
