No Export For You / Video Games

These franchises have their own pages:

• Pokémon
• Tales Series

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Game Company-Specific Examples

These examples are sorted by company name.

• Few of the AliceSoft games have historically made it in the US due to their controversial nature. AliceSoft even blocked off their website to any and all foreigners. Beat Blades Haruka was later set to receive an official localization, and their flagship Rance series has been picked up by Manga Gamer for official English localization (all titles from 5D up to Rance X are planned for English release). The Evenicle series is also being brought to the US, with the first game released in 2018 and the second in 2022.
• There is no Atlus Europe so any game they make or translate has a hard time coming there. Their in-house games are great, as other companies pick them up sometimes (like Nintendo with Trauma Center). The games they license for translation from other companies though, like Summon Night or Super Robot Wars for the Game Boy Advance, are still without European localization. In the case of Etrian Odyssey, the original version of Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard wasn't released there, but its 3DS remake was. Unfortunately, Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City wasn't so lucky, as the original version wasn't made available in the region either and there was no remake or rerelease to make up for that. It took 13 years for Europe to finally get both missing games via an HD compilation of the first three games, thus improving the status to Remade for the Export.
• Bethesda's earlier Elder Scrolls installments ended up becoming this in Japan after the fact. After Microsoft released the Xbox in Japan, American gamers received the third installment, Morrowind. Xbox sales tanked in East Asia, and the powers that be had a case of And You Thought It Would Fail. However, without Region Coding on the console, Japanese gamers could still play Morrowind in English via Import Gaming. Interest in the game spread by word-of-mouth, turning the game into a Sleeper Hit on both PC and the handful of Xbox consoles in Japan. Eventually, the fandom created sites with instructions, walkthroughs, explanations, resources, and plot overviews in Japanese all the way up to complete fan translation patches. Bethesda eventually noticed the publicity, and made sure to create a Japanese localization of Oblivion and later Fallout 3. Oblivion also follows First Installment Wins over in Japan, as it is the installment where most Japanese started playing. Westerners usually exercize this trope over Morrowind or Daggerfall. Because of this, Oblivion was sometimes less well received in the West. Japan has managed to invert this when it comes to game mods. All Elder Scrolls games have a strong modding community, however many Japanese modders are notoriously xenophobic and like to flaunt their admittedly brilliant creations to the west then deny any access to them, to the great frustration of many.
• Ace Attorney Investigations was never released in any language other than Japanese and English. A German group of fans is rebelling against this and currently doing a fantranslation, similar to the English one that was done for Mother 3. As of August 2012, the French and Spanish fans have gotten into the mix. The first episode has been fully fan-translated into Spanish. Later on, no one outside of Japan got Ace Attorney Investigations 2, at least not on DS. Capcom has kept the door open for a release some other way, but it seems more a token gesture than anything else (however, if they turned out to have intentions to change the system, it wouldn't be the first time a company did so — Rising Star Games, the European publisher of the Harvest Moon series, didn't get around to releasing the Nintendo GameCube game Harvest Moon: Magical Melody in its region until its system's successor, the Wii, had already replaced it, resulting in a port to the latter for that region and later in North America by the publisher there, Natsume). The English fan-translated version of Investigations 2 is now complete, link available on the main Ace Attorney Investigations page.
• Every Cave Shoot 'Em Up after DoDonPachi has gotten an Asia-only release; if you want, say, Mushihime Sama or Espgaluda on the PS2, and live outside of there, expect to shell out at least the equivalent of US$70, the same price you'd pay for a PlayStation 5 or XBox Series X title nowadays (unless you are an extremely good bargain hunter). Then again, shoot-em-ups, especially the bullet hell kind, are a niche genre here in the United States. There were plans to bring a couple of the games to XBLA, but Microsoft rejected. Cave has been trying to avert this, as they've given some of their games some form of English release (Deathsmiles, Guwange), or at the very least have made them region-free (Mushihime-sama Futari, EspGaluda II Black Label), making importing them much easier. This continued even in the face of Aksys (who published the US version of Deathsmiles) saying they're not interested in publishing additional shooters for the US. Deathsmiles IIX actually received a US release - in the form of the unedited Japanese game (Japanese Achievements left intact) available over Games on Demand. Even when Cave could find no willing publishers for an American release of DoDonPachi Resurrection, Rising Star Games made their European release of the game compatible with American consoles, in a bizarre inversion of the usual situation (usually, Europe's the one importing from America). Mishihimesama, DoDonPachi Resurrection, and Deathsmiles received a release on Steam in 2015-16, but no new ports have been made since then.
• Games developed by C-Lab, Rusty and Totsugeki! Mix, never made outside of Japan, thanks to being released on the PC-98, which was also a Japan-only computer system (although NEC had attempted to market the PC98 outside Japan, they quickly gave up due to incompability with IBM PC compatible software, more on that below). Not even their MS-DOS versions were released elsewhere. Rusty did however receive an English fan-translation in 2017.
• A bunch of titles by Fill-in Café remained in Japan.
  • Asuka 120% Burning Fest, a fighting series about highschool girls representing different school clubs duking it out against each other is one of their more notable titles, with a bunch of revisions and re-releases across different platform, none of which got released anywhere else.
  • Panzer Bandit, what could be described as the PlayStation's answer to the Saturn's Guardian Heroes, stayed in Japan and never got localized in any shape or form. It did, however, got re-released on Play Station Network in Japan, so anyone with a Japanese account and the yen to purchase the game can import it this way.
  • Mad Stalker: Full Metal Force, a game where you take control of giant mechas beating the tar out of each other sounds like something worth bringing out to Western shores, too bad it never left Japan. Not even the PlayStation remake got released anywhere else, but like Panzer Bandit, is available on the Japanese PlayStation Store.
• For a long time, it was extremely unlikely that any of Key's works would be licensed outside Japan. Their publisher, Visual Art's, stated in 2011 that they had no interest in the overseas market and would only reconsider if it seemed profitable. The Visual Art's main page is even blocked for foreigners like AliceSoft's above. However, this was eventually reversed. In 2013, Planetarian, a kinetic novel, was officially translated into English and available on iOS devices worldwide. The English publisher polled fans in 2014 on whether they wanted to see more, and that same year, CLANNAD, which was already probably their most popular work in the Anglosphere, was announced for an English release on Steam.
• Almost any BEMANI series that isn't DanceDanceRevolution or beatmania.
  • This got worse in The New '10s when Konami started implementing always-on DRM and various in-game events carried out over eAMUSEMENT, Konami's arcade game network service. The former means you can't play the game unless you're in an arcade that's registered with Konami, and the latter, while beneficial for players within Konami's markets, means that fans who are left with no choice but to pirate the games will be left out of the loop with regards to new songs. A fan-run clone of the eAMUSEMENT network was launched in 2011 to provide services not available on offline cabs, as well as to allow online-requiring cabs to run at all, but Konami dropped the hammer on it in 2015.
  • A Wii version of pop'n music was produced and even got an American release ... but it was turned into a motion controlled game using just the Wii Remote and nunchuck. Thankfully, it did share a similar art style to the actual series. But even worse, it even spawned an arcade version; the American version was only tested as a redemption game (and had a very unfitting logo), but a Japanese version was released under the name "HELLO! POP'N MUSIC".
  • jubeat and REFLEC BEAT made it outside of Asia, however, as jukebeat and Reflec Beat + for iOS. While playing on even an iPad isn't the same as playing on an arcade cabinet, at least all non-licensed songs eventually make it to the international version, and the development team is kind enough not to otherwise screw over non-Japanese players. Played straight with earlier versions of jubeat in some parts of Asia though—Malaysia wasn't officially getting jubeat—the cabinets available in the country are either parallel imports (hence e-Amusement is disabled for these machines), or Shoddy Knockoff Products from Taiwan called E-magic, Magic Box or Magic Touch. It seems that jubeat saucer is the first jubeat game to have an official release in Malaysia.
• The works of Max Entertainment never left Japan at all. The most well-known of their creations, so to speak, is Feda: The Emblem of Justice, which got an Updated Re-release for the Sega Saturn, as well as a PlayStation sequel, Feda 2: White Surge the Platoon. There also exists The Sentou, another PlayStation game.
• Subverted with visual novel producer minori, who were very adamant about not releasing anything outside Japan, openly berating fan translators, filing C&D forms, blocking foreign IPs and throwing in some xenophobic remarks along the way. In September 2010 the company enlisted their former nemesis, the fansubbing group No Name Losers (known for translating many minori titles) as their official localization team. minori's current homepage
• Monolith Soft. The three Xenosaga and two Baten Kaitos games released in North America aside (the former of which, as mentioned earlier got screwed in Europe in particular). This means Americans will probably never get to see the Xenosaga side games/DS remake, Disaster, and Soma Bringer among things.
• Bandai Namco Entertainment, thanks in large parts for their treatment of English-speakers with the massive Tales Series (more details on its page above) and plenty of their lesser intellectual properties, also has clear shades of this. Aside from that, they've also been giving Wangan Midnight fans in the Americas and Europe the cold shoulder since 2011, by suddenly deciding not to export Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 4 onwards to Europe and the Americas. And oh, let's not get started on the Nintendo arcade collabs (No F-Zero AX for you!) and kiddie rides (no riding on Lapras for you!). Bandai Namco Entertainment finally released Maximum Tune 5 in the US... in 2017. This, however, means that Maximum Tune 4 has been skipped over for US release. Furthermore, this release only moves things up to Bad Export for You^note Aside from the fact that the US is two versions behind Asia and Australia, the card porting service will not be revived for the market, meaning US players have to start over... Either way, the trope is still in play with Europe and the UK.
• Nintendo has long held not done any official releases in places other than the Americas, Europe, Oceania^note Australia and New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, or Hong Kong, and continues this non-practice today. Mainland China sort of counts, since they partner with other companies to release products there under the latter's branding. But if you're a Nintendo fan from, say, the Middle East or Southeast Asia, have fun paying extra to import.
• Almost all of Nintendo's online services, such as the eShop or Wii Shop, aren't available in many second or third world countries. Yes, this means losing the ability to use Swapnote on a 3DS (since the player is unable to access the eShop he/she is unable to update to the newest version of Swapnote. Kicker here being that Swapnote comes preloaded on all 3DS) and inability to transfer game saves from a Wii to a Wii U (which requires downloading a channel from the Wii Shop on the Wii), despite said countries having a Nintendo-appointed representative.
• The Quiz Magical Academy series will likely never see a non-Japanese release, just because it has so many questions and answers to translate that localization at best be a massively harrowing effort that even the best-paid video game translators wouldn't dare to try and at worst require changing or removing questions for cultural purposes on such a grand scale.
• The very first game in the Rhythm Heaven series for the Game Boy Advance did not make it stateside or in Europe for much the same reason as Mother 3; Nintendo's overseas branches saw the GBA as a dead platform by the time the game came out in Japan and simply chose not to localize it. The arcade port would find its way into a small handful of American arcades, though.
• Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan and its sequel also never came over due to the extreme difficulty of localizing foreign concepts. In an example of Tropes Are Not Bad, a Gaiden Game was developed that utilized more Western music and aesthetics, resulting in Elite Beat Agents. It was flipped around when Elite Beat Agents became popular for importers in Japan due to that game having similar problems with importing and localizing certain concepts. The trade-off was that the Agents became unlockable in the second Ouendan game.
• Fire Emblem:
  • The first six installments were released only in Japan, until Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros." and proved there might be a market for the series overall after all. They still cancelled plans to localize the first Game Boy Advance title, Fuuin no Tsurugi (Sword of Seals, aka "The One With Roy"), which was still in development when Melee was released. This caused a bit of confusion with some of the nods to Sword of Seals and Mystery of the Emblem present in Blazing Sword and Shadow Dragon respectively, plus the notorious newbie question "Are Marth and Roy in this game?".^note They're not even in the same 'verse due to the series making liberal use of Non-Linear Sequels
  • New Mystery of the Emblem for DS came out in Japan in 2010, and stayed there. Nintendo has yet to explain why this game in particular got skipped for localization, though being released right at the tail end of the DS's lifespan, and the beginning of the 3DS's, might have contributed to it.
  • The last two DLC packs for Fire Emblem Fates, "Hoshidan Festival of Bonds" and "Nohrian Festival of Bonds", never came to the West for no apparent reason.
  • The latest Fire Emblem card game, Fire Emblem Cipher, also never made it stateside. This made it all the more surprising when a DLC for Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia based on Cipher actually did make it over.
• Three out of the four Clock Tower games have been exported. The one that wasn't was the very first game, which was released on the Super Famicom.^note This due to NoA's policies at the time. Up until they relented and allowed mature games to be released in the Nintendo 64 era, NoA's policy had a strict stance against family-unfriendly content. However, for reasons unknown, neither the PlayStation remake nor the PC Port of said PlayStation remake has ever been exported either.
• Nintendo drew ire due to not localizing three RPG titles that released towards the end of the Wii's lifespan (Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower) for North American audiences, despite said games being due to release in Europe, leading to an online movement call Operation Rainfall. Nintendo of America would end up releasing Xenoblade Chronicles as a limited print run in 2012 (with the Xenoblade Chronicles series going on to become a staple JRPG franchise for Nintendo), while The Last Story and Pandora's Tower made their way to North American shores thanks to XSEED Games.
• OG Planet will sometimes allow access to their games to other countries, but nine times out of ten, games like SD Gundam Capsule Fighter and Rumble Fighter Online are left out in the cold outside of North America.
• Perfect World Inc., which hosts MMOs such as the namesake Perfect World, Champions Online and Star Trek Online, refuses to allow access to their games within the former Soviet Union.
• Sunsoft's Daze Before Christmas was first released for the Mega Drive in Australia, while a SNES version was later released in Australia and Europe. A North American release was planned for both systems, but cancelled.
• When Telenet Japan's subsidiary Renovation Products was bought out by Sega in 1993, the planned North American releases of several SNES games were canceled: Neugier (as The Journey Home), Psycho Dream (as Dream Probe), and a port of Arcus Odyssey. Almost two decades passed before Psycho Dream finally saw a North American release in Nintendo Switch Online's SNES library (under its original title).
• There never was a THQ Japan. Unless there would be someone ready to export that would mean that all of their titles would only get a release in the US and Europe (Australia would only get post-2008 releases). While most of the titles of their WWF series of video games get international releases, thanks to the fact that they are developed by Japanese developers they have no intentions on bringing Western developed titles under their name there. So stuff such as SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, Red Faction, and Aidyn Chronicles: The first Mage (the last one being an RPG in the vein of Quest 64) will never see a release in those areas.
• The obscure games Kowloon's Gate and Planet Laika, by Zeque were ever released outside of Japan. Strangely, they're an obscure North American based company.
• Singletrac's first two games, Warhawk and Twisted Metal, received PC versions that were released exclusively in Japan in spite of Singletrac being an American developer and the noted unpopularity of PC gaming in the region. As a result, both versions are so insanely rare and obscure that most game databases don't list them.

Square Enix

• The The 7th Saga Spiritual Successor Mystic Ark and its sequel Mystic Ark: Theatre of Illusions went unreleased outside of Japan.
• Europe got screwed out of anything Square put out on the SNES (except for Secret of Mana), until those games received ports years later. The SNES version of Chrono Trigger wasn't released, nor the PS1 Porting Disaster, but the DS version Updated Re-release was, after 14 years. Which would've been great if it wasn't for a small detail: This version has a new, depressing ending that acts as a Sequel Hook to Chrono Cross, which wasn't available in Europe at the time, as Europe wouldn't get Chrono Cross until 2022.
• Towards the end of the SNES lifespan, Squaresoft didn't believe it would be worth the time to localize their games on a dying system. If you live outside of Japan, you'd have to settle for a Fan Translation of Bahamut Lagoon, Treasure Hunter G, and Treasure of the Rudra. Western audiences got screwed out of the spiritual predecessor to Chrono Trigger, Live A Live, released in Japan over six months before Chrono Trigger^note It would be 28 years before Square Enix announced a Video Game Remake for the Nintendo Switch, to be released in 2022.
• The SNES enhanced remakes of Dragon Quest, Dragon Quest II and Dragon Quest III remained in Japan, though GBC and smartphone versions were later released.
• In the era before the mergers, it was very rough to be an Enix fan. Enix of America, the localization firm in the United States, abruptly closed shop in 1995, simply because Enix of Japan had no interest in localizing their titles in the US anymore. One particularly odd case was the Enix game Terranigma, which got swallowed up in the aftermath. Enix allowed Nintendo of America to publish Terranigma's predecessor, Illusion of Gaia, stateside, but when it came time to release Terranigma, they wouldn't allow it. Clearly this took Nintendo by surprise, as they had been running previews of the game in the company-owned Nintendo Power before the closure. The game was still translated to English for a European release via Nintendo, who localized it for the rest of Europe as well...just not in the United States. Every American that's played this game did so running a ROM of the PAL English version.
• Enix left a few more games stranded in Japan until they started up another publishing house in America, Heartbeat, to get Dragon Quest VII out the door, though they could not finish the localization of the Dragon Quest IV PlayStation port.
• Dragon Quest had gotten a new lease on life in the United States. Dragon Quest VIII was released in the U.S. with its original Japanese title (as opposed to "Dragon Warrior", due to trademark issues with a pen-and-paper game named "Dragon Quest"). The DS remakes of Dragon Quest IV, V and VI have all been localized, with VI being announced for the U.S. before it was even announced for Japan. Indeed, Dragon Quest V and Dragon Quest VI had never before been released in English.
• Considering Enix's previous localization track record, and being incapable of recognizing the United States as a viable market, the merger with Square is probably the best thing that ever happened to them. However, the Square-Enix merger led to the translations of Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart and the PS2 Dragon Quest V remake being lost in the shuffle. The Dragon Quest IV localization also excised the 'party talk' feature, which was available to give much needed characterization, but thankfully, the smartphone versions finally add this feature.
• The age of exports for Dragon Quest has once again ended. Let us all pray for another export renaissance:
  • Dragon Quest 25th Anniversary Collection, a compilation of Dragon Quest, Dragon Quest II, and Dragon Quest III for the Wii with added extras (Watch and despair).
  • Despite the MMORPG Dragon Quest X not being exported, an export for Dragon Quest XI was announced for western release about a year after the Japanese release, except for the Nintendo 3DS version.
• To this day, the original 8-bit version of Final Fantasy II has not been released outside Japan, despite a prototype for an official localization existing.
• Final Fantasy III was not exported until the 3D remake on the Nintendo DS, and only ports of the DS version have been released for other consoles worldwide. Downloadable releases of the original version on the 3DS Virtual Console, Wii Virtual Console, and Wii U Virtual Console were not exported overseas. It was replaced with Final Fantasy in the US/PAL NES Classic Edition, whereas its Japanese equivalent (the Famicom Mini) does include it. North America and Europe didn't get a proper version of the original Final Fantasy III until the Pixel Remaster release in 2021, over 31 years after the original release on the Famicom!
• For some unexplainable reason, Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years are not released on Steam in Southeast Asia, even though it is advertised on Steam itself in the region (clicking on the ad results in an error saying that the game isn't available in the region). The game is available in the region on other platforms though. Square will not be releasing the classic Final Fantasy titles (IV through VI, along with IV: The After Years) on Steam in Asia. It's bad enough that the Steam releases of XIII through Lightning Returns were Japanese-only when a lot of players don't speak fluent Japanese.
• Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII - it's been over five years, no word at all about an international release. It's particularly annoying since an ad for this game was included in the North American DVD of Advent Children, and there was promise of it being released sometime in 2006. So even a spin-off to one of the most successful games of all time is not immune to getting the No Export treatment. So as for you Turks fans, sorry about your mistake of not being born Japanese.
• And now, it has transpired that Asia won't be getting the Game Within a Game Justice Monsters Five from Final Fantasy XV either- apparently the game is to be released in the Americas and Europe only. There are rumors spread by some fans that the Japanese version is available, but yeah- good luck figuring out what it's called in Japanese and how to type that out in Kanji/Kana, and then understanding the game when the language is in Japanese.
• In September 2017, it was further announced that another defictionalized Fictional Video Game for mobile devices, King's Knight: Wrath of the Dark Dragon (a Remake of the 1986 Famicom game), would be released alongside Final Fantasy XV. Unless you live in Asia but not in Japan. Again, this title is No Export for You for those living in Asia outside Japan, which makes it a Yank the Dog's Chain moment when it was advertised in the Pocket Edition of Final Fantasy XV, which did receive a worldwide release, with a mocking footnote saying "Not available in all regions", and clicking on the ad anyway takes you to an App Store or Google Play page that is basically berating you for your bad luck in not being born in Japan or outside Asia.
• Final Fantasy VII International was released in Japan, and as part of The Best series of PlayStation rereleases, in Japan, and in the Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Ultimate Box, in Japan, and on the PlayStation Network, in Japan.
• The Japan-only versions of Final Fantasy X-2 and Final Fantasy XII are subtitled "International + Final Mission" and "International Zodiac Job System", respectively. The intent is to give Japanese players the features of the American and European versions (with some additional changes), hence the name. In an unusual case of Europe getting things that North America doesn't, many of the features of Final Fantasy X International, such as the Dark Aeons, appeared in the European release of the game. The Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster remakes the International versions of both titles. The Final Fantasy VII Remake, and the Final Fantasy XII HD remake, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, will include the International version content.
• Up until the HD Remixes for the PS3 and PS4, this was the case for the "Final Mix" editions of Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, all of which add several new features to their respective games such as new boss fights, new side-quests, and a plethora of new cutscenes, all of which being 100% canon to the point that their absence from the vanilla editions make the stories in subsequent games make less sense! For example, Terra's final battle with Xehanort in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep only makes sense if you've played the Final Mix of Kingdom Hearts II and fought the Lingering Will, while the extra scenes in the Final Mix of the first game foreshadows the existence of Xemnas and the Nobodies. The Final Mix of Birth By Sleep also includes an extended final level that ends with Aqua finding the Castle of Dreams in the world of darkness, setting up the plot for Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-.
• The Final Fantasy Type-0 remake, Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, was released outside Japan, though the original was not. The Mobile Phone Game Final Fantasy Agito was shut down, and its localization was cancelled. The game was then replaced by Final Fantasy Type-0 Online and Final Fantasy Awakenings, with neither version making it to North America and Europe.
• Square Enix had decided not to release several Eidos Interactive games in Japan, their home country. For example the Deus Ex titles will not be seeing the light of day in Japan.
• A good three-eights of the Front Mission series never made it out of Japan. (Two-fifths not counting Gun Hazard, roughly half counting Online and 2089 [either the two cell phone games or the one DS compilation thereof].) What's even worse is the Continuity Lock-Out from not being familiar with all the games...
• I am Setsuna: The PS4 version is being released. The Vita version is Japan only.
• The Itadaki Street video game series published by Square Enix is also in this same boat. While the latest title has the excuse of being a cell phone title, the others are on systems perfectly accessible to Square Enix fans outside Japan. Square Enix finally started breaking this with the Command Board in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, which is essentially Itadaki Street with the game's characters, and they're finally localizing a full standalone game for the Wii in the form of Fortune Street. The series returns to this trope in the 2017 30th Anniversary installment, which has only been localized into Chinese as of 2020.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Kingdom Hearts Coded is Japan-only, though the remake on the DS, Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, received a Western release.
  • The Unchained version of Kingdom Hearts χ will only be available in the Americas, Europe and again, only Japan in Asia. The big heartbreaker here is that Square actually teases out-of-region Android users that search for it by having it show up in the Google Play store search... then politely tell users to go screw themselves (using the "not available in your country" error message) when they open the game's store page. iOS users are spared the tease as it doesn't show on the App Store outright. This continued through the sequel, Kingdom Hearts Union X. For some reason, Square Enix hates Asians who aren't in Japan.
• MMORPG Cross Gate has been available in China and Taiwan, while the Japanese servers were shut down. The sequel, Concerto Gate, had a US beta release until the planned US release was cancelled, before the servers were shut down worldwide.
• Romancing SaGa series aside from the remake was never released outside of Japan. Square Enix has already released a remake of SaGa 2 (Final Fantasy Legend 2) but it has yet to reach US shores for some reason despite being out for a while now. And with SaGa 3 remake already released, there's still no signs of overseas release. Either Square Enix thinks the SaGa series is killing the company, or sees Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy as bigger cash cows that they wouldn't bother translating. Ports of the older games have been released as parts of collections though alongside a remastered and refurbished version of SaGa Frontier, reigniting some hope that the series could export the other versions.
• Secret of Evermore never came in Japan, probably because it was, too, uh... too "westerner"?
• Tobal 2 was released in Japan only, since No. 1 flopped in the US. Rumor also has it that Square had problems with translation and formatting the English text.
• World of Mana:
  • Trials of Mana was the only main World of Mana game not to be released outside of Japan; unfortunately, many fans of the series who have played it via emulation or importing believe it to be the best of the series. Subverted with the surprise announcement at E3 2019 that a Compilation Re-release of the first three games was being released internationally on the Nintendo Switch eShop, with a 3D remake coming in 2020 under the English title Trials of Mana.
  • Adventures of Mana: The iOS/Android version is available worldwide. The Vita localization was quietly released digitally.
• Xenogears has never been released in Europe.
• Nanashi no Game for the DS and its sequel. The first game was considered for release in English, but the opinion of focus groups was that "you couldn't shoot anything".

Game Series-Specific Examples

These examples are sorted by series name.

• Little-known game AbalaBurn with gameplay similar to Tobal is Japan only.
• Advanced V.G.: TGL never released the games themselves outside of Japan and it's likely to stay that way. So if you're living in the US, you'll either have to settle for watching gameplay clips on YouTube, or the OVA.
• Ace Attorney:
  • Gyakuten Kenji 2 did not get an official release outside of Japan, due primarily to timing issues. The development team was disbanded almost immediately after the game was completed, leaving no time for a localization to be put together. Additionally, it was released for the Nintendo DS the same year the 3DS was released, meaning there was little incentive to localize a sequel to a spinoff of a niche game for a dying console. Capcom has not officially shut the door on eventually releasing this game, but as it stands, the only way to play it in English is with the Fan Translation.
  • The Great Ace Attorney duology were Japan-exclusive for its initial Nintendo 3DS release and later mobile ports. The only explanation Capcom has given as to why is that there were certain "circumstances" which made an international release unfeasible. One theory as to what these circumstances are is the game drawing more heavily from Japanese culture than other titles in the series, making it less understandable to outsiders. Another theory is that there would be legal issues due to certain Sherlock Holmes stories not being in the public domain in the United States until 2023 and these games including characters and plot elements from these stories. The games are finally being released worldwide in 2021, but the names of the Holmes-related elements have been changed.
• The fourth game in the Adventure Island series did not release in North America because development for the original NES was discontinued.
• Another Century's Episode, a game series that is basically an action-based variation of Super Robot Wars, faces far too many roadblocks for licensing here, not least of which is the whole Macross thing...
• Four of the Ape Escape games (Million Monkeys, SaruSaru Daisakusen, Pipo Saru 2001 and Pipo Saru Racer) are only available in Japan, while one minigame compilation (Pumped & Primed) made it to America but not Europe. However, Spike's cuteseyed-up appearance from Million Monkeys appears in Playstation All Stars Battle Royale, an American-made game.
• In 1995, Family Soft released Area 88: Etranger 1995 in Japan, but not to the U.S. The game is based on the Area 88 manga and serves as a reboot of the "U.N. Squadron" video game.
• Atelier Series:
  • For over half a decade, the Atelier Series was completely unable to leave Japan, despite the first two games handily breaking six-figure sales volume and becoming a cult hit in Japan that inspired nearly every JPRG that followed to have some form of Item Crafting. Reportedly, despite its success in Japan Sony has never had any faith that the series will appeal to American gamers, despite titles such as Harvest Moon doing well here. Only when the series made some changes to be more like a standard JPRG with Atelier Iris did it finally manage to cross the Pacific courtesy of Nippon Ichi Software of America - in 2005, eight years after the series debut in Japan. America has gotten (almost) all Atelier releases since, but even with a PS2 re-issue of the first two games, none of the first five, Item Crafting-based Atelier games have ever crossed the Pacific.
  • The Alternate Universe manga of Atelier Marie & Elie managed to come over in 2008 - seven years after its own release. It almost wasn't sold in shops, and ended up having its fifth and final volume canceled. Atelier fans mean it when they say the franchise is cursed in the West. Atelier Lise was released in Japan and it shows no signs of coming over either. There are, however, probably rather good reasons for this and nobody is complaining too loudly about this one. And it appears as though the "proper Atelier" curse is at last being broken. Whether or not Americans see the earlier games outside of Japan, however, remains an open question. When the first Alterier Iris game left Japan, it caused an interesting case of Once Original, Now Common - we had already seen the sequels that developed the Item Crafting stuff more - obviously the first game that did that would look like "Just another JRPG".
• Baten Kaitos Origins, the prequel to a cult classic Gamecube JRPG, was never released in Europe.
• Battle Circuit was the only Beat 'em Up by Capcom that was never released in the U.S. until the release of the Capcom Beat'em Up Bundle in 2018.
• Big Bang Pro Wrestling was released only in Japan, despite having a full English translation.
• A total of thirteen Bleach games were released for PlayStation, with plans for a fourteenth, and not one of them has been released in the United States. Averted with NIS America's planned release of Bleach: Soul Resurrección for the PS3.
• Two Bonk games remain Japan-exclusive: the third Game Boy game (which also appeared on a Japan-only Compilation Re-release) and the second SNES game.
• Many of the Bomberman games have not been released in America: the original MSX game^note Most likely not released in America because of the failure of the MSX there, though a ZX Spectrum port was released in the UK under the title Eric and the Floaters, 3-D Bomberman^note Bomberman, but IN FIRST PERSON! Most likely didn't get released in America for the same reason as the original game, and this time the game didn't even get released in Europe, Bomberman '94^note Not released internationally because the TurboGrafx-16 was discontinued in America, although the Sega Genesis port was not released in Japan, the third, fourth, and fifth Super Bomberman games^note The third one got an English release in Europe, but it wasn't brought to America for some reason, the third Bomberman GB game, the B-Daman crossovers, Saturn Bomberman Fight!, Bomberman Wars, the first three Bomberman Land games, Bomberman Kart^note Got an English release in Europe, but it wasn't brought to America for some reason, the 2001 Bomberman 64^note Not released internationally because the Nintendo 64 was discontinued internationally, the Game Boy Advance Bomberman Jetters games^note as well as the anime itself, both Online Bomberman games^note as well as the PlayStation 2 port of the first online game, Bomberman Hardball^note Got an English release in Europe, but it wasn't brought to America for some reason, Bomberman Story DS^note Got an English release in Europe, but it wasn't brought to America for some reason, the retail version of Bomberman Blast^note the WiiWare version was released internationally, although this release features less content, the DS Bomberman 2^note Got an English release in Europe, but it wasn't brought to America for some reason, and the arcade game Bombergirl^note because it's a Konami arcade game in 2018 have all not been released in America.
• In yet another Capcom example of this trope, the Breath of Fire series has had this in practically every flavour listed:
  • Breath of Fire III's re-release for PSP never made it Stateside due to Sony Entertainment USA rules requiring a minimum of 20% new content. Europe got it, though, and fortunately the PlayStation Portable is NOT region-locked. For identical reasons, the game is not available via Play Station Network in North America.
  • No less than four spin-off games based on Breath of Fire IV, including two complete side-stories, are Japan-only due to being released only on the BREW smartphone platform.
  • The Windows port of Breath of Fire IV not only was never released in the US (being Europe, Japan and China only) but was based on the severely Bowdlerised international version—yes, even in Japan, where the original PlayStation version of the game had been released uncensored.
  • Breath of Fire IV's international release was the subject of severe, 80s-to-90s Nintendo Guidelines-esque Bowdlerisation (including an outright Aborted Arc due to the last part of Fou-lu's story arc being cut out due to a silhouetted decapitation; this despite a Blood from the Mouth Vomit Indiscretion Shot that was kept in completely uncensored that was itself the result of a Fantastic Nuke). In addition, in the international release of Breath of Fire IV one of Scias' abilities (a "scan" ability) was dropped from international versions under the rationale it'd take too long to translate from Japanese.
  • All Expanded Universe material for Breath of Fire fits under this trope, including not only the soundtracks but the official artbooks, no less than two novelizations, four separate ComicBookAdaptations, and no less than four other anthology and/or 4-koma collections. The Comic-Book Adaptation—a manga adaptation of Breath of Fire IV published by Mag Garden—is the sole example that has ever made it outside Japan officially (there are licensed Chinese and French translations). Still nothing in English, though, aside from a Fan Translation and no official announcements that an English-language licensee might be interested.
• The Sega Saturn port of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was never released outside of Japan. Enhance improvements and many new features were added in the Saturn version. Unfortunetely, the Saturn version suffered from Porting Disaster since the system couldn't be properly coded which results include long loading times along with other problems which may be why this wasn't exported. Another reason was that the Saturn was nearing its end in Western territories during this time. A few of the exclusive elements introduced in this port^*Maria's boss fight, Maria as a playable character (albeit significantly revamped) would later make their way into the PlayStation Portable version of the game included in Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles along with a couple others^*Pixie familiar who can sing, Nose Demon familiar, and a voiceover for the Opening Scroll that had previously been exclusive to the Japanese releases of the game, but the rest^* the Cursed Prison/Soul Prison and Underground Garden/Hell Garden areas (which Koji Igarashi deemed terrible and not up to the game's standard), the new music for those areas and Maria's boss fight, the God Speed Shoes relic that lets Alucard dash, Richter's redone boss sprites were left out of the new version.
• Even though Chibi-Robo! for the GameCube and the DS sequel Chibi Robo: Park Patrol have been released worldwide, the New Play Control edition for Wii and the other DS game Okaeri Chibi Robo Happy Richie Osouji have never seen the light of day outside Japan. The fourth game in the series, Jissha de Chibi-Robo! for 3DS did come out as Chibi-Robo! Photo Finder and the latest game in the series Go! Go! Chibi-Robo! on 3DS did come out in North America as Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash.
• The Cho Aniki series has not been exported, except for the PlayStation Network US and EU release of Cho Aniki - Kyuukyoku Muteki Ginga Saikyou Otoko and Cho Aniki Zero on the PSP.
• Contra:
  • Three Contra titles were released in North America but not in Japan. The Stinger? Said games are Contra Force, a game which had no reason to have Contra in its title to begin with (and was even planned as an unrelated game titled Arc Hound), and the two Appaloosa-developed games, Contra: Legacy of War and C: The Contra Adventure, which were considered bad to begin with.
  • Contra 4 was not released anywhere in Europe. The reason given was that, apparently, European gamers are unaware of the Contra brand, due to the previous games being released as Probotector and Super Probotector. So, in that case, why was the game not released over here as Probotector 4 or something? Doubly ironic since the Probotector is actually a hidden playable character in Contra 4.
• After Cosmic Fantasy 2, Working Designs was planning on translating other games in the Cosmic Fantasy series. Nothing came of these plans.
• Crash of the Titans and Crash: Mind Over Mutant were never released in Japan, most likely due to Japanese audiences reacting poorly to the character redesigns featured in those games. Interestingly enough, the DS version of Mind Over Mutant was developed in Japan, and both games would be referenced in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, which was released there.
• The first two games in the Crush Pinball series (Alien Crush and Devil's Crush) were exported to the United States from Japan to great success; they are fondly remembered by many players, and the Sega Genesis port (Dragon's Fury) even got its own sequel. But the third game in the series, Jaki Crush, never left Japan, and is often unheard of by many of those selfsame players.
• Daigasso! Band Brothers was supposed to get a US release under the name Jam with the Band but it never made it out nor was the game officially announced cancelled. It did get an expansion pack in 2008 called Daigasso! Band Brothers DX which did make it to Europe under that aformentioned name. The 3DS follow-up Daigasso! Band Brothers P remained Japan-only.
• The Densha de Go!! games have not seen release outside Japan. There are some possible cultural reasons why a simulation of driving Japanese commuter trains wouldn't translate, but try telling that to some people.
• The first DJ MAX Portable game was a Korea-only release. But when people outside of Korea started importing the game, Pentavision took notice and released an "International" version with English text, though that version was met with some negative receiption due to its poor attempts to censor songs and its replacement of one song with a completely different song, and it was still a Korea-only release. DJ MAX Portable 2, too had English- and Japanese-language options, and its internet ranking site acknowledges countries outside of South Korea. Despite this, the game was still Korea-only, which suggests that Pentavision wanted to release the game overseas but just didn't have the budget for it yet. However, they have been working with PM Studios on DJ MAX Fever, an American release, and DJ MAX Technika, an arcade Gaiden Game that will also be getting an American release, in their efforts to recognize their non-Korean fans as well as to keep American arcades in business.
• DJMAX Fever, unlike its Korea-only predecessors, was released in the US only. Somewhat negated by Fever being a carbon copy of Portable 2, with its playlist being a mix of Portable 1 and 2's.
• The Dokodemo Issho series has never been released outside of Japan, although its main character Toro Inoue has appeared in America a few times (such as a PSN avatar, and a playable character in Playstation All Stars Battle Royale).
• Dragon Knight 3 was released in the US as Knights of Xentar, only one of the four Dragon Knight games.
• Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes had a North American release on the Turbo CD, but its first sequel was only released in Japan. This messed up the sequencing of the series when the Gargarv trilogy of Legend of Heroes III, IV, and V was Remade for the Export.
• And then there's Sora no Kiseki: Kizuna (lit. Trails in the Sky: Fetter Battle/Fetter RPG) which was only released for Android and iOS in South-East and Far-East Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong and China), and Japan (although Japan gets it's own version). To make things worse, the South-East and Far-East Asia version shut down on October 31st, 2018 due to lack of interests. So that means Japan will be the only country getting this game after that date too.
• The Eggerland series (made by HAL Laboratory, of Kirby and Super Smash Bros. fame) is mostly Japan-exclusive. The first two MSX games were released in Europe, but the second one wasn't translated, and once the series moved to the Famicom they lost it. Eventually a game called Adventures of Lolo, a compilation of puzzles from previous games in the Eggerland series, was released in America and Europe (but not Japan), seemingly as an introduction to the series. Adventures of Lolo got two similarly international sequels (which were also released in Japan with different puzzles) and a Game Boy installment released in Europe (with a lot of extra puzzles over the Japanese version), but later PC games were once again Japan-only.
• The EXTRAPOWER series has only ever been released in Japanese: as the devs put it, they never anticipated picking up overseas fans and considers them a welcome surprise. Though freeware online distribution makes it easy to access the games, following the plots would require the ability to read Japanese or ample use of machine translation services and all their foibles.
• The vast majority of the video games based on The Fairly OddParents! (including Enter the Cleft, Breakin' Da Rules, and Clash With the Anti-World) were never released outside of the United States. This was due to licensing issues: while the series was produced by Nickelodeon, the full non-U.S. ownership of the series belonged to Nelvana when those games were being made. However, Shadow Showdown DID get released internationally in PAL regions. The PAL version removes the Nickelodeon logo from the game's front cover and replaces all references to Nickelodeon on the back cover's copyright infromation with references to Nelvana. It even went as far as to having the Nelvana logo replace the Nick Games logo when the game boots up. Making things especially strange is that Breakin' Da Rules and Shadow Showdown were developed by Blitz Games, a British company.
• The PlayStation 2 versions of FIFA Soccer 13 and 14 and the Wii version of FIFA 14 were not released in North America. This is despite the fact that the Wii still has a large install base in North America. EA realized this and released FIFA 15 on the Wii in North America. The PSP version of FIFA 14 and the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of FIFA 19 were only released digitally in North America.
• Japan has an exclusive spinoff of the World Cup subseries for the PS2, called Project FIFA World Cup: Sorenara Kimi ga Daihyō Kantoku ("Then You Are the National Team Coach"), which was released shortly after the main 2002 FIFA World Cup.
• The action game The Firemen for SNES was not released in American markets despite an English version being released in Europe. Also its sequel "The Firemen 2: Pete and Danny" was never translated or released outside Japan (until a PSN rerelease of the PS1 version).
• Frogger:
  • Frogger II: ThreeeDeep! was never released in Japan due to Konami having no involvement in the game's development.
  • For the same reason as Frogger II, the 1997 Frogger game and it's sequel, Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge, didn't get a Japanese release. The SNES version was only released in America.
  • Frogger: The Great Quest got released in America and Europe, but not in Japan. The game was very poorly received which is most likely the reason why it didn't get a Japanese release.
  • 2 Frogger Game Boy Advance games, Frogger's Adventures: Temple of the Frog and Frogger Advance: The Great Quest were not released in Japan. Frogger's Journey: The Forgotten Relic was the only Frogger GBA game to be released in Japan.
  • Frogger's Adventures: The Rescue and Frogger: Ancient Shadow were not released in Europe and Japan.
  • The Nintendo DS games Frogger: Helmet Chaos and My Frogger Toy Trials didn't get Japanese releases.
  • Frogger Returns: Japan and Europe got the WiiWare and PlayStation Network versions but not the DSiWare version.
• The Classic NES Series on the Game Boy Advance covered twelve NES games. In Japan, the Famicom Mini Series covered eighteen more games, many of which such as Kid Icarus and Wrecking Crew were released overseas.
• Due to being a very strange work with risqué gags in its Super Famicom entries, almost none of the Ganbare Goemon games were ever brought to America except for the first SNES game, one of the Game Boy games and two of the Nintendo 64 sequels, with another of the GB games appearing in a Game Boy Color collection in Europe. Even though the N64 entries became cult classics thanks to creative changes made to the dialogue, an offbeat sense of humor and foreign charm(having Goemon Impact certainly helped), the series failed to catch on.
• The first Genocide for the Sharp X68000 had ports on the FM Towns (along with its sequel) and the PC Engine CD, none of which got released elsewhere. Genocide 2: Master of the Dark Communion, also developed for the Sharp X68000, had a port for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System which ended up being released in Japan only despite being developed by a British studio. There was also a MS-DOS port exclusive to South Korea.
• In spite of its international popularity, there are two Gran Turismo games that never saw the light of day in North America, those being Concept and 4 "Prologue".
• The 2009 Ghostbusters game was never released in Poland, save for PS2 and PS3 versions.
• New Ghostbusters II for the NES was only released in Europe and Japan, skipping North America entirely. This was because of licensing issues, as Activision had the video game rights to the franchise in the US at the time. The Game Boy version averts this, as Activision picked up the publishing rights for that version for all regions.
• The Glory of Heracles series has not been exported, except for the DS game Glory of Heracles: Proof of the Soul (as simply Glory of Heracles).
• Gothic:
  • The first Gothic had an Easter Egg-ish rock concert, which was cut from export versions due to copyright problems.
  • For a long time Gothic 2's expansion pack (Night of the Raven) looked like it would never see the light of day in the United States, the same goes for the various SpellForce expansions. Aspyre later picked up the US distribution rights and released gold versions of both games with their expansions.
• The first Growlanser game, allegedly the best of the series, have not seen release outside Japan. The sixth game hasn't been released, either.
• Gundam:
  • Like the franchise? Too bad. The most fluid and action-packed Gundam games never make it out of Japan. This includes the Gundam Battle series (Royale, Chronicle, Universe), and alternate-universe What If? games like Gihren's Greed. The SD Gundam G Generation games, essentially an all-Gundam Super Robot Wars, have never been localized, even though licensing issues wouldn't be a problem. The line of unreleased Gundam games goes back to Zeta Gundam for the NES (most likely a localization of the Famicom game Hot Scramble), which Bandai America advertised but failed to release.
  • On the flipside is the Battle Assault series, which started out as a Marked Based Series for American audiences after the success of Gundam Wing on Toonami. Battle Assault 1 was actually a remade game using the characters from the show while 2 was an original product. Although they were later released in Japan, the third title was released exclusively for North America. Ironically enough, said game was centered around SEED, the most popular Gundam series in Japan at that time while divisive in the market it was originally released for.
  • Eventually averted, when Bandai Namco recognized the Western demand for the Gundam Vs Series. Unfortunately, they chose to release Extreme Vs. Force (a less popular game in the series), on the PlayStation Vita (a console that's considered dead in America). This gets followed up with a Western release announcement for Gundam Versus for Fall 2017.
• There was a Sega Master System version of Ninja Gaiden that did not release in North America because the system was not very popular there. Despite that, it had no story connections to any other game in the series.
  • North America also did not get the PC Engine port of the original nes game or a mobile entry in the series called Ninja Gaiden X. The PC-Engine version did see release stateside on the TurboGrafx-16 Mini.
  • Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom originally did not release in Europe save for the Atari Lynx. The original NES version finally would come out years later on the 3DS Virtual Console.
• None of the Hanjuku Hero series of Real-Time Strategy games have ever left Japan. The closest the USA has ever gotten to an English release (barring a few failed fan translation attempts of Aa, Sekaiyo Hanjukunare...!) was Egg Monster Hero for the DS, which ended up getting screwed over by focus groups.
• The iDOLM@STER:
  • Despite having something a cult following among North American gamers, the game is unlikely to be released outside Japan in any form (occasional cameos excluded), since the foreign fanbase for Raising Sims and J-pop Idol Singers is just not massive enough to justify the insane cost of localizing (with or without translating the songs) and publishing it. There's actually an extensive forum post on why the series is never coming to America.
  • What makes this even more ridiculous in the current market is that the most recent Project Diva titles have enjoyed MASSIVE success in America and Europe, because SEGA simply asked if the fans would buy it if they released it.
• Inazuma Eleven wasn't released in America until 2014, six years after its Japanese debut (even though the PAL regions only got the series almost 3 years later after its Japanese release). In Japan and Europe it was successful enough to warrant the release of a manga and animated serie, which were also never released in the US.
• Similar to Super Robot Wars, it is highly unlikely that the DS game Jump Super Stars and its sequel, Jump Ultimate Stars, will ever see the light of day outside of Japan due to the sheer amount of licensing that would have to be done to cover every single series represented. Thankfully, the DS is region-free, so importing it to play isn't too big of a hurdle. (Same with Super Robot Wars W and K). The kicker in all this? It seems like Viz is using appearances in Jump Ultimate Stars to justify translating the original manga. It's one thing when hot properties like Black Cat start appearing in America. But when series like I"s and Strawberry 100% made it over? It's down to everything that isn't old (Space Adventure Cobra) or too culturally particular (KochiKame) as to what doesn't get translated. Some manga titles never seen the light of day overseas and will lead to Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.".
• The Izuna series saw a Compilation Re-release containing the first two games in a risky package of Fanservice that never left Japan.
• The Japan World Cup series of jockey games have not been exported.
• Licensed games based on anime, manga and toy franchises are rarely exported. This includes several games based on Azumanga Daioh, Captain Tsubasa, Case Closed (out of 24 games, only The Mirapolis Investigation was released in Europe only), Dragon Ball, Fist of the North Star, Fullmetal Alchemist (only the first two PlayStation 2 games and Dual Sympathy for the Nintendo DS were exported) Gundam Expanded Universe, Haruhi Suzumiya, Initial D, Lucky Star, Macross, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Sailor Moon, Zoids, etc.
• Jim Power in Mutant Planet got an SNES port known as Jim Power: Lost Dimension in 3D. Despite being a European product it was only released in the US.
• Most JoJo's Bizarre Adventure games have never seen an overseas release with the exceptions of JoJo's Venture/Heritage for the Future, All-Star Battle (also its Updated Re-release), and Eyes of Heaven. In Eyes of Heaven's case, North America, Europe, and Australia only got the PS4 version while the PS3 version stayed in Japan, which might have just been because the PS3 was on its way out and would've largely been replaced by its successor by the time the game was released in those regions.
• Julius Jr. has several tablet games out for Android and iOS. However, unless you live in the US, you can't get them as they're only ever sold in the US app stores and nowhere else.
• Are you a furry? Want to play the Kemono Friends mobile games? Yeah, the games are only available in Japan. This is especially problematic with the third game which receives heavy advertising on Sega's official YouTube channel. It's so sad it hurts.
• American gamers probably wouldn't know much of anything about the Klonoa series if it weren't for the internet. While the first game Door to Phantomile received nice reviews and was considered one of the better PS1 games, and its sequel Lunatea's Veil for the PS2 was also well-received, the games remained cult hits and were largely under-appreciated. Consequently, four handheld spinoffs - Empire of Dreams, Dream Champ Tournament, Beach Volleyball, and Klonoa Heroes - were released thereafter, but of the four, only Empire of Dreams and Dream Champ Tournament saw an American release with Dream Champ being released three years after it came out in Japan, meanwhile Beach Volleyball was exported to Europe only, and Heroes never made it out of Japan at all. Before Lunatea's Veil, Moonlight Museum also suffered from this, but instead due to it being on the WonderSwan, which itself did not make it to America. Since 2005, the series became orphaned for some time until a remake of Door to Phantomile for the Wii was announced for 2009, and did indeed come stateside complete with English voice acting for the first time ever in the series.
• Telefang Speed & Power versions were developed by Smilesoft for the Gameboy Color and released in Japan in 2000. The games never made it stateside themselves but still became known in the west as the bootleg games Pokémon Diamond & Pokémon Jade, games with a translation done so poorly and so ridden with glitches that some think it ruined the original Telefang's image in the U.S. The games also got sequels on the Gameboy Advance in 2002 which did not make it out in the U.S. even in bootleg form.
• Over half of the Kunio-kun games for the NES/SNES/Game Boy were never released outside Japan, a fact disguised to a good extent by divergent localizations. American Technos did, however, decide on a series title: Crash 'n the Boys: Street Challenge (the localization of the Kunio-kun game Bikkuri Nekketsu Shinkiroku! Harukanaru Kin Medal) threw in a teaser for Crash 'n the Boys: Ice Challenge (Ike Ike! Nekketsu Hockey Bu: Subette Koronde Dai Rantō). American Technos also planned, but failed, to release Soccer Challenge (Nekketsu Soccer League) and Diamond Challenge (Downtown Nekketsu Baseball Monogatari). The majority of the NES games were finally localized more properly by Arc System Works in 2020, when the Kunio World Classics Collection was included as a part of the Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun Retro Brawler Bundle.
• Kuru Kuru Kururin, a popular Nintendo franchise in Japan. The only game in the series that made it outside Japan was the first one, but it only got a European release, it was never released in America. However, Kururin's stick-like vehicle appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, thus leading to a lot of confusion from American gamers. This was finally broken when the first game got a North American release on the Wii U's Virtual Console on February 11, 2016.
• Langrisser: The original Sega Genesis game was localized by Treco as Warsong. This was the only game in the series to receive an official translation until Aksys Games announced a localization of Re:Incarnation Tensei.
• The Legend of Zelda had a few spin-off titles for the Nintendo DS which did not make it stateside. The first was Tingle's Balloon Fight, a Club Nintendo exclusive game which was a remake of the classic game Balloon Fight starring Tingle, which did not make it out of Japan. Tingle would get to star in an action adventure game though called Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland which did not make it stateside but was released in Europe. Rosy Rupeeland got a sequel in the form of Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love which did not make it out of Japan. See anything in common with these three titles? They all star a character overseas fans are generally not fond of.
• Medabots: several games in the series did not leave Japan, and the ones that did were because of the then-current anime boom in the west: Medarot 2 Core was released as Medabots for Game Boy Advance, Medabots AX also for GBA and Medabots Infinity for GameCube, and that's all for the games released outside Japan. Currently, in Japan, the series has more than a dozen games and still lives with Medarot 8 on the Nintendo 3DS.
• As big as Mega Man is in the West, Rockman's bigger in Japan. Here are some of the things we never got:
  • Super Adventure Rockman, a PS1 and Saturn visual novel of sorts.
  • RockBoard, or Wily and Right's RockBoard: That's Paradise, a Monopoly-themed board game on the Famicom, featuring various series characters, released only in Japan. An English release, entitled Mega Board, was in the works before it was canned for unknown reasons.
  • The SNES game Mega Man & Bass was not released in America until the GBA port in 2003. The sequel, Rockman and Forte: Challenger from the Future, was not released outside Japan, due to the WonderSwan not coming stateside.
  • Rockman.EXE 4.5: Real Operation, where the GBA becomes as much like a PET as possible via the BattleChip Gate accessory (we never got that, either). A full Fan Translation was finished and released, albeit 15 years later.
  • Since Boktai 3 was never localized, a lot of crossover material in Battle Network 6 was removed for the international version. Fortunately, this was mostly averted thanks to the Battle Network Legacy Collection which brings the crossover material back save for the Crossover Battles.
  • The Mega Man Battle Network remake/Star Force crossover Rockman.EXE: Operate Shooting Star shows absolutely no signs of leaving Japanese soil. It's a subversion, however, because of the massive fan outcries of It's the Same, Now It Sucks! in America, Europe, and even inside Japan. That's because the game is a port of the very first Battle Network game with so little new content that, according to fans, it doesn't justify purchase value.^note A short extra scenario mid-game, a handful of crossover Battle Chips, and a new mechanic to play as a data copy of Geo Stelar's Mega Man form during battles. And there are alleged marketing stunts that promoted this game as something completely brand-new and as a proper sendoff for both series... none of which were delivered.
  • Rockman Megaworld, a Mega Drive compilation of the first three Famicom games with 16-bit graphics and sound, was in fact released in Europe as Mega Man: The Wily Wars. The American version was only available via the now-defunct Sega Channel, meaning that the game was unobtainable once the service was discontinued. Eventually averted in February 2022 when the Collector's Edition was released in the US and it was later added to Nintendo Switch Online in June.
  • Europeans, however, never got Mega Man 6, and the compilations for the original and X series were only released in America. Finally averted, though, when Mega Man 6 arrived on the European 3DS Virtual Console almost 19 years later.
  • Rockman Strategy, an officially licensed PC game featuring Zodiac-themed Robot Masters was only released in China and Taiwan.
  • Luckily, UDON is bringing over the original Mega Man (Rockman Megamix, to be specific) and ZX manga, as well as the Rockman Complete Works art book (split into a book for the Classic series and one for Mega Man X).
  • They've also brought over the Kubrick figures of Mega Man and Proto Man from Japan, complete with the accompanying Be@rbrick figures.
  • Japan and Europe got Battle and Chase, a racing game with Mega Man characters tacked into it. There were ads in gaming magazines for it in the US! The game was ported in the Mega Man X Collection, though.
  • An American release of Rockman Xover was planned, but eventually canceled; not because of something internal at Capcom, but because the fan reaction was so negative that Christian Svennson stopped the localization.
  • The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, a rare PS1 game that very often fetched for hundreds, was finally re-released on the PSN, allowing you to enjoy the title for a far cheaper price... unless you lived in Europe. Similarly, no European release date of the long awaited PSN version of Mega Man Legends has been announced so far. Fortunately, you can somewhat get around this by making a US PSN account, which allows you to buy off of the US PSN store.
  • While Mega Man X7 was released worldwide on PS2, the PC port of it was only released in Korea. This, combined with it not being on the aforementioned X Collection and also never being released on the PSN store, led to it being pretty rare until it was finally re-released on Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2.
• An official (but partially translated) English version of the original Metal Gear for the MSX2 was available in parts of Europe (particularly in the Netherlands), but not in America (which only got the NES port), because the MSX2 was never released there. The original MSX2 release of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, on the other hand, was only released in Japan. Both games were later remade and ported to the PS2 and included in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, where they finally got proper English translations. In contrast, Snake's Revenge, the NES sequel to the first Metal Gear, was released in North America and Europe, but not in Japan.
• The Nintendo 3DS's eShop is a booming service in Japan, but Mighty Switch Force! (one of the highest selling and most well-received eShop games in the West) is not available in Japan and there are no plans to release it there. The reason this example's in "Game Series Specific Examples" folder is because its DSiWare predecessors (Mighty Flip Champs! and Mighty Milky Way) were not released in Japan, either.
• The Monster Hunter series had this problem during a large part of its existence:
  • Monster Hunter G is the only G Rank edition of a game in the series that never made it overseas (in this case, the expanded version of the very first game). However, many of its contents (including G Rank) were carried over to the first Freedom, which was exported.
  • Monster Hunter 2 (dos) never saw the light of day overseas, though many of its elements were carried over into the otherwise unrelated Monster Hunter Freedom 2. Thus, it is the only game within the numbered lineage (plus the only original installment for a home console) whose story and setting remained unknown for those who didn't import it (the only exception is the online setting, Dundorma, which was later incorporated into 4 Ultimate).
  • Neither Monster Hunter Portable 3rd on the PSP nor its PS3 port have ever been released outside of Japan, making it the only PSP installment to get this treatment. To compensate this, several of its elements were carried over to Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and Monster Hunter Generations.
  • By far the most painful for MH fans, however, is the refusal to localize Monster Hunter Frontier and all its updates, the MMO of the series.
  • While Monster Hunter 4 never got released outside of Japan, its Updated Re-release Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate was, making it a case of Remade for the Export.
  • Only the Switch version of Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate made it overseas, leaving the 3DS version exclusive to Japan.
  • Monster Hunter: World's Xbox One port is an inversion; it is not available in Japan, where the Xbox One is a commercial failure.
• PAL territories never got Monster Rancher, but Monster Rancher 2 was renamed Monster Rancher over there. It wasn't until 2021 that PAL territories finally get to play the first game in Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX.
• MotorStorm: Apocalypse, a racing game set in an earthquake-ravaged San Francisco, had the incredible misfortune of being released less than a week after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. While it was released in Europe on time, its British release was pushed back two weeks, its American release pushed back two months, and its Japanese release canceled outright. Its release in New Zealand was also canceled, as that country too had suffered a major earthquake in Christchurch just a month prior.
• More proof that Bandai Namco Entertainment loathes you: the Mr. Driller games. Three of them (Mr. Driller Ace, Great and Drill Land) never saw the light of day outside of Japan. On top of this, these were arguably the best games in the series. However, in a Nintendo Direct Mini on March 26, 2020, it was announced Drill Land would be seeing an international release on the Nintendo Switch.
• Jaleco made two failed attempts at international versions of their Ninja Jajamaru-kun games: Jajamaru Ninpou Chou as Taro's Quest, and Ninja Jajamaru: Ginga Daisakusen as Squashed. Neither made it past prototype stage, and only Maru's Mission for the Game Boy was exported until the original Ninja Jajamaru-kun was released on the Wii Virtual Console.
• Like its cousin Fire Emblem, Intelligent Systems' Wars series dates back to the original Famicom Wars for the Family Computer in 1988, followed by Game Boy Wars in 1991 and Super Famicom Wars in 1998, none which saw official English releases. Ironically enough, this was inverted starting with Advance Wars for the Game Boy Advance, which marked the series' English debut. The North American version was released in 2001, but the Japanese version, Game Boy Wars Advance, was canceled due to the unfortunate timing of the 9/11 attacks and was not released in Japan until 2004, when it was included in a two-in-one bundle with its sequel Game Boy Wars Advance 2. This seems to have killed the series in its home country - the first DS game, Famicom Wars DS, bombed hard in Japan, so they didn't even bother to release Advance Wars: Days of Ruin there, even though it contains a complete Japanese translation hardcoded in.
• Cliff Hanger and Treasure of the Sorcerer King are the only Lupin III games to get an English language release, and even those weren't released outside of North America.
• Mother:
  • Mother 3 is one of the most infamous examples of this, at least within Nintendo's library, to the point where the game is specifically well-known for being the sequel to the Cult Classic EarthBound that never left Japan, despite its protagonist having been a fighter in the Super Smash Bros. series since 2008. The game wasn't localized around its original 2006 release due to it coming out far too late in the Game Boy Advance's lifespan, with the financial failure of EarthBound a decade prior also serving as a deterrent. Fans would end up doing it themselves and produced what's considered one of the best Fan Translations ever made, but still continue to push for Nintendo to do an official Western release. For their part, everyone at Nintendo is very much aware of the vocal fanbase's demands for an official Western release, even joking about it during their E3 2014 press conference. While there have been persistent rumors that the continued hesitancy is due to concerns about the game's content (specifically, the Magypies), Nintendo of America has repeatedly claimed that the only reason is financial, as they can't justify translating a lengthy Eastern RPG for the GBA years after the fact with no guarantee that it would sell well. They did briefly consider the idea of at least putting the original Japanese version of the game onto the North American and European Wii U Virtual Console, but such plans were scrapped entirely when the console flopped. And now, it has been rereleased in February 21, 2024 on the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack...only in Japan, again.
  • EarthBound Beginnings faced a similar issue of coming out too late in its system's lifespan (in this case, the NES) to be worth releasing overseas. Unlike Mother 3 however, a localization was completed — titled Earth Bound — and was even used as the basis for the Japanese GBA compilation Mother 1+ 2 many years later. It would eventually see a surprise release in 2015 on the Wii U Virtual Console.
• The One Piece Wii adventure game, Unlimited Cruise episodes 1 and 2 have currently been released everywhere, except for America. Europe has both eps and even Australia has the first ep, but no such luck for America yet. America got the immediate predecessor, Unlimited Adventure, for the same system, which makes this just weird.
• If you live outside of Asia and you're a fan of the Panel de Pon Verse, you're out of luck. Installments in the series are fairly rare as it is, but Nintendo's international branches tend to remove all references to the original Kawaisa-heavy character designs when the time comes to export. Lip's unlockable stage was even Dummied Out of non-Japanese versions of Planet Puzzle League for the Nintendo DS. The main character Lip's only official Western appearances have been in Pokémon Puzzle Challenge (via a button code so obscure it wasn't discovered until 2013) and a cameo as an unlockable costume in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. The original Super Famicom Panel de Pon was released worldwide for the Nintendo Switch Online service in 2020, albeit untranslated.
• If you are a fan of Phantasy Star in any of its iterations and you don't live in Japan, then Sega hates you and feeds on your delicious tears. First, the spinoffs Phantasy Star Adventure and Phantasy Star Gaiden for the Game Gear and the Phantasy Star II text adventures were never released outside Japan; players wouldn't have to make do with Fan Translations of any of these if just one Compilation Re-release had been fully localized. Then came the much improved PS2 remakes of Phantasy Star and Phantasy Star 2 which we missed out on. Then there were the various ways Sega jerked Western players of Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Universe around by witholding content released for the Japanese servers (before shutting the western servers down entirely as a final screw you). Sega also outright refused to translate Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity despite being a much improved version of the original that many were interested in. Then, as a final "Screw You" to western fans, Sega announced a North American release of Phantasy Star Online 2 for release in 2013, only to go conspicuously quiet about the game ever since, never confirming if it was still in development or cancelled outright (and the less said about the Southeast Asian version of the game, the better).
• The PlayStation 2 version of Pro Evolution Soccer 2014 was never released in America because the PlayStation 2 was discontinued there. However, the PSP version was released in America.
• Puyo Puyo has 7 mainline entries (the first two qualifying for Port Overdosed, and the rest receiving their fair share of releases), as well as more than a dozen spinoffs. So how much of the series has been released in North America and/or Europe? The first arcade game in a release so obscure that some thought it was a bootleg until it turned up in the Sega Ages series, two Dolled Up Installments based on the first arcade game (one based on Kirby, one on Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog), the Neo Geo Pocket Color and untranslated SNES and Mega Drive ports of Puyo Puyo Tsu (the second arcade game), Puyo Pop for the Game Boy Advance (aka Minna de Puyo Puyo), Puyo Pop Fever (the fifth mainline game), Puyo Puyo Tetris and its sequel, and Puyo Puyo Champions. The Game Gear port of the first arcade game even has a full English translation that triggers whenever it is used in non-Japanese hardware, yet it still remains Japan-exclusive. But the N-Gage Puyo Pop released everywhere except Japan.
• The first installment of the Rhythm Heaven series for the Game Boy Advance titled Rhythm Tengoku did not release outside Japan because Nintendo considered the Game Boy Advance dead by the time it released in Japan. The rest of the world also did not get an arcade port of the first game. The next two installments for the DS and Wii did release worldwide. The newest installment for 3DS was announced for US release as Rhythm Heaven: Megamix on March 3, 2016. When it released in North America on June 11, 2016 it was released as a digital only title.
• RayStorm and RayCrisis had PC ports that were only released in Japan and PAL territories. Thankfully there is no region-coding to keep these games from running on non-Japanese/European machine, making them import-friendly.
• Have a PlayStation 3 and want to download RayStorm HD or the PlayStation versions of RayStorm and RayCrisis? Well that's gonna take few extra steps and some yen as the games were only released in Japan. D3's Simple 1500 Series compilation of RayStorm and RayCrisis years prior also stayed in Japan.
• Sakura Wars:
  • The "Sakura Taisen World Project," announced in 2002, was an official effort to bring the games to international audiences. The first part of the plan was to have the original game Remade for the Export on the PlayStation 2, but the remake was only released in Japan. The fifth installment received a very belated localization as Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, which flopped in the U.S., making it unlikely Westerners would see more of the franchise besides one game and some of the tie-in anime (which came out earlier) at the time.
  • Defied with Sakura Wars (2019). The western release of the game was announced very shortly after the game's debut trailer came out.
  • All in all, among the mainline games only Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love saw a proper worldwide release, and there's been a very limited effort to localize the others:
    • First two games were released (to everyone's amazement) in Russia, and the Sakura Wars 3: Is Paris Burning? was at least translated, but as Akella (the publisher) was on the verge of bankruptsy, it never saw the light of the day. Moreover, the translations were done quite halfheartedly (especially for the first one), making even the released games more of a Bad Export for You, and a market flop.
    • Sakura Wars 3: Is Paris Burning? and Sakura Wars 4: Fall in Love, Maidens were released in China by the two different publishers to a mixed success.
  • The series' reboot, Sakura Wars (2019) is scheduled for a worldwide release in April 2020.
• Seaman had a sequel for the PlayStation 2 in Japan simply called Seaman II which never made it stateside.
• A Shadowrun game for the Sega CD was released in Japan only, probably because in 1996 the system was already fading fast.
• The Shining Series is pretty infamous for this, with around half of its 30 games never making an appearance outside of Japan.
  • The marketing for the Updated Re Release of Shining Resonance actually made a point of noting it's been ten years since the last Shining game released in the United States. Shining Force III is a particularly cruel example. The game is composed of three separate discs or Scenarios, following a different protagonist in each one, culminating in all three teaming up to defeat the game's Big Bad in the third Scenario. But only the first Scenario ever received a localisation; the players from Europe and America basically only ever got to see one third of the story. The localization at least changed the Cliffhanger ending of the first disc to prevent players being explicitly left hanging forever in the middle of a fight.
  • Among the Game Gear games, only the second one was localized. A rather baffling decision, given that it was a direct sequel to the first. And to make things even more confusing, its localized version was retitled Shining Force II, despite Shining Force II being a separate game that got localized the following year.
• If you're a fan of old-school Shin Megami Tensei, you might as well just give up and learn Japanese.
  • Very few of the older titles have made it out of Japan, most likely because of its cult status overseas and mature subject matter (part one of Persona 2 involves the resurrection of Hitler. No, really). For a long time, non-Japanese fans were distraught over never getting to see official releases of games like Persona 2: Innocent Sin, half of the Devil Summoner games, Shin Megami Tensei if......, all but one of the Devil Children games, Shin Megami Tensei I and II, and a host of mobile phone games (though thankfully the fan translations are thriving). But after the success of the 2004 North American release of Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, every new MegaTen game^note except the mobile phone ones released since then has come out stateside, so fans at least have that much solace, unlike many of the above examples. However, if you live in Europe, you will feel privileged for getting your games much later than everyone else... if you get them at all. Devil Survivor, which was originally released in Japan and North America for the DS in 2009 and the 3DS in 2011, didn't officially come to Europe until an incredibly buggy localization was released in 2013. At least the DS was region-free...
  • Shin Megami Tensei IMAGINE: The US servers were shut down, making the game Japan-only.
  • Shin Megami Tensei IV. Released for the (region locked!) 3DS in May 2013 for Japan, July for North America, and... October 2014 in Europe, over a year after it was already supposed to be released there.
  • The original Persona 3 was released in Japan in 2006 and America in 2007. Europe got it 2008, just a little over half a year before FES got released there too, rendering the original version obsolete. At least Europe only had to wait a year for Persona 4.
  • The very region-locked Persona 4: Arena, however, had its European release date continually moved back. Fans were displeased.^note It was finally released May 10, 2013, and Atlus was unusually open about the localization problems behind the Schedule Slip.
  • The arcade version of Arena is Japan only.
  • The PSP remake of Innocent Sin finally got North American and European releases in 2011, though the new version changed Hitler, Nazis, swastikas, and 'Gay student council member' to Fuhrer, Imperial Soldiers, Iron Crosses, and 'Student council member that sounds like a girl'. On the flip side, the PSP remake of Eternal Punishment remains Japan-only due to unspecified "unusual circumstances", ironically enough (given that the original version was released in the West).
  • On the plus side, the 3DS remake of Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers finally came out in North America in April 2013, with a European release in September.
  • Shin Megami Tensei I finally got a version that was released in the West in 2014, the catch being that said version is on iOS only, no other devices.
  • The pre-SMT games, along with the Digital Devil Story novel series they were adapted from, are extremely unlikely to see a Western release because they've been so comprehensively overshadowed by their adaptations and sequels.
• The Silent Hill franchise has numerous spin offs that haven't been released in the US, including an arcade game that was released in Europe, but not the US. Thankfully, most of the products aren't important, with the exception of The Book of Lost Memories, a trivia book that answers many questions about the series. The arcade game has been seen in Australia however.
• Sin and Punishment did not originally get a release outside of Japan but it did feature English voice acting. Because of the high demand for a North American release it did release in 2007 on the Virtual Console. It sold enough there that its sequel Sin and Punishment: Star Successor did see a worldwide release.
• Infogrames' series of The Smurfs video games for the 8-bit and 16-bit game systems (such as The Smurfs (1994) and The Smurfs Travel the World) hardly saw a release outside Europe, with only a few exceptions.
• Spyro the Dragon:
  • The original trilogy, despite having been released as a whole in the Northern American PlayStation Store within a single month (that is, one game per week), have yet to be released on the European one. The situation with the PSOne Classics in Europe is so bad, the high request actually caused Ross McGrath of the European PS Blog to write a post entirely devoted to the Classics alone and how long it takes before one of them is released on the European store, mostly blaming it on technical issues and legal reasons. He also once commented that, on that regard, "there has been some progress [with the Spyro games] but it's not that notable". We could assume that the "legal reasons" have something to do with the music composed by Stewart Copeland, but even then, the fact the (thankfully) entirely re-released Crash Bandicoot trilogy still includes the Spyro demos - with music and all - instantly josses that option entirely.
  • After a few years (yeah, years) since the service's launch, October 2012◊ saw at least one Spyro game re-released for the European Store as well, mostly thanks to the European PS Store staff bowing down to the vocal minority's requests. And the European PS fandom rejoiced.
• A few Sonic the Hedgehog spinoff games for the Game Gear did not release in North America. The first was Sonic Drift which is bad when you consider the sequel did release worldwide with its original name of Sonic Drift 2. The second game was the spinoff Tails Skypatrol. Eventually both of these games did release as unlockables in other Sonic games. They both appeared in Sonic Adventure DX, Sonic Drift appeared in Sonic Mega Collection Plus, and Tails' Skypatrol appeared in Sonic Gems Collection.
• Spy Vs. Spy 2: The Island Caper received a Famicom port in Japan, but the US NES version was cancelled due to poor sales of the first game, though a handful of prototype cartridges have been circulated.
• The Starfy series until 5 (The Legendary Starfy) was never released outside of Japan for apparently being "too Japanese". Even then, The Legendary Starfy was never released in Europe.
• StarTropics, Which was never released in Japan, and the sequel Zoda's Revenge was North American-exclusive.
• Certain Strawberry Shortcake games fall oddly into this category. The Game Boy Advance game Ice Cream Island Riding Camp and the PC Port of The Sweet Dreams Game for the PS2 received Europe-only launches. Also, The PS2 release of The Sweet Dreams Game never got a NTSC/J release dispite the show's extreme popularity in Asia- Sony assigned the NTSC/J block to the region dispite the fact that much of the population can't speak Japanese. The latest case of the franchise is a set of iPhone games by some company called Cupcake Digital. For some reason those are not sold in Asia while games by Budge Studios (which are notorious Allegedly Free Games) and the Ape Entertainment comic books are.
• Most Summon Night games have never, and will never, be released outside of Japan despite their popularity. Notably this includes the 3rd Swordcraft Story game, as the first two were among the few to get released.
  • Neither will the anime, novels, or drama CDs.
  • Hardly a surprise. It's another Namco series, after all.
• Despite being more of a Capcom vs. game than an actual Street Fighter game, Street Fighter Online: Mouse Generation was the one of a very few games with the Street Fighter name to never get exported outside of Japan.
• Super Robot Wars:
  • The majority of the series will never be seen outside of Japan, other than through Fan Translations, due to the multitude of trademark/copyright issues involved. Indeed, that's the reason the Original Generation games were made: to produce something with the flavor of the series which can actually be exported without an army of lawyers covering its rear. Yet half of those aren't coming out in the US, either, because Sony Computer Entertainment America requires all games for their consoles to have an English voice track. Namco Bandai is unwilling to put the games out with a dub of low enough quality that they'd be financially viable, and Sony Computer Entertainment America is apparently unwilling to buckle on this rule. The fans are taking care of it, slowly but surely. Aeon Genesis has released translation patches for SRW 1, SRW 3, and Alpha Gaiden with patches for Alpha, Judgment and Lord of the Elementals (Masaki's story) in the not too distant future.
  • Due to general lack of region encoding, games released on Handheld systems (Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, or PlayStation Portable for example, with a total of 14 games between them (4 each on GBA and DS, 6 on PSP)) can be imported and played on local versions.
  • Reportedly, the Sega Dreamcast port of Super Robot Wars Alpha almost made it over to America in the early 2000s thanks to the wave of popularity spawned by Gundam Wing airing on Toonami, with every rights-holder for the shows included eager to go along with the idea. However, because the game's cast list included Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Harmony Gold stepped in and blocked the release^note it's never been made clear if Harmony Gold said no period, or if they said no to having the names unchanged but would've let the game come stateside if the Macross names were changed to Robotech ones; since Macross 7 would've also been affected, if the latter was the case, Bandai said no, but couldn't just dummy out the Macross units, given how key the series was to the game's plot.
  • Super Robot Wars W had all of its licenses sorted out, especially since the game included GoLion, an anime with a practically non-existent Japanese fanbase, specifically so it can be translated as Voltron. However, bad timing on Nickelodeon's part with their optioning of Voltron Force meant their approval was required for the Voltron license. The legal drama that followed ensured the American release's cancellation.
  • However, starting with V onwards, the series has averted this trope thanks to Loophole Abuse and a combination of both Sony and Nintendo opting not to have Region Coding on their 8th Gen Consoles; while Bandai can't market to the English-speaking markets in America and Europe directly, they can license the games in Southeast Asia and include an English localization as an option, since there's nothing the rights holders can do if fans import games from the region. However, the Steam releases of V and X still play this trope straight, since the aforementioned loophole only works for physical sales, whereas Steam uses digital distribution. Then with the 30th anniversary game, Super Robot Wars 30, the Steam release is actually officially available for North America and Europe.
• Averted with One Piece: Unlimited World Red, as it's out on Physical and Download versions for PS3, 3DS and Vita (the physical version is exclusive at GameStop.), but the Wii U still only gets it download only.
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms-related games Sangokushi Battlefield, Sangokushi Internet, Sangokushi Sousouden, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms 12, as well as some games in the Nobunaga's Ambition series, were not released in the US.
• The Surge Concerto games haven't and probably won't make it out of Japan, even though the games they are prequels to did get English localizations.
• Save for the version on the PS2, no Taiko no Tatsujin game has ever made it outside of Asia except for imported arcade cabinets. Curiously, the PS4 game, Taiko no Tatsujin: Session no Dodon ga Don!, will play in fully translated English menus if played on any PS4 console outside of Japan, regardless of version, with the localized title Taiko Drum Master: Drum Session!. Subverted in 2018, that both Drum Session! for PS4 and Taiko no Tatsujin: Nintendo Switch Version! for Nintendo Switch were finally localized and released in North America and Europe regions, with the Switch version of the game bearing the localized title Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum 'n' Fun!.
• Tengai Makyou: Far East of Eden, a long-running RPG series by Hudson Soft which started in 1989, has practically never appeared outside Japan, partly on account of its weirdness, partly because most of the original games were released on the PC Engine CD and Sega Saturn, which were not so popular outside Japan. The only English release was the Neo Geo fighting spinoff Tengai Makyou Shinden (translated as Kabuki Klash), and even this didn't get an AES release.
• Quite a few Tetris games have been hit with this problem due to various licensing issues.
  • In the West, the NES received two Tetris games, while the SNES received one. Meanwhile, in Japan the Famicom received two Tetris games while the Super Famicom received three (plus an Updated Re-release and a standalone Bombliss game), with no overlap. This led to the West missing out on games such as Tetris Battle Gaiden, a version of the game released in 1993 that included a multiplayer battle mode and the ability to handicap other players or assist yourself with power ups.
  • Tetris: The Grand Master. What makes the series even harder to acquire outside of Japan is that it's arcade-exclusive (unless you count the tragedy that is Tetris: The Grand Master ACE for 360). Furthermore, the demand for it is very low (because all Tetris games are the same, so why bother with this specific subset of games?), so a TGM cabinet in an arcade is very rare—the third TGM game, for instance, is only publically available in two arcades in the entire non-Japan world.
• Touch Detective: The first and second games released for the Nintendo DS got localized, the third title released exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS never was released out of Japan due to the relatively low marketing the past two games received. This is no longer the case, however, as in 2024, the third game was finally localized thanks to the 2022 Compilation Re-release being brought outside of Japan.
• Touhou Project: Although the games are playable on any Windows PC with decent specs and have no form of region-lockout DRM, ZUN has expressed no interest in bringing the games outside of Japan, physically or digitally. Should you try to import the games, expect to pay at least 30 USD for just one game. It's no wonder 99.9% of Western fans simply pirate the games. ZUN is fine with fans translating the games themselves and uploading the patches online, although the only thing he doesn't allow is unauthorized commercial distribution. As an exception to this, Playism announced bringing Double Dealing Character West, after some teasing by ZUN.
  • ZUN later changed his mind, saying that he was interested in bringing the games Westward^note The major stumbling block being that he prefers to do all the work himself, but his English isn't good enough to let him translate the games personally. In addition to Playism, Nippon Ichi started bringing not only official games, but some of the higher-budget fan games like the Roguelike Genso Wanderer to America.
  • On November 3, 2017, ZUN announced that the two most recent entries: Hidden Star in Four Seasons and Antinomy of Common Flowers will be released on Steam. Go here for details. Soon after, the official Steam page for the former was revealed.
  • Now a full-blown subversion, as more and more of the series has made its way to Steam. As of April 5th, 2022, every game from Phantasmagoria of Flower View onwards with the exception of Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Hisoutensoku are now available on the platform.
• The Tower of Druaga series was never exported, outside of the compilations Namco Museum Volume 3, Namco Museum Volume 4, Namco Museum DS, and Namco Museum Virtual Arcade.
• None of the Twilight Syndrome games have ever left Japan in an official capacity, despite their influence and references in later games gaining them a modest international audience. Serious efforts to provide limited Fan Translations of the games in the form of subtitled playthroughs only date back as recently as the late 2010s, though even these efforts don't cover the latest official sequel, Kinjirareta Toshi Densetsu.
• None of the Umihara Kawase games have been released outside Japan, though Natsume at one time had plans to release Umihara Kawase Portable in the U.S. as Yumi's Odd Odyssey. Averted with the latest one, Sayonara Umihara Kawase, which was given a western release in the 3DS eShop under the name Yumi's Odd Odyssey
• Out of all the Uncle Albert's Adventures medias, only the first three out of the five mainline games were released outside of France.
• In Japan, all four Valis games were released on the PC Engine in one form or another. But North America didn't get the original Valis IV or the superior remake of the first game on the TurboGrafx-16; only the inferior SNES and Genesis versions came over.
• Are you fan of Virtual-ON? Sega hates Western fans and here's how:
  • An Updated Re-release of Virtual-On: Operation Moongate was released for the PlayStation 2 and only in Japan. What makes it sting even more as this is widely considered to be the best version of the game as it has features not found in the Sega Saturn or PC port, such as updated graphics and smoother frame-rate, crisper sound quality, and lots of extra modes including one where you can play as chibi versions of the Virtuaroids and play as the Final Boss.
  • The third entry of the series, Virtual-ON: FORCE, was released only in Japan and got an Xbox 360 port over there as well. Thankfully, Sega was nice enough to make it region-free and the menus are mostly in English.
  • When Sega announced their Model2 Collection series of HD re-releases of Model2 arcade games, they would be re-releasing Sonic the Fighters, Virtual Fighter 2, Fighting Vipers, Virtual-ON: Operation Moongate, and Virtua Striker via Xbox Live Arcade and Play Station Network. Only three of these games got released world-wide, but then Sega decided to Virtual-ON and Virtua Striker only in Japan.
  • The original Japanese version of Virtual-ON: MARZ was re-release on PlayStation Network (the West received an inferior version with lots of missing story content). In Japan. And no one else was getting it. However, if you have a Japanese PSN account and the yen to cover the cost, then you can import it this way.
• Unfortunately Valkyria Chronicles III will never see the light outside Japan as a PSP game. This is mainly due to Sega's decision shoot itself in the foot by making the sequel a PSP game instead of a PS3 game like the original. The original sold better in the West than in Japan (due in part to the PS3's international popularity), but since the PSP was thriving in Japan but dying in the West, the game sold poorly outside of the Japanese market. Poor foreign sales led to Sega deciding not to export Valkyria Chronicles 3. Thankfully, the PSP's region-free nature makes it easy to import the game, and an English patch is available here http://vc3translationproject.wordpress.com/about/
• The Vib-Ribbon series never made it outside of Japan, though the European countries got a release of the first game. However, in October 7, 2014, the first game was released in North America. The reason for this was that Shawn Layden, the CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, made a mistake that involved mentioning Vib-Ribbon during an E3 2014 press conference when he did not know that the first game was never released outside of Japan and Europe during that time, thus causing people on Twitter to become upset when no further information of the game was mentioned in the press conference (instead, Layden showed footage of Mortal Kombat X). When Layden realized what he had done, he asked his team to work on perfecting a North American port for the PlayStation Network and the North American release of Vib-Ribbon finally came. He then apologized for the commotion after the North American release. As a result, North American players got to enjoy the first game's catchy music and its adorable character, Vibri.
• wipEout 3 got a Special Edition re-release that was only released in PAL territories, which to the dismay of North American and Japanese players, featured much more tracks than the original with some improvements to existing base tracks and system link support for 4-player multiplayer over the original.
• Wizardry: Of the Japanese games, enhanced remakes, and sequels, which outnumber the US releases, a couple have been exported, including Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land, and Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls.
• Fans of Wrestling Games have long lamented the lack of such games that make the transition from Japan to the U.S., which leaves WWE's licensed games as very nearly the genre's sole representatives in North America. In particular, Spike Entertainment's Fire Pro Wrestling and King of Colosseum franchises have garnered very vocal cults of Import Gamers, but the former has only seen very limited North American release of only the later games, and the latter has yet to cross the pond at all. To be fair, with those two series in particular, there are a few licensing issues; King of Colosseum is a Massive Multiplayer Crossover of several prominent Japanese wrestling federations, while Fire Pro Wrestling is... the same, with international promotions thrown in too, only with the Serial Numbers Filed Off. The problem is the vast bulk of the roster is Japanese wrestlers with only a handful of American wrestlers. Since Japanese wrestling has a very small audience in the west, most companies feel it's not worth the effort. Heck, Agetec only managed to port Fire Pro Returns by waiting two years after the game's Japanese release and releasing it in the US and Europe as a budget title. It also should be noted the GBA games sported a larger number of western wrestlers than usual, and the US version of Final Fire Pro added even more (at the expense of the Manager Mode).
• Xenosaga I and II for the DS never saw release outside of Japan.
  • Xenosaga: Pied Piper, the spinoff cellphone game that explains Ziggy's past. However, the game script has since been translated and posted online.
  • Xenosaga: A Missing Year was promised to be translated and released by Namco... but wasn't. No big loss though, since it only explains why Shion didn't just quit Vector but joined a terrorist organization actively working to cripple the company, where Doctus comes from and who/what she really is, and why Shion's suddenly developed an intense disgust for her father, you know minor plot points. Much like Pied Piper, a fan-based translation is available online. Furthermore, in Europe, only Episode II was released. A low-quality 4 hour long DVD comprised of the games key cutscenes from Episode I was packaged with Episode II as a recap, while Episode III was not released at all.
• Rumors have cropped up about talks that the third installment in the PlayStation Portable Yu-Gi-Oh GX Tag Force series would not be released overseas...despite the curious phenomenon of the series to come out in the west several weeks before it hits Japan. Some speculate that, if true, this decision was made to correspond to other rumors that 4Kids has refused to translate the fourth Yu-Gi-Oh! GX season, instead jumping straight to the next series Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the commoners...
• Falcom's Ys RPG series went through a long spell of this. By the time Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys was released for the PC Engine CD, NEC was no longer supporting the format outside Japan. Ys IV: Mask of the Sun and Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand also remained in Japan, even when they were both remade for the PlayStation 2. By the time Konami localized Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim for PS2 and PSP, enough opportunities had been missed that the sequel number was dropped. Fortunately, Atlus and XSEED have localized every subsequent game in the series, including: Ys: The Oath in Felghana, Ys SEVEN, Ys I and II Chronicles, Ys Origin, Ys: Memories of Celceta, and the original PC version of Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim. Ys V is now the only entry in the modern canon without at least one version available in English.
• Though all games in the Grand Theft Auto series from 3 onwards have been released in Japan, there are spin-offs such as Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned that were never released there.
• The JoySound karaoke games are this trope played straight if you live outside Japan. The developers even went as far as to region lock JoySound Dive so tightly that not only it won't run on a non-Japanese PS3, but even Japanese PS3s signed onto a Japanese PSN account will not be able to run the game if they're not on a Japanese ISP. However, the later PS3 and PS4 re-release had no region coding.
• The first and third Shubibinman games, for the PC Engine, were only released in Japan. The middle installment, titled Shockman in the west, was a subpar Mega Man (Classic) clone, in contrast with the hack n' slash gameplay of the other two.
• Sega's Performai series are basically "well, tough shit" if you don't live in the Asia Pacific:
  • The maimai series is exclusive to Japan and select countries in Eastern and Southeastern Asia. Location tests in the US were held in late 2016 and early 2017, but this unfortunately did not lead to a proper US release.
  • maimai's sibling game CHUNITHM is Asia-only.
  • Ongeki is Japan-only, which is slightly more understandable as the game also utilizes a special collectible card system.
• Yo-kai Watch is loaded with examples.
  • Yo-kai Watch 4 is the most prominent example, being the only main entry in the series with no English translation. It was released in 2019 in Japan for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, and was released in China in 2023 on the former platform. In 2019, a Western localization of the game was announced, but Level-5 have announced nothing since. The studio shut down their operations in North America in 2020, but appear to be returning to global releases as of 2023, with other games by the studio, including Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, scheduled for global release in 2024. This leaves the status of Yo-kai Watch 4 in the West unknown.
  • A crossover with Just Dance for the Wii U never left Japan, likely due to music rights issues and the Wii U's poor sales.
  • A crossover with Koei-Tecmo's Romance of the Three Kingdoms series known as Yo-kai Sangokushi didn't see release. As the 3DS is on its last legs in 2018 and 2019, it's unlikely it will happen.
  • An arcade spin-off of Yo-kai Watch Blasters (itself already a spin-off) never saw release due to the downfall of arcades in the West. Though data-mining showed that they gave it a localized name, Iron Oni Force, and possibly had something in mind for it. This was later rectified by including content exclusive to that game in updates for the English localization of Blasters.
  • Though mobile title Yo-kai Watch Puni Puni did get localized as Yo-kai Watch Wibble Wobble, it didn't receive a large amount of content the Japanese version had. Eventually Wibble Wobble shut down after two years while Puni Puni continues to this day.
  • Other mobile games have not seen release outside of Japan, including Gerapo Rhythm (an Elite Beat Agents clone) and Yo-kai Watch World (a Pokémon GO clone), with Level-5 not announcing anything, though the latter's title is written out in English rather than Japanese, implying there was something in the works, until it was later revealed that these plans were dropped due to lack of interest from publishers wanting to take it on.
  • An interesting case with Yo-kai Watch 3. Originally it was released in two versions (Sushi and Tempura) with a third version released later (Sukiyaki). However, for the Western release, they only released one version based on Sukiyaki, later confirmed to be a combination of all three games with Sukiyaki as the base. This is somewhat justified as the series isn't as popular in regions outside Japan.
  • This is likely the case of Yo-kai Watch Blasters 2 as the game came out late in the 3DS' life (2017 when America still only had Psychic Specters).
• A lot of Japanese mobile phone games remain Japan only. Even if they are exported, chances are they are limited to the USA, Europe, South Korea or Chinese speaking regions in Asia at best, such as Puzzle & Dragons and Monster Strike, and massively popular titles such as Love Live! School idol festival, Metal Slug Defense or Brave Frontier are more likely to be exported worldwide.
• Wonder Boy:
  • The arcade version of Wonder Boy in Monster Land never saw a Western release despite being fully localized.
  • Rather unusually, the Sega Master System version of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (Monster World II in Japan) was never released in its native land of Japan; only its later port for the Game Gear version was. As a result, gamers couldn't experienced the FM music outside of emulation, and its sequel, Wonder Boy in Monster World (Wonder Boy V: Monster World III in Japan), came out before it there.
  • Unlike previous games, Monster World IV remained a Japan exclusive. At least until 2012, when Sega finally produced a localization for modern systems — nearly two decades years after its release. What made this particularly bad was that the game was a direct sequel to Wonder Boy in Monster World, which ended in a Sequel Hook. The game also saw a release in 2019 as part of the Sega Genesis Mini console released to celebrate its 30th anniversary.

Game-Specific Examples

These examples are sorted by game name.

• The Xbox and PC versions of 25 to Life were never released outside of North America. PAL regions would only see a stripped-back PS2 version that omits the multiplayer and CD.
• In 2006 Nintendo released a series of simplistic games for the Gameboy Advance called bit Generations in two waves with seven games in total. The games had very simplistic graphics with pick-up and play gameplay and came in black boxes which were smaller than normal and lacked instructions. The seven games were Dotstream, a simplistic racer, Boundish, a series of Pong clones, Dialhex and Coloris, two puzzle games, Digidrive, an arcade style game, Orbital, a different kind of space shooter with gravity based puzzles, and Soundvoyager, a game that included a pair of stereo headphones and could literally be played only by listening. Even though the games never made it outside Japan, they did get ESRB ratings under the name "Digistylish" indicating a potential US release. Notably a few of the games did get enhanced remakes, Dailhex, Orbital, and Dotsream on WiiWare as Rotohex, Orbient, and light trax, and Digidrive on DSiWare, all under the name of Art Style and also including new games. Of all these, Boundish, Coloris and Soundvoyager have never seen any release in any form outside Japan.
• The South America set PS1 game Aconcagua was never released outside of Japan, despite originally being made to appeal to Argentine gamers (in addition to having voice acting in English and Spanish). Meaning that if you want to play the game, you'll either have to download an emulator version or cough up some serious cash and buy a Japanese PS1 console as well as the game (learning some Japanese and Spanish would also help).
• The Wii game And-Kensaku did not leave Japan because of its outlandish concept (a game based on Google search results) and the fact that, by nature of the game, outcomes of its minigames were similar to a lottery.
• For most of us, the Puzzle Game Wario's Woods was the final NES game. But Japan released another NES game that never saw release outside of Japan: the fourth and final installment of the Adventure Island series.
• Adventure Time:
  • The Adventure Time game Hey Ice King! Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?! was only released in North America. Too bad 3DS is region blocked, so the only way for other people to play it is using the Nintendo DS edition. Either that, or pay through the nose for both an American 3DS and the game. Averted when it was finally released in Europe as an eShop exclusive.
  • Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW! is available to America, Europe, and Australia this time around but not Japan, but Japanese Adventure Time fans can import the PS3 version of the game. Not surprising, as WayForward Technologies hardly ever exports its games there - Contra 4 being practically the only exception, and even then likely because it's a game in a franchise owned by a Japanese company.
• Aerobiz: The first game's Sega Genesis/PSX remake was released exclusively in Japan.
• All Night Nippon: Super Mario Bros was a special edition of Super Mario Bros. created by Japanese TV channel Fuji TV. Needless to say it never got a release outside Japan because the characters and franchises would not be recognized and the game itself was a limited edition run.
• All Points Bulletin will not be available in Australia. The reason for this, however, is not Moral Guardians, but cost of renting local servers from a company that has effective monopoly on it.
• Altered Beast (2005) got an In Name Only remake for the PS2, which never got released in North America but did get released in Europe/Australia.
• The Amazing Spider-Man: Lethal Foes, a fairly good SNES platformer starring the Webhead (at times considered the best Spider-Man game of the 16-bit era), was exclusive to Japan.
• Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals: Sing and Dance for the Wii was only released in Europe, which is odd because a North American release would likely have been just as popular (if not more so) due to Lloyd Webber's musicals being hugely successful on Broadway.
• Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp has not been made available in several countries across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, despite being touted as a "global" release. Also, neighboring countries might have access to the game while others don't, as seen with Malaysia compared to Thailand and Singapore. Nintendo faced backlash for their response when questioned about the game's absence in certain regions, citing concerns about widespread game piracy and "unauthorized modding", even though modding and piracy are also prevalent in regions where the game is available and often originate from there.
• Aquanaut's Holiday: Hidden Memories was fully translated into English, but the translated version was only released in China and Korea.
• Arcana Heart 2 never saw the light of day outside of Japan. This may be more due to the fact that the PS2 version of said game wasn't a very good port, however. Arcana Heart 3, on the other hand, does subvert this trope...unless you're an Xbox 360 owner in North America. To be fair, Aksys pushed for a 360 release for that region, but ultimately couldn't get approval for a physical disc release. Making it download-only in North America was also out of the question because the game weighed in at over twice the size limit for a 360 downloadable title (The game's at least 2GB. XBLA titles usually don't exceed 800MB).
• Armadillo was a platform game for the Famicom which was planned for a North American release but was cancelled at the last minute because of the SNES releasing. Even so, North American gamers may recognize it as the bootleg game "Super Mario IV".
• Athena: Awakening from the Ordinary Life has not been localized, even though most of the Athena series has, and one would think that it's the kind of Darker and Edgier game that American anime fans would leap on. However, Athena is pretty obscure in the West, and SNK probably figured that the expense of translating a more story-oriented game would outweigh the revenue.
• Activision planned to give Atlantis no Nazo a Dolled-Up Installment localization as Super Pitfall 2, but due to the first Super Pitfall's negative reception, it was cancelled.
• The licensed Back to the Future game Super Back To The Future II was Super Famicom only. Indeed, a game based on an American movie doesn't come to any English-speaking country. Part of the reason why may simply be because most critics at the time probably would lambast it for being a generic platformer.
• Battle Mania: Daiginjō, the sequel to the Genesis shmup Trouble Shooter (Battle Mania), only saw release in Japan and South Korea.
• BattleTanx seems to be a gloriously fun romp around a post-apocalyptic wasteland blowing things up. OK, so it was ignored upon release, but it would still make sense to release it outside America to drum up sales, right? If you believe that, you're not a manager to 3DO. The sequel Global Assault got an Australian release, with reference to the first game's storyline and characters that were completely unexplained.
• Battle Stadium DON was a Super Smash Bros. styled game crossing Dragon Ball, One Piece and Naruto released for PS2 and Game Cube in Japan. There are no plans to release it anywhere else.
• Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa was a platformer released for the Famicom Disk System and then later the Famicom which did not make it to the US again because it was so late in the NES lifecycle. The game finally would get an official US release a decade and a half later on the Wii Virtual Console.
• One version of Black/Matrix was considered for US release back in '99, but was passed over, for some reason.
• Blaster Master 2 for the Genesis/Megadrive was produced by European developer Software Creations, and never released in Japan, or even Europe itself for that matter, only in North America.
• Blitz: The League 2 never saw an official release in Australia. It's likely this was due to the previous installment being Refused Classification there.
• Blood of Bahamut for NDS published by Square Enix.
• Blender Bros on the GBA is an extremely strange case. The game itself only released in North America, but had a tie-in comic released in Japan's Comic Bombom that explained who all the characters were and showed their backstory. So the American game's story doesn't make much sense, since it was all told in comics the West never got, except the Japanese market never got the game the comics were based on!
• Boktai had a third GBA game in Japan. English-speakers have to settle for the ROM and the fan translation patch.
• Captain Rainbow never left Japan (probably thanks to Birdo, who's particularly flaming in this one), thus blocking Panel de Pon characters from receiving Western exposure for a third time.
• There is a Carmen Sandiego game for the Nintendo DS, named Mais où se cache Carmen Sandiego? Mystère au bout du monde,^translationWhere in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Mystery at the End of the World. released only in Europe and Australia. Less than favorable reviews, like this one, most likely killed any chance of an American release even with the ESRB accidentally leaking news about the game's existence.
• Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls was a Mobile Phone Game released exclusively in Canada before being discontinued.
• Cave Story: The WiiWare version of the game has never seen a release in Japan, and, due to the shutdown of the Wii Shop Channel, never will, which is ironic since that's where the game was made. However, it has seen a European release.
• Chaos Field's multiple ports outside of its GameCube and Wii versions stayed in Japan.
• Clock Tower: The First Fear was never released outside of Japan because the violent content would not pass Nintendo of America's then-draconian "family friendly" policy. However, its sequels all made it over as the developer had jumped to the PlayStation for those. This made certain lines in the second game, the only direct sequel, a bit confusing. Nobody knows why Dan is a significant name because the game only shows him briefly in the opening and doesn't say his name.
• Cool Cool Toon was only released in Japan. A 2001 international release was planned, but canceled.
• The arcade version of Nichibutsu's Cosmo Police Galivan was eventually reissued internationally as part of HAMSTER's Arcade Archives on the PS4 and Switch, but the Famicom adaptation and its Super Famicom sequel remain exclusive to Japan.
• Crash Bandicoot:
  • The series was extremely popular in Japan; being one of the few popular western game series there. However when the characters got a full-on redesign for the seventh gen games, those games did not release there. It's an odd case, since they could have made specific models for them like they did with many of the other games. Crash continues to have games in Japan (mostly on mobile devices), albeit in the style of the PlayStation games.
  • Crash Bash was re-released on the PSN Store... But only in Japan, and for every other country it remains the only Crash Bandicoot game on the PlayStation that hasn't been rereleased. Maybe it was because it wasn't made by Naughty Dog or that it wasn't as popular or good, but that doesn't explain why it was still released in Japan.
  • Crash of the Titans never made its way over to Japan despite Crash Tag Team Racing making its way over there.
  • Crash: Mind Over Mutant like its predecessor, never entered Japan. As a bonus, the DS version was made in Japan.
• Crimzon Clover's original PC version was only released in Japan, but it can be run on any modern PC regardless of region so it's not really an example. What was an example, however, is the arcade port, which adds 2-player support and replaces Simple Mode with a new Boost Mode. It was formally available only on the Japan-only NESiCAxLive platform (see further below for details) until the WORLD IGNITION and World Explosion Updated Re Release which was made available for sale world-wide through Steam, GOG, and Nintendo Switch.
• Cubivore was not released in Europe.
• Curse, a Japan-exclusive Shoot 'Em Up for the Sega Genesis, almost got a US release from INTV Corporation as part of their plan to become a publisher of games for then-current consoles. INTV's non-Intellivision releases instead began and ended with the locally developed Monster Truck Rally for the NES.
• Daffy Duck in Hollywood was released for the Megadrive in Europe, but never saw a Genesis release. This, despite Looney Tunes coming from America in the first place, Hollywood being an American location, and numerous other Looney Tunes license games were released in the U.S.
• Dark Law the Meaning of Death is a JRPG from very late (as in 97 late) of SNES life cycle by ASCII Soft so unsurprisingly never saw a release out of Japan. That it's a very niche (and positively evil) game probably didn't help one bit.
• Dead or Alive:
  • Dimensions wasn't released in Sweden, Norway, or Denmark due to concerns about the game's Figure Mode raised by a blogger who "aimed for [Nintendo's] heart, and by accident... hit [Nintendo] in the stomach." They could have edited Figure Mode out of the localized version, but they panicked and decided not to release the game in those three countries at all.
  • Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 did not get an official release outside of Asia per official statement by Tecmo-Koei. Despite this Team Ninja did announce they would include an all-English option in the game for those that chose to import. This proved to be a boon when Play Asia made the announcement of picking the game up to make it available for people outside that region and they achieved record-breaking sales numbers with it.
• Diablo III: An edge case in regards to one localization. The Japanese Playstation 3 port of Diablo III was outsourced in its entirety to above-noted perpetual offender Square-Enix, who localized the text and included Japanese voice acting, including many well-known industry talents. However, these localizations are not (and will likely never be) available in the PC client for III because Square-Enix likely owns the IP rights to both and for whatever reason are and have not been willing to license it back to Blizzard. This likely led to the Japanese localization/voice direction of Diablo II and Diablo IV, if not all future games made by Blizzard, being handled entirely by Blizzard in-house, leaving SE to just handle the ports instead (see the Overwatch example below).
• Poor Ryo Akiyama, who appeared in Digimon Tamers, has gotten some flack from the western fanbase because he doesn't seem to make any sense as a character without his backstory... Which comes from a series of games on the Wonderswan. The Wonderswan never went anywhere beyond Asia, and the only offical English version of the first in this series of games was only released in Hong Kong and other English-speaking asian countries. The same applies for the other Digimon games on that system and the AU mangas.
• Disaster: Day of Crisis was localized to Europe. Not to America, though. It seems Reggie doesn't appreciate the campy nature of the game.
• Doctor Who: The Adventure Games were not initially available outside of the UK until a commercial version was issued in July 2010. However, the company chosen to distribute the commercial version has said they will not be making the Mac version of the games available outside the UK.
• Donkey Konga 3 never left Japan due to the first two games' negative reception overseas.
• Donkey Kong Land 3 was originally released only in America and Europe. A few years later it finally got a release in Japan, but it was a Game Boy Color version, which other countries didn't get.
• Doom Troopers was released exclusively in North America despite being based off a Swedish franchise that's very popular in Scandinavia.
• The Nintendo 64 had a quirky simulation game called Doubutsu no Mori which was never released outside of Japan. It got a remake, Doubutsu no Mori+ for the GameCube, however, which did get released internationally, under the name Animal Crossing. The remake was then re-exported back to Japan and re-released with further additions and improvements as Doubutsu no Mori e+, which stayed in Japan.
• Doshin the Giant originally saw a release only in Japan on the 64DD attachment. It later got an update re-release for the Gamecube, but North America is the only region that did not see it. According to Nintendo, reception of the game was good, but it did not achieve the sales they wanted in other territories.
• Double S.T.E.A.L: The Second Clash went unreleased outside Japan, as apparently no publisher wanted to take a chance on an original Xbox exclusive while the Xbox 360 was around the coner. This is especially unfortunate as the game is already fully voiced and translated into English.
• Dragon Ball Heroes is a card-based arcade game released in 2010 which has yet to receive any form of release outside of Japan, despite possessing a great many of the features fans have been clamoring for for some time. It also got an Enhanced Remake port to the 3DS, and there isn't even a whisper indicating a release outside Japan either.
• Dragon Ball Online was an MMORPG created with help from original author Akira Toriyama that never saw release outside of Korea. The servers shut down in 2013, but it was soon resurrected by fans for a global release.
• Dr. Mario 64, a massively Updated Re-release of Dr. Mario, was initially only released in America despite its predecessor being a pretty popular game all over the world. It was later included on the collection Nintendo Puzzle Collection for the GameCube—which was only released in Japan (more info on that below).
• The DuckTales Remastered game is not available on the Wii U in parts of Asia where the NTSC/UC version of the Wii U is being sold. This is because the Wii U eShop for NTSC/UC consoles isn't available in those areas. It's also unknown if DuckTales Remastered will be released in Japan at all or not despite the original NES game being made there, even though it is available on PSN in the rest of Asia. The iOS and Android versions of the game avert this for Japan in April 2015.
• On April 2, 2013, Nexon announced that they are officially shutting down Neople's Dungeon Fighter Online in the west, making it a Korea-only MMO. Then in April 15, 2014, the game was revived overseas by Neople itself, as Dungeon Fighter Online Global.
• Dynasty Warriors has:
  • A game called Dynasty Warriors VS on the Nintendo 3DS that features Link and Samus as playable characters. Sound good? Too bad, it's only available in Japan.
  • While Shin Sangoku Musou: Multi Raid Special was exported as Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce, Multi Raid 2 never made it out of Japan.
• Earth Defense Force:
  • In the series, the first two games were only released in Japan as Chikyuu Boueigun, and Europe as Monster Attack and Global Defense Force.
  • Earth Defense Forces 2 Portable, the PSP version of Chikyuu Boueigun 2 / Global Defense Force, was only released in Japan but contained more content than its PS2 versions, 4-player co-op and even had some hidden files on the UMD hinting at a US release that never happened. Earth Defense Forces 3 Portable for the Play Station Vita made it over under the moniker Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable however.
• Ensemble Stars! began in 2015 but did not receive even a suggestion of any English-language release until seven years later in 2022, despite being extremely successful in Japan and China (in 2018 it was the 7th most tweeted about game on all of twitter and a spin-off rhythm game has been announced), being an idol mobile game similar to a number of others that had already had success in English (namely Love Live! School idol festival, BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! and Uta No Prince Sama Shining Live), and gaining a decently large English-speaking fanbase simply based on fan translations (accessible via the wiki).
• Evil Twin: Cyprien's Chronicles has only been released in Europe. The company In Utero had made games before this one that actually got releases in North America, but they flopped (although making a game called Jekyll and Hyde is not exactly enticing to US consumers). After this they made the Europe only The Shadow of Zorro, another hidden gem (but only on PC) that only saw a European release.
• Despite having four major versions, being massively popular in its home country, and even making a showing as a featured tournament at the Evolution 2010 World Fighting Game Championships in Las Vegas, Melty Blood remains a Japan-only item. This was, however, averted with Actress Again Current Code getting a Steam release, courtesy of Arc System Works.
• ExciteBots was only released in North America. This is despite the fact that the video game franchise itself was originally made in Japan.
• F-Zero Climax, the last F-Zero game ever made, was never released outside Japan.
• The Fairly OddParents: Breakin' da Rules was never released outside of North America, though its sequel The Fairly OddParents: Shadow Showdown was. This was because Nelvana had the exclusive rights to the series outside of the United States when those games were being published, and they decided not to export Breakin' Da Rules, but allowed Shadow Showdown to get released in PAL territories.
• Fantasy Earth Zero: The US, Taiwan and Hong Kong servers were shut down, making the game Japan-only.
• Fatal Frame:
  • Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse was released in Japan with a counterintuitive control scheme (on the Wii, no less) and some game-breaking bugs. The game remains in Japan because Nintendo refuses to release the game worldwide without changes, but Tecmo refuses to make said changes without additional pay. The fact that the previous game reviewed and sold only slightly better than the plague overseas probably isn't helping matters, either.
  • Fatal Frame II: Deep Crimson Butterfly, a remake of the best-selling second game in the series, has been announced for European and Australian releases... but not American.
• Fire Emblem Heroes is another game from Nintendo to suffer the same fate as Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp above. Fans of the series in the countries that the game isn't launched are truly livid to the point where they have sworn that they will never buy another Nintendo product unless Nintendo releases the game. As of 2019 though, Nintendo is slowly launching the game in the remaining parts of the world.
• The vast majority of games based on the manga series Fist of the North Star never saw release outside of Japan. The only games released outside of Japan were the second NES game which was called simply Fist of the North Star, a fighting game for the Game Boy, the Fighting Mania arcade game, two games for the Master System and Genesis that were stripped of the license and rebranded for sale on the international market, and of course, Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage. The Other Wiki has many, many others, including three Dragon Quest-style RPGs (two of them for the NES), a line of typing games, a line of fighting games, and finally a line of pachinko games.
• Siren 1 - First game was released in Europe first, then released in America with the british voicework. The second game never made it to America and stopped in Europe.
• Siren 2 saw Japanese, Australian and European release, but never made it to North America, probably because sales for the first game were, to say the least, abysmal.
• Despite being released in Japan, the third Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) game, Fullmetal Alchemist 3: The Girl Who Succeeds God ((鋼の錬金術師3: 神を継ぐ少女, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi 3: Kami wo Tsugu Shōjo) was never released in North America. At the time, short sales of the other two games' caused this. However, there doesn't seem to be a lot of reason to keep it from coming out as of Brotherhood's release in 2010/2011, since it was considered to be the best game of the three Role Playing Games.
• Despite footage of the Japanese version existing, Game & Watch Gallery 4 never got a Japanese release, in a rare inversion of the trope. It took fourteen years to finally avert it via Wii U's Virtual Console, as Game Boy Gallery 4 (it originally had the working title of Game Boy Gallery Advance).
• Godzilla:
  • Of the trilogy of console fighting games made by Atari/Infogrames, the third one especially, Godzilla Unleashed, is regarded by fans as the best Godzilla game of all time. So it's a bit of a puzzle why only the third game was not released in Japan, Godzilla's home. The Japanese fans are a bit pissed off about this, especially as it contained several of the films' Ensemble Darkhorses who have never been playable before.
  • The second Super NES Godzilla game and Street Fighter clone (Kaiju Daikessen) never left Japan, and even worse, it was actually set to be released in North America as Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters, but wasn't mentioned afterwards. Which is unfortunate, since it was the first truly good Godzilla game on a mainstream console.
• The 1992 NES platformer Gimmick! (1992) was inexplicably only released in Japan and Scandinavia, although a North American release was planned.
• Granblue Fantasy is an odd case in that the game is officially only available in Japan — Google's and Apple's app markets only carry the game app if your region is set accordingly — but it can be played in English. Even then, the game can be played in a browser on desktop and mobile devices from any region provided that your government, ISP, or network doesn't block the game website, thus circumventing the problem. This does have a benefit to it: Since there's only one region of the game, timed events, new characters, and new stories are made available simultaneously in Japanese and English, rather than forcing English-language players to wait months or years for a separate version to get the localized content.
• Grand Knights History. XSEED Games was all set to localize it, but they ended up dropping it.
• The Great Giana Sisters is a Cult Classic game well-known for both being a blatant ripoff of Super Mario Bros. Commodore 64, and for its Awesome Music. It was eventually remade for the Nintendo DS, but only released in Australia. It also had a North America release, but so far only limited copies were made.
• Guilty Gear is well known for having a few revisions of one of its games. At least two of them did not make it over seas though: Guilty Gear X Plus (Yes, GGX got an Updated Re-release as well) and Guilty Gear XX Slash, which introduced A.B.A and Order-Sol. Since their overseas debut was Accent Core, a slight Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros." effect ensued. Also of note is Guilty Gear XX #Reload which was only released in the U.S. on the Xbox.
• Another game in limbo is Mobile Ops (or Gundam: Operation Troy). Bandai Namco Entertainment still have it as TBA for American release but have not said a word about it. Truly a bizare case since the game was desgined with Western audiences in mind. After the poor sales in Japan and general dislike by even Gundam Fans in general, they decide it would only ruin sales.
• A few Hamtaro games fell into this category as well: The first Hamtaro game (which is little more than a virtual pet game with a love meter and mate compatibility meter built in) is only available in Japanese. Likewise, the first Hamtaro DS game got a Japan-only release as well. To a lesser extent of things, fourth Hamtaro game, Rainbow Rescue, got an European and Japanese release, but no North American release.
• Harvest Moon: Back to Nature For Girl will never be released outside of Japan in its original form^note Due in no small part to the rage-inducing fact the game ends once you get married. You don't even get the series-standard Playable Epilogue. More Friends of Mineral Town is essentially an enhanced 2D port of this game, and the PSP release Boy and Girl combined both versions of Back To Nature. Surprisingly there are several games made for the overseas audience that were never released in Japan, including the two DS puzzle games and the 3DS version of A Tale of Two Towns.
• None of the Hi-Tec-published Hanna-Barbera and Looney Tunes games were released outside of Europe, despite Hanna-Barbera and Looney Tunes being made from America in the first place.
• House of the Dead:
  • EX, a Lighter and Softer Spin-Off of the series that focuses around a zombie couple. This game never officially made it outside Japan^note However, grey market imports of the game have been spotted in several arcades outside Japan, and needless to say, people outside of Japan were really confused when Zobiko and Zobio appeared in Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing, rather than well-known characters such as G, Curien, or Varla Guns, to name a few.
  • Typing of the Dead II based on House of the Dead III is Japan-only. It doesn't help that Typing II comes out 6 years after HotD3.
• Idol Hakkenden was never released outside of Japan, presumably due to Erika at one point stopping a man from commiting suicide, a songwriter actually commiting suicide due to a girl who rejected him, Erika taking a pistol at one point, or because of idol culture not appealing to westerners.
• Ikenie No Yoru, developed and published by Marvelous Entertainment, is one of the other gems, that seem to be kept behind Japanese borders.
• Ikki Tousen Shining Dragon, a 3D beat-em-up based on the anime series, was originally released in Japan in 2007 by Marvelous Entertainment. A North American publisher, Valcon Games, was slated to release it in the U.S. that same year, but the release date was pushed back to 2008, then was quietly cancelled.
• Initial D: Perfect Shift Online was not exported, with online service shut down. The unreleased sequel, Initial D Perfect Shift Online 2nd Stage will probably not be exported.
• ...Iru! was only released in Japan.
• Jeanne d'Arc on PSP, despite being about a famous historical figure of both France and England, was never released in Europe.
• The only way to play the web browser game KanColle is to register on the Japanese-language segment of the DMM website, which itself is inaccessible to non-Japanese IP addresses. This means to even register for the game, a prospective non-Japanese player will have to jump through a lot of hoops to do so (usually by using VPN), never mind getting to play the game, which then requires newly registered members to win a lottery for one of the limited slots per server. And competition is steep for server slots. The arcade game KanColle Arcade and the Vita game KanColle Kai were not exported either.
• Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru, translated loosely as "For the Frog the Bell Tolls" was an action RPG for the original Gameboy developed by Nintendo and with hybrid gameplay consisting of overhead action on the overworld changing to platforming in dungeons. For some reason or other, the cult-hit game never made it out of Japan, but it did get a well-done fan translation in 2011. Its engine was later used to make The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening which did have a western release.
• The titular first game of the Katamari Damacy series was never released in PAL regions. To make up for this, the PAL release of the second game featured the first game's intro movie, Hoshino family cutscenes and "Katamari on the Rocks" theme song as unlockable extras.
• The two sequels of Kid Niki were only released in Japan.
• King of Fighters '94 Rebout, an enhanced remake of the first KOF game, was scheduled for an American release, but was cancelled for unknown reasons. It was only released in Japan.
• Kirby:
  • Kirby's Dream Collection for Wii was never released in Europe, Australia or Korea, presumably due to it releasing in Japan and America close to the Wii U (2012), and also being a large bundle.
  • Kirby's Star Stacker had a remake for the Super Famicom called Kirby no Kirakira Kizzu or translated as "Kirby Super Star Stacker". It was slated for release in North America and Europe but Nintendo then ended the life of the SNES in both territories. It would finally be released internationally on the Nintendo Switch Online service in 2023, albeit untranslated.
• Spartan X 2, the sequel to Kung Fu for the NES, was to have been released in the West as Kung Fu II, as in this full-page advertisement◊.
• Koro Koro Puzzle: Happy Panechu! was a fun and interesting puzzle game that used motion control, but for players outside of Japan, the first Gameboy Advance game to use motion control was WarioWare: Twisted!
• The NES version of Legendary Wings was planned to be released in Japan, but only came out in America.
• Namco's Legend of Valkyrie, originally released in Japanese arcades in 1989 and on the PC Engine in 1990, finally got a US localization in 1997 on Namco Museum Vol. 5. The franchise also had several other installments that were never exported at all.
• In Japan and Korea, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures came with a bonus game, called Navi Trackers, (Early versions were called Tetra's Trackers) set in the Timeline of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. The game was about Tetra, using ancient Hylian magic to split Link into four and play a game with him. The game was multiplayer, using the Game Boy Advance as the controller and screen for the individual players, and the TV screen as a status-check. In order to not have the players permanently look at the TV screen and lose time, Tetra, the King of Red Lions and Sue-Belle were fully voiced (this was before Midna) and would tell the players what was going on right now. It's not sure why it was cancelled for its international release, but a demo version of the game that included voice acting seems to mean dubbing it wasn't the issue as often suggested.
• Libble Rabble was planned to get a release in arcades outside Japan by Midway but was cancelled because of the company financial troubles at the time. Even ports for the Sharp X68000, the FM Towns Marty, and the Super Famicom as well as for the Wii's Virtual Console were also only in Japan. It would take until 2020 for the game to finally get an official re-release outside of Japan when it was included in Namco Museum Archives Volume 1.
• Line Attack Heroes had a release planned for North America but it wound up cancelled with no explanation.
• LSD: Dream Emulator was not released outside of Japan back in the day, likely because Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong-Nou, a PC game from the same company, scored poorly and sold poorly in North America. For this same reason, a sequel to the aforementioned PC game called Chu-Teng also did not make it out of Japan. Oddly enough though, when the game re-released via PlayStation Network in 2010, even the digital release did not make it outside of Japan.
• Mario Bros. had a sequel called Kaettekita Mario Bros. for the Famicom Disk System which added minigames, a new mode, improved physics and in-game advertisements. Since the ads were for Japanese food company Nagatanien, it's the likely reason the game did not make it outside Japan. Late in the NES' life, Nintendo took out the advertisements (and added back in the cutscenes from the arcade game) and sold the game as Mario Bros. Classic, but only in Europe.
• Mario's Picross had a SNES version and a sequel to the Game Boy version both of which didn't got released outside of Japan. Oddly, though, Mario's Super Picross was released on the Wii and Wii U Virtual Console in Europe and Australia, but never in America. However, most of the puzzles are available for Wireless Download through Picross DS.
• Mario Super Sluggers for the Wii was never released in Europe or Australia.
• Another Mario game, Mario & Wario for the SNES, never made it outside Japan. Ironically, the game's in English anyway. If one 1993 issue of Nintendo Power is to believed, Nintendo did have plans to release it in the United States that fell through.
• Marvelous: Another Treasure Island was planned for an international release but it wound up cancelled due to the Super Famicom being close to the end of its life and Nintendo wanting to put greater emphasis on the Nintendo 64.
• Nexon, creator of MapleStory, Dungeon Fighter Online and Mabinogi, never released any of those games in Europe.
• Martian Successor Nadesico has an interesting spin on this trope. The series came out in America and Europe, as did The Movie. However, the video game detailing the passage of time between the series and the movie (as well as three other Martian Successor Nadesico games) was never released outside Japan, meaning that for many people, it was a little jarring to find that the series' war had ended offscreen, and Ruri was suddenly the main character.
• Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge was never released in Japan because the Super Scope was even less successful there than in America.
• Metal Warriors was never released in Japan.
• Oddly enough, Metal Wolf Chaos was never announced for a release in the U.S. until 2018 — despite being fully voiced in English, with the game's main character being The President of the United States. In a Humongous Mecha, no less. A 2018 interview with FromSoftware revealed that they initially did have plans for a US release... but then 9/11 happened, and the idea of a game featuring American landmarks getting destroyed was immediately dropped. Another reason is that it's against the law in the US to use the Great Seal of the US or the Seal of the President of the US for anything other than official government business. For the 2018 remaster, Devolver Digital modified the seal by replacing the olive branch in the eagle's right talon with a minigun and the arrows in the left with a missile.
• In an odd case of No Export for You, the Japanese Xbox 360 version of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was canceled from seeing a release over there but got released everywhere else. Also, the PC port of the game is not available on Steam in Malaysia and probably the rest of Asia for no other reason than the game being a PS3 exclusive in Asia. The PS3 version is sold at all Sony Centers and game shops in the country, and there are separate Japanese and English versions.
• Million Arthur: The mobile game was discontinued in Japan, while the mobile game and its sequel were exported. The handheld versions of Kaku-San-Sei Million Arthur on the Nintendo 3DS and Play Station Vita were not.
• Minnie & Friends: Yume no Kuni o Sagashite is a Game Boy Color adventure game which puts Minnie Mouse in the lead role, and is only exclusive to Japan.
• Mizzurna Falls: One of the first Wide-Open Sandbox games, was only released in Japan for the PlayStation.
• Monster Party, a strange Japanese "parody" game, was advertised in Japanese magazines but somehow never released in its home country.
• Moon Crystal was advertised for a forthcoming U.S. release that never happened.
• Mortal Kombat 9 wasn't initially released in Australia due to the Moral Guardians not giving it a rating and not allowing it to be sold, or even imported. However, when they introduced an R-18+ rating for games, the "Komplete Edition" was allowed to be released, meaning this was ultimately averted. The game has not been released in Japan, and there are no plans to do so.
• The Movies expansion Stunts and Effects was only available in certain markets, notably Australia and Asia. Because Microsoft bought Lionhead Studios up before they could launch the Expansion Pack in other regions. Incidentally, Activision is the distributor of Lionhead Studios games in the two regions, so the possibility here is that Activision launched the expansion pack as soon as news of Lionhead's purchase by Microsoft reached them as a final cash-grab attempt.
• Downplayed with the Mulle Meck (aka Gary Gadget) series. The series had five entries total, and although all entries got translated to German, Finnish, Russian and Dutch, only the first one received an official English translation.
• Multi Versus is not available outside USA, Europe (France, Germany, Italy and Spain), Latin America and Brazil.
• Musou Orochi Z is explicitly never being released outside of Japan, despite the two games it's derived from making it to the US and Europe. As something of a compensation, they added some of the features of it to the overseas PSP version of Warriors Orochi 2. Which is great for everyone who has a PSP, and doesn't mind playing a game that was designed for next-gen systems on it.
• Namco refuses to export Namco × Capcom for no apparent reason because they're pricks (again) but unless you're a sucker for repetitive gameplay, you may agree. The main reason seems to be that they believe most Western players won't recognise half the cast, because their games weren't released here (somewhat ironic considering Tatsunoko vs. Capcom)... Oh well, at least there's a (somewhat too accurate) translation patch. For fans of the series, at least Namco learned their lesson and localised both sequels for the Nintendo 3DS.
• Naughty Bear was released only in Europe and North America. If you live in Asia and have a Xbox 360, you are out of luck. To add insult to injury, both the North American and European releases of the game are actually cross-compatible with the other region's consoles... just not with Asian region consoles.
• Nazo No Murasamejo, also known as The Mysterious Murasame Castle, never got a release outside of Japan at first, maybe because of its Japanese flair or because of its high difficulty, so it obviously caused a lot of confusion when a minigame based on the game was included in Nintendo Land. That may be why the game finally got a western release in 2014 with the 3DS eShop.
• The DS version of Ni no Kuni never made it to America. The fact that it came with a large spellbook that would be difficult to translate was usually cited as the reason for this, which many RPG fans accepted with some degree of disappointment. Then the PS3 version was localized, containing not only a digital version of the book (fully translated), but the special edition even came with a printed dead-tree version! DS-owning fans were not happy. While Level-5 has suggested that they might bring the DS edition to the 3DS, it so far seems unlikely.
• Noah's Ark, a 2D sidescroller for the NES (and published by Konami!), was only released in Europe. In fairness, Noah's Ark can be played in the U.S. on the toploader, but it's also extremely rare.
• Pac-Man:
  • Even though Pac-Man is a Japanese franchise, the Pac-Man World trilogy was developed in the United States and United Kingdom. Pac-Man World 1 and 2 were released in Japan but Pac-Man World 3 wasn't, despite that 3 included an interview video with Tōru Iwatani in Japanese (it had subtitles though).
  • Namco Bandai also has no plans to bring the newly announced Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures game to Japan either. The 3DS version of Ghostly Adventures actually will be released in Japan as "Pac-World" but they won't be getting the home versions.
  • Pac-Man Museum will be getting released worldwide on the same day on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, 3DS, and PC. But Japan's not getting the Nintendo or PC versions, they're only getting it on PS3 and 360. Japan not getting the PC version is understandable, but it's odd that they're not getting it on Nintendo platforms even though they are getting it on an American console that only a very few people in Japan even play.
• There are vehement arguments all over the web over whether or not Namco Bandai is going to pull this with Ultimate Ninja 5 or not; the amount of people saying we (the USA) will get it and those who say we won't are equal in number, with no official clarification in sight.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion 2, an Adventure Game/Role-Playing Game hybrid based on the anime TV show Neon Genesis Evangelion for the PlayStation 2, was much hyped, not least because it would contain the so-called "Classified Information", a in-game compendium which was advertised as containing answers to some of the TV show's greater mysteries. But despite great interest from Western Evangelion fans, the game has remained a Japan-only exclusive.
• The PlayStation 2 remake of NiGHTS into Dreams… was only released in Japan. Considering the reception and sales of its sequel, Journey of Dreams, a release in other territories does not look likely. However, it did get an HD version in America and Europe, with some of the bonuses that the PS2 version had.
• Nintendo Puzzle Collection for the Nintendo GameCube was intended to be given an international release if one circa-2003 Nintendo "upcoming releases" pamphlet and this E3 trailer is to be trusted. The ESRB also rated the game too. While it wasn't a huge loss in the case of Dr. Mario, which was released in America (but only in America) on the Nintendo 64, a fairly big deal was made of the fact that this would be the first time Western audiences would get to experience Panel de Pon in its unedited form (the Nintendo 64 version had been Dolled Up as Pokémon Puzzle League and stripped of its 4-player mode), and its version of Yoshi's Cookie isn't available anywhere else.
• Overwatch is a partial example: Square Enix only published the PS4 version in Japan. The PC version is published by Blizzard themselves and can be bought online from Battle.Net in Japan, complete with Japanese language text and voice support (and the Japanese voice can also be playable in clients of any region). However those wanting to play it on the Xbox will find that the Xbox One version got the short end of the stick in the region.
• Adult game creators Illusion invoked this for many years; a page on their website used to formally state that they wouldn't sell any game to anybody outside Japan^{To elaborate}This statement may have been due to the company getting involved in an international incident in the early 2000's; one of their more hardcore games, which had not been officially licensed outside Japan but could still be bought through Amazon, managed to earn the wrath of American groups who started protesting the company. While there had been ambiguously legal imports available during the 2000's, you could be charged with a felony in certain countries for possessing one of their games. Despite this, some of their games managed to have huge modding communities outside of Japan. In the late 2010's, the company relaxed their stance, and the above page now shows that three of their games are available to English-speaking audiences in some form. Notably, while they mainly use adult stores for publishing, their game Koikatsu Party has a Self-Censored Release on Steam complete with an English translation instead.
• Japanese inversions:
  • Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (mostly because it's a sprite-swapped Puyo Puyo), the Vectorman games (the second even being North American-exclusive), and the Genesis version of Sonic 3D Blast (Japan only got the Saturn version) weren't originally released in Japan; they have all since appeared in the Compilation Rereleases Sonic Mega Collection and Sonic Gems Collection (in the Japanese versions of both compilations as well).
  • Sonic Gems Collection itself is a GameCube-exclusive in the States. Both Japan and Europe got a PS2 version.
  • The Xbox version of Sonic Mega Collection Plus wasn't released in Australia or New Zealand.
  • Japan also never got the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Steam versions of the Sonic the Hedgehog CD remake.
• Otocky is a musical shoot-em-up that released for the Famicom Disk System but never made it out of Japan likely because not only do they need to design a special version of the FDS' sound enhancement chip that can be placed in a cartridge, but the NES' slot pinouts lack support for on-cartridge co-processor chips, and it's determined that the music produced by the stock NES is unsatisfactory for the game.
• Psycho Fox, a Japanese-made game openly based on Japanese mythology, was never released in Japan, owing to the Sega Master System's early discontinuation there.
• While Sonic Generations is available worldwide, SEGA has announced that there is a Collector's Edition set that contains DLC, a "History of Sonic" Documentary, an art book with never before seen artwork, a ring replica, a 20th Anniversary Soundtrack compilation, and a statue featuring both Modern and Classic Sonic. The kicker? It's exclusive to Europe and Australia. What makes this more infuriating is that the Sonic franchise was primarily inspired by and influenced by American and Japanese pop culture.
• Parodius da! (tr. It's Parodius!), a parody of the wildly popular Gradius, was released in Japan and Europe, but for some reason, not America. The Europeans changed some of the bosses to be more kid-friendly, so there was no reason they couldn't do the same in America. It might have been the fact that one of the bosses was a giant bald eagle wearing a red, white, and blue hat, but there was no reason they couldn't have changed it like the Europeans did. The sequel Gokujou Parodius (tr. First-Rate Parodius) also received a Europe-only localization as Fantastic Journey.
• Ace Attorney:
  • The fifth game in the series, Dual Destinies, will be available exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS eShop and won't see a cartridge release in NTSC/UC countries. Bad enough that the 3DS has Region Coding, but how about countries that don't have access to the eShop and are getting NTSC/UC 3DS consoles? ^note Yes, you could cheat by setting your console country to one that has an eShop and buy gift cards online, but you'll end up paying more than the game itself as most gift card retailers tend to charge a service fee on top of the card cost. And if you have no reliable and fast internet access, you're still boned.. And those who want the game 100% legally had to wait 10 months and buy an iDevice to play it (as well as forego being able to play the game in stereoscopic 3D). But it's still this trope for the 3DS version of the game.
  • The English release of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice will only get a digital release, meaning that those who live in countries where the 3DS store is not available will not be able to enjoy it. Again, those who wanted to play it but lived outside the 3DS store's coverage had to wait almost a whole year to get to play it on an iDevice or on Android, and even then they could not get the two non-canon episodes to complete the experience.
• Phozon did not release outside of Japan likely because the physics/chemistry theme were not considered an interesting theme for international audiences, but it did eventually get an international release on Namco Museum Volume 3 and the Namco Arcade mobile app.
• The rare (used copies can cost up to 50 dollars) Cult Classic Planescape: Torment is getting a re-release, but in the United Kingdom only.
• Policenauts, Hideo Kojima's Spiritual Successor to Snatcher, was announced for the Sega Saturn in America in 1996, but was ultimately canceled. In one interview, Kojima reveals that his team were working on the American localization, but they were unable to lip-synch the English dialogue with the FMV cut-scenes and gave up on the project (you can read the interview here in Japanese). Since then, Kojima has teased western players by including footage of the game in Metal Gear Solid, as well as expies of the game's cast in the form of Meryl Silverburgh in the first Metal Gear Solid, as well as Jonathan and Ed in Guns of the Patriots. A Fan Translation of Policenauts was completed in 2009.
• Psychonauts is considered one of the best games of 2005. It is a 3D platformer in which you have to go inside someone's mind and repair his problems. It got huge scores on Metacritic. Yet the game was never released in Japan. Low sales are why.
• Princess Crown is one ugly case. Created by an early Atlus team who would evolve to become Vanillaware (of Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade fame), the game saw two releases (a Sega Saturn one and a PlayStation Portable one), none ever released outside of its home country. The game is also somewhat the spiritual antecedent of the fairly successful Odin Sphere (having a similar gameplay structure and themes), making the fact that no one localized the PSP version particularly annoying.
• Tecmo Koei developed a Vita port to accompany the PS3 version of One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 that never made it outside Japan, thanks to Namco Bandai.
• Otomedius seemed like it would go the road of Parodius. But Otomedius Excellent has broken the trend by announcing a US release some time in 2010 (although it's been delayed to 2011).
• Pepsiman was not released outside of Japan likely because the game was based on a series of Japanese commercials. It became one of the most popular import games in Mexico and Middle East.
• Phantom Breaker was originally released in Japan in 2011, and there were plans by 7sixty to have the game released in English, and there were even pre-release gameplay and physical copies shown in an anime convention in Huston, Texas, but the constantly delays and 7sixty eventually folding. Even its updated re-release, Phantom Breaker: Extra, also stayed in Japan but it was released for PlayStation 3 and region-free for Xbox 360. It wasn't until 2021 that the game saw an international release with another updated re-release in the form of Phantom Breaker: Omnia, which will see an international release across all consoles of the 8th generation and PC for multiple languages and dual-audio support for English and Japanese voice overs.
• Pulseman did not get a cartridge release in North America, instead coming out through Sega's Sega Channel service. But it would eventually release via the Wii Virtual Console in 2007 in North America, and Europe in 2009.
• Radia Senki Reimeihen was going to receive a Western release, under the title "Tower of Radia". For unknown reasons (possibly because it was late in the NES's lifespan), the export was trashed, leading to this status.
• Raiden DX was only released in Japan.
• Rage of Bahamut: The US servers were shut down, making the game Japan-only.
• Ratchet: Deadlocked managed to get a HD remaster released on the PSN in 2013... only to North America.
• Rayman:
  • The Game Boy Color version of Rayman 2: The Great Escape was never released in Japan despite the GBC port of Rayman 1 being released and localised there.
  • Rayman M, Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc and Hoodlum's Revenge was never released in Japan.
  • The Rayman Raving Rabbids Game Boy Advance game and the Nintendo DS versions of the first two games were never released in Japan.
  • The only home console version of Rayman Origins to reach Japan was the PS3 version. While there's no proper reasoning for the Wii version not to be released there (considering its popularity in Japan), the 360 version is justified - the console was a complete and utter flop there.
• Ever heard of Rendering Ranger? It's a SNES action game developed by Manfred Trenz (of Turrican fame) and Rainbow Arts, and a really great one for the matter, with stages alternating between on-foot action and shmup, so well programmed that there's no slowdown even in the most crowded situations. A definitely "western" game that found a publisher only in the Japanese division of Virgin Games - and to add insult to injury, they produced it only in limited quantities.
• D.N.A.: Dark Native Apostle was only found in Japan and Europe.
• Resident Evil – Code: Veronica rerelease, Code Veronica X never made it to the Dreamcast outside of Japan. Only the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Gamecube versions made it overseas.
• Resident Evil: Gun Survivor 2 never got to be released in the US.
• Retro Game Challenge has a sequel that was released only in Japan, but thankfully a translation patch is available. There's also a third game that was released in early 2014, but due to a shift in focus as well as a different creator, most people don't seem to like it as much as the first 2.
• Ridge Racers 2 was released in every major region except North America. This is a slap in the face considering that Ridge Racers was released in all three markets, though with content exclusive to the North American version.
• Rolling Thunder 3 is an inversion. It was released only in North America, despite being an IP by Namco and being developed by Nowpro, both of which are Japanese companies. Rolling Thunder 3 wasn't released in Europe or Australia either.
• Australia, for what seems to be no reason at all, hasn't, and seemingly will never get Rock Band 2. Of course, it's importable, but remember you need instruments.
• The RPG Maker series is an interesting story. The original RPG Maker 2000 was not translated to English for the longest time because the developers weren't convinced it would be successful outside of Japan, and so English-speaking users instead had to download pirated copies if they wanted to use it, with the most popular of those being Don Miguel's fan-slation. The sheer number of illegal downloads proved that the creative engine could have a massive market outside Japan, but also infuriated the developers so much that they outright refused to translate RPG Maker 2003, purely out of spite. They at first refused to translate RPG Maker XP as well, saying that the English-speaking market "will just pirate it anyway", accepting no blame whatsoever for people pirating their previous two engines. They eventually reversed their position on XP after a fan petition begged them to reconsider, and every RPG Maker since has had a full English translation and western release. This was subverted in its entirety as of 2015, as 2000 and 2003 have gotten international releases on Steam, along with the rest of the RPG Maker series (at least the ones for PC).
• Thanks to Ascaron going bankrupt, the expansion to Sacred 2 may never be localized in the U.S. But the International version is easily bought online and it does allow the expansion, or the International "Gold" edition with everything is now out as well. All perfectly legal.
• Scribblenauts Unmasked was released on Wii U, 3DS, and PC in North America and Australia but Europe only got the PC version. Though Europe and Australia share the same region on Nintendo consoles so European 3DS and Wii U owners can import the Australian versions of Scribblenauts Unmasked on Nintendo systems, Europeans can even use the Australian Miiverse communities for the game.
• Between the discontinuation of the Sega Dreamcast, a lack of a perceived target audience, many references to Japanese culture, and major licensing issues, there are several reasons why Segagaga did not release outside Japan.
• Sengoku Basara:
  • Sengoku Basara 4 was another game that Capcom refused to bring over, citing it as "Too Japanese" when asked why.
  • Sengoku Basara 2 was never released outside of Japan due to the dismal performance of its predecessor in the west, where it was released as Devil Kings and changed for the worse.
• Shaolin, a 3D fighting game for PS1, was released in Japan (as Lord of Fist), and also got a European release. A US release was in the works; there was even a trailer for the game on the 23rd Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine demo disc. But sometime before release, it was cancelled for unknown reasons.
• Shienryu Explosion, aka Steel Dragon EX in Europe, never saw and probably never will see the light of day in the US, although its predecessor was exported as Geki-oh: Shooting King on the PSX.
• Shounen Kininden Tsumuji A Ninja Adventure DS game developed by Electronic Arts that is known for its similarities to The Legend Of Zelda wasn't released outside of Japan.
• Sigma Harmonics (Nintendo DS) published by Square Enix. Never saw the light of day outside of Japan. Hackers who tried to translate the game blame the game's complex encrypting that involves the oriental reading way, that is, from right to left.
• The (technically superior) Sega Saturn Silhouette Mirage never left Japan. Instead, the PlayStation version was released to North America by Working Designs. Working Designs, however, decided to make the game harder than the Japanese version.
• While Skullgirls is available in Japan on PS3 and PC, it's not going to be released on the Xbox 360 in Japan due to the 360 version's patch delays and Microsoft's policies. On the flip side, they will be getting the arcade version, which, bizzarely, will be Japan-only.
• Soma Bringer, created by Monolith Soft (of Xenosaga fame) was very hyped when announced, but never saw a release anywhere outside of Japan. A good fan translation is around the internet, though.
• The one English-language version of Sorcerian was an IBM PC port that seems to have been largely ignored when Sierra released it way back in 1990. Since then the game has been repeatedly remade for a host of platforms in Japan. The remake for iOS was erroneously listed on iTunes as having English text.
• Space Channel 5 Part Two's PS2 port got hit with this rather late in production to the point where a playable demo had been sent to the 'Official Playstation 2 Magazine' for use in their demo disc. No real reason was given for the decision and there was even enough time between sending the demo and the printing of the magazine for it to be acknowledged as an exclusive in the editorial.
• Spyro: Year of the Dragon, the final game in the original Spyro the Dragon trilogy (and often considered the best of the trilogy), was not released in Japan. Neither were any of the new trilogy (A New Beginning, The Eternal Night, and Dawn Of The Dragon), for that matter. In fact, the only Spyro games released in Japan were the first two on PlayStation, two of the GBA games (Spyro: Season of Ice and Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy), the first Skylanders and Spyro Reignited Trilogy (where Year of The Dragon finally saw a release in the region). Spyro never caught on in Japan like Crash did.
• The American NES version of Star Force (which was significantly upgraded from the Japanese Famicom version) advertised both in the manual and on the game's ending screen that Super Star Force was "Coming Soon!" In spite of this, Super Star Force was never released outside Japan.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic No export for, well.. anyone outside of North America and select European countries.
• The extra Downloadable Content for Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns wasn't made available in the EU. This not only cut out some extra scenes, but removed Woofio and Stephanie as bachelors as well as the potential to have a child with Inari.
• The NES version of Strider was planned to be released in Japan, but only came out in America. It was actually developed before the arcade version and even had a tie-in manga in Japan that more or less followed the same story (as opposed to that of its arcade counterpart).
• Suikoden II has an interesting variation. The game made it to the US, but one of the characters, to recruit her, requires you to listen to her sing a song. Which is a Japanese vocal song that didn't make it into the US version. Instead of altering the recruitment scene... you just get to listen to around 3 minutes of pure silence while her sprite moves around.
• Sutte Hakkun was never even considered for international release sincve it released in Japan one year after the release of the Nintendo 64.
• In typical Smilesoft fashion, no game in the Telefang series has ever been officially released outside of Japan, much to the dismay of non-Japanese fans of the games.
• Senran Kagura:
  • Defied: In the US and Australia, Senran Kagura Burst recieved an eShop-only release, which includes an Updated Re-release of the first game, Senran Kagura: Skirting Shadows, by none other than XSEED. Only the physical copies were not exported, though limited physical copies were available in Europe.
  • Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson on the 3DS received a digital release and a limited physical release on web stores.
  • Senran Kagura Bon Appétit! on the Vita, outside of Japan, was only released digitally on the PlayStation Store.
• Sword Girls: US and Japan servers were shut down. It is available in Korea only.
• For whatever reason, out of all the European regions, only France got Tail Concerto. What's that? You live in the UK and want to play the game? Tough luck.
• Capcom was having trouble bringing Tatsunoko vs. Capcom in the US primarily because of licensing issues with the Tatsunoko Production characters. That's just the US - imagine if Capcom tried to bring it to Europe, where even more of the characters are licensed differently. They finally managed to do it the next year, making this a successfully Defied Trope. Sure, one character is missing, as are the character theme songs, but we get five new ones and online play too. They were to include Phoenix Wright and Franziska von Karma, but localizing issues with some of their special moves prevented them from appearing in any version. It had to do with the "Objection!" move being impossible to localize. Specifically, in Japanese that "Objection!" is only a few characters long, but in English, at ten characters long, the move became nearly impossible to dodge (since collision with with word itself does the damage). Took Phoenix Wright from being a run of the mill character to being incredibly overpowered. They ultimately found a solution to Phoenix Wright's "Objection!" problem after the game's release, earning him a spot in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
• Tenchi Muyo!! Ryo-Ohki has in-continuity novels and doujinshi that are not available outside Japan. Consequently, many non-Japanese fans disliked the third OVA series for introducing lots of "new" characters (who actually had appeared earlier in those novels/doujinshi), leaving less screentime for the characters from the first two parts of the OVA.
• The Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven PSP port, featuring many extras, seems to never get out of Japan as well. Which is odd, considering how Wrath of Heaven is one of the most popular Tenchu titles.
• For whatever reason, the Xbox version of Test Drive: Eve of Destruction (Driven to Destruction in PAL regions) was exclusive to NTSC regions.
• In what has probably to be the most puzzling thing ever, The Fast And The Furious console game (the one loosely based off Tokyo Drift film) was released in every major market except Japan, despite the majority of the cars in the game being Japanese, not out of place in Japan-only racing games and the developer being the very infamous West-hating Namco Bandai. The film franchise being renamed Wild Speed there doesn't help.
• Thunderbirds for the NES was never released in the United Kingdom despite the show which is based on being made in that country. There are also two Thunderbirds games that were only released in Japan; one is for the Super Famicom and other is for Game Boy (different game than the Europe-only Game Boy Color game).
• The Silver Case is the only game in the Kill The Past trilogy to never get a release outside of Japan and also the first of its trilogy. The game eventually was scheduled for a release, but was cancelled in favor of a remake in its home country. This is kind of infuriating, as the second game in the trilogy (Flower, Sun and Rain) expects that you know everything about the previous game in the series which makes it essential if you want to know what the game is about.
• Tinhead, a Sega Genesis game, was going to have a release in Europe, but it was cancelled for reasons completely unknown. This sucks as the game can be described as a homage to 1990s European computer games, especially in graphics.
• EA and Respawn Entertainment have decided not to release Titanfall in South Africa at all (less than a month before its release with thousands of pre-orders already placed) because of the low ping-rate the game gets. Needless to say gamers were not pleased, though EA have said they would not boot anyone from the servers who import the game on their own costs.
• Tokyo Jungle has this averted and defied like hell. According with Crispy's (the game developer) CEO, Sony's American branch originally refused to release the game in the U.S. and he even received some borderline racist/xenophobic feedback from the U.S. branch. Luckily, thanks to the success of the game in Japan and Sony Japan's support, it did manage to be released in the U.S.
• Tomato Adventure never made it outside of Japan likely because of its extreme Japanese flair. But the game was popular enough that its developers created Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga which did release worldwide.
• The original DS version of Tomodachi Life never saw release outside of Japan. The official reason is due to the difficulty in creating text-to-speech synthesis for non-Japanese languages, an obstacle that was overcome for the 3DS iteration of the series.
• Twisted Metal has a very peculiar example: while the games were developed and released in the United States, there was also a Windows PC port of the first game that was only given a limited print run in Japan.
• ValkyrieDrive: The Mobile Phone Game Valkyrie Drive: Siren has not been exported.
• Wangan Midnight:
  • Maximum Tune 4, though released in English, has not been officially released outside of Eastern and Southeastern Asia. The game uses a networked multi-game card system, the Bana Passport, and as such isn't compatible with cards from previous games; to use your cars from Maximum Tune 3DX+, you have to use the Maximum Tune 4 terminal to transfer your data. But the card transfer service ended in October 2013, thus anyone who wasn't lucky to live near an arcade with Maximum Tune 4 machines or traveled to such places by then will have to start their cars all over again if they ever get a chance to play Maximum Tune 4.
  • Further proof that Namco hates the west: As if to rub salt on the wound of Americans and Europeans, It has been over two years since Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 5 has been released in Japan and over a year and a half since it was made available in Asia and the Pacific, with the latest update being 5DX being released in Japan in December 2015 and the rest of Asia and the Pacific in August 2016. It's starting to look very unlikely that 5 will ever be launched in the west.
  • Maximum Tune 6 Has been released in Japan in 2018 and made it Asia-wide finally in 2019. Sorry, Europe and North America...
  • North America finally gets 5- After Asia got 5DX. Live in Europe though? Sorry...
• WarioWare: Twisted!, due to some unknown health and safety controversy got a release literally every other major region in the world except Europe. Then, since the Mona Pizza video toy in WarioWare: Touched! requires the usage of said game to unlock, it also meant that unlockable (which was apparently music from WarioWare: Twisted!) also couldn't be gotten in Europe.
• White Day: A Labyrinth Named School, a Korean survival horror was originally released only there. An English was planned by the UK-based 4AM Entertainment, even featuring screenshots and a tentative boxart of the translated version, but it was unfortunately canceled before it was finished. It almost faded into obscurity had it not been pirated through torrent and file-sharing sites to keep a copy available and had fan translations for English and French-speaking players, and its popularity which eventually lead to official overseas version surfacing for PlayStation 4 and PC.
• For a while, Wolfenstein 3-D could not be legally obtained or even owned in Germany. Later Wolfenstein games manage to avert this by removing Nazi references during localisation.
• Want to play the most-subscribed MMORPG in the world or the official sport of South Korea in its native language? If you live in Japan, too bad. Because Blizzard never exported either of these games to Japan. However, Blizzard doesn't region lock its servers and even allows anyone from anywhere in the world to buy any version of the game they prefer, meaning it's fine with Blizzard if you're in Asia and you buy the US version of the game instead. The only minor annoyance comes from the fact that the Japanese have no servers of their own and have to "borrow" a different region's server, and suffer a lag penalty (which varies by region - connecting to an Asian or American server isn't too bad for the Japanese ^note in fact, the presence of a "日本語" (Japanese) language option on the American site seems to imply that Blizzard's recommendation is for Japan to use the US servers, but connecting to an European server results in bad lags) as a result. That, and those who can't speak English will also need to have a guide book by their side due to the lack of localization.
  • World of Warcraft was originally released in 2004 when the Japanese PC games market was at its absolute nadir, with most home computers in the country lacking even a basic enough graphics accelerator to be able to open the game, and the Blizzard of the time likely correctly deduced that throwing time and effort into a localization would have been an unnecessary money sink. However, it still caught the eye of one plucky member of Square-Enix's staff who was tasked with retooling their recently-released MMO that was getting savaged on both a critical and technical level and used it as inspiration...
• X, a Game Boy game featuring wireframe 3D graphics (and the first known appearance of the "Totaka's Song" Easter Egg), was only released in Japan because Nintendo of America thought it was too unlike other games for the system. Its Spiritual Successor, Star Fox, would have more luck.
• Yo-Jin-Bo had an English release of its PC version, but no release of its PS2 version with extra obtainable characters and even more endings.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule GB was never released outside of Japan, possibly due to one of the characters having a cigarette in his mugshot and the final RPG world being a representation of Hell.
• With Nintendo's announcement that they'll co-publish Samurai Warriors' Wii-exclusive third installment with Koei, the highly anticipated, Norse Mythology and High-Pressure Blood-fueled sword fighter Zangeki No Reginleiv (from the masterminds behind Earth Defense Force 2017) will most likely never come out in America. There's still hope for Europe, though...
• Wrecking Crew got a sequel called Wrecking Crew '98 which was a puzzle game. It did not see release outside of Japan likely because the SNES was so late in its lifespan.
• Zelda's Adventure was said to have only been released in Europe - one of the reasons it would be so sought out after; other than the fact that it can't be emulated.
• Disney Magical World for the 3DS has never received a release in Europe.
• Crayon Shin Chan 3 was only released in South Korea and it's region locked. It's actually the only game that works on Nuon consoles from South Korea.
• Yoshi's Cookie had a limited edition released by Panasonic under their "National" brand named Yoshi's Cookie Kuruppon Oven de Cookie which included a story mode celebrating the release of the Kuruppon Oven in Japan. Only 500 copies were made and all of those came out nowhere but Japan.
• Transformers: Call of the Future was never released outside of Japan in spite of having English voice acting, presumably due to Hasbro having no involvement in the game's development. Inverted with the Armada video game released the next year, which was released everywhere BUT Japan.
• VS. Super Mario Bros. had an odd inversion, this arcade port of Super Mario Bros. only released OUTSIDE of Japan. (Specifically only in the United States, so it was played straight over in Europe.)

Genre-Specific Examples

These examples are sorted by genre name.

• Barcode games that use special hardware to read cards with barcodes or products with barcodes were more popular in Japan, and many remain only available in Japan. The Barcode Battler handheld was introduced internationally, but was not nearly as successful as it was in Japan.
• Arcade Card Battle Games such as Lord of Vermillion and Sega's Sangokushi Taisen have remained Japan-only.
• The Card Battle Game Transformers Rising is available only in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
• Cute em Ups in general. Though the occasional one makes it to North America, most of them don't get released outside of Japan, and the ones that do usually only make it to PAL regions. This was especially true in the 1990s, when such games as Super Fantasy Zone, Parodius, Pop'n Twinbee and Keio Flying Squadron 2 were released in Japan and Europe but not the U.S. (This is probably for the same reason that American versions of video games don't get the cute packaging the Japanese versions have.) Hopefully Parodius will be released on the US Virtual Console...
• Many Japanese Dating Sims and dating-based Visual Novels have met this fate; even when the anime adaption makes it overseas (Fate/stay night, Tsukihime, etc.) that is not a guarantee that the source material will. This is due to the low amount of companies/translators that specialise in translating/porting the games compared to the insane amounts of Visual Novels available out there. Due to the huge amounts of text Fan Translation projects also tend to fizzle out after a while. The lack of translations is so pervasive that there have been programs written that essentially extract the text and then put it through Google Translate so fans can still enjoy the games somewhat (although this rarely ends well due to Google Translate being involved). With all that said, here are some notable examples and subversions:
• THE founder of the non-H Dating Sim genre, Tokimeki Memorial, is a notorious case of this. Konami having always refused to release the series outside of Japan (except for the Chinese market) on the (not that unreasonable, especially in The '90s; less so nowadays) grounds that it's too Japanese culture-based: case in point, their attempt in 2007 at an American-based adaptation of sorts, Brooktown High, bombed royally. (Ironically, Brooktown High never got released out of the US either.)
• The Higurashi: When They Cry sound novels were initially released in Japanese between 2002 and 2006, with both an anime and manga adaption later on. While both of the adaptions got English translations, the original sound novels remained Japanese only until 2009, when a French translation of the first two games came out, with an English translation the year after.
• Fate/Grand Order skipped over Malaysia on launch, disappointing many fans. The biggest kick in the groin was that it was first announced that Malaysia will be getting the game, but the next day upon launch they just apologized and said that “unforeseen circumstances” has forced them to not make the game available in Malaysia.
• Many great Famicom/NES Shoot Em Ups, including Recca, Crisis Force, and Over Horizon failed to make it out of Japan. Recca wasn't even commercially released, as it was made exclusively for Naxat's Summer Carnival '92 shmup competition, although pirate cartridges of it have been circulated. And then there's Eliminate Down an awesome Shoot 'Em Up game for the Sega Genesis. Never released outside Japan, of course.
• Idol sim games in general never leave Japan. At best, a Rhythm Game Spin-Off will, though. There are but two exceptions, Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection and the PS1 import (and thus untranslated) Heroine Dream 2.
• Due to South Korea being very data centric and video game addiction being a major issue, many Korea-only massively-multiplayer online games require you to enter a South Korean residential registration number to register and play. Want to brute-force a number or get a friend living in South Korea to register for you? Don't. Using someone else's number is a felony; you can end up paying the equivalent of 8,000 USD or serve 3 years in prison, so you're sore out of luck.
• Several Card Battle Game Mobile Phone Games are unavailable from the app store or remain untranslated, including Angel Master, Eigou no Venus Gear (aka Gear Venus or Venus Gear), Falkyrie no Monshou (Emblem of Falkyrie), Gensou no Minerva Knights, Junketsu Duelion, Kiss of Princess, Moriah Saga, Samurai Princess Muramasa, Shinki Kakusei Melty Maiden, Valhalla Gate of Kamigoku, Venus Blade (aka Venus † Blade), and the defunct Makai Touitsu Chaos Blade.
• The Portopia Serial Murder Case started a Follow the Leader explosion of murder mystery games in Japan, few of which were ever released abroad; large companies like Square Enix and Nintendo have not even considered international distribution, despite rereleasing their games domestically. Exceptions include the Tantei Jingūji Saburō series, whose 20th anniversary Compilation Re-release was Remade for the Export as Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles, and the also-remade Famicom Detective Club games.
• Good luck trying to find any side-scrolling shooter in the US.
  • Bullet Hell shooters are even rarer in the US, some of the few to make it were of course Ikaruga (Gamecube and XBLA), Chaos Field (Gamecube), Giga Wing and Mars Matrix (both Dreamcast), and the Castle of Shikigami series (the first game was renamed Mobile Light Force 2; Mobile Light Force 1 was the name of the US PSX version of Gunbird).
  • Side scrolling shooters being unavailable in the U.S. was subverted with R-Type, Gradius, several of the Cotton games, and Magical Chase. Also vertical scrolling shooter (aka Bullet Hell) games not being released in the U.S. was subverted by the American made game Tyrian (you have an upgradeable spaceship, and as you progress through the game to harder levels, you can find your screen filled with significant amounts of firepower from both your ship and enemy ships).
  • And the countless doujin shmups, which are nearly impossible to get outside Japan unless you pirate. Rockin' Android and Nyu Media are trying their best in bringing as many doujin shmups over as possible. On digital services, no less.
• Lightgun games may be perhaps the only genre of games that Japanese never got during the 3rd console generation. Appearently that is due to the poor sales of Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley. Especially Sega loved doing this trend. Most of their master system lightgun games never saw a Japanese release.
• Japanese sports games are usually not translated, unless they have an accompanying Cultural Translation.
• Japanese Rhythm Games face a couple of major challenges when it comes to localizing them for non-Asian markets. First, many of them are arcade games that use specialized controllers, and thus would be limited to people who have the luck of living in the right places, and ordering replacement parts would be a challenge due to shipping-related costs and complications, so Japanese developers and publishers don't see much reason to care about Western markets. Second, these games often use a wide variety of licensed songs, and the copyright holders may either charge exorbitant amounts for licenses to these songs, or just straight up say "no." You might see some current music games at a Round 1 location in the US, but if the game you wanna see is by SEGA and not a Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA game or is heavy on licenses (especially anime licenses), don't count on seeing it there.

Platform-Specific Examples

• This practice was much more common on systems released prior to the fifth generation and the introduction of CDs because the high cost of cartridges prevented publishers from taking risks with unproven genres or series, and made it harder for them to sustain smaller, niche audiences. In places where certain games weren't as popular, publishers hesitated to release them or produced them in extremely limited quantities at high prices (The two SNES Final Fantasies that made it stateside cost $80). When CDs came along, the cost of manufacturing games and therefore the risk in releasing them dropped dramatically. As a result, publishers became much more experimental and could push new genres like the Eastern RPG onto foreign consumers. Even if the games weren't huge successes, cheaper production costs made catering to smaller, niche audiences much more feasible.
• The dawn of new console generations was for the longest time a major factor in this. Publishers were often reluctant to release new games on soon-to-be-obsolete consoles, out of fears they would be overshadowed and sell poorly compared to newer, more graphically advanced games on those consoles' impending successors. Infamous casualties of this include Final Fantasy II, EarthBound Beginnings, Mother 3, the original Rhythm Heaven, Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, Trials of Mana, Sin and Punishment and the original Nintendo 64 version of the first Animal Crossing game.
• A lot of Sega Saturn games were only released in Japan due to the poor reception of the console at the time. This is often blamed to Bernie Stolar screwing things up with his Five Star Policy (aka Sports Fanatic Policy). Some Saturn games just came out too late to be worth exporting, unless they were ported to the PlayStation like Grandia, Silhouette Mirage and the remakes of Lunar: The Silver Star and Lunar: Eternal Blue.
• Take a look at this list. Compare the number of entries for Japan compared to NA or Europe. Hell, some of the stuff on there came out in those regions the first time! Some are understandable (Samurai Shodown got a Compilation Re-release), but Xenogears has already been localized! The Virtual Console isn't quite as bad, but it's still got some missed opportunities on there (such as Fire Emblem).
• Until late 2012, Europeans never got to see Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on the PS1 Classics store.
• iTunes not only does not sell music, movies and TV shows to people in most countries outside the US, Europe and Japan, but certain apps also do not see release in those same markets. Epic Citadel is not available to most Asian iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch owners, and neither is a handful of other apps. The developers and Apple all cite piracy as an excuse.
• In addition to the Windows Marketplace example mentioned above, XBox Live and Zune are not available outside of the 1/3 of the world they've launched in. Thankfully, Microsoft turns a blind eye to import gamers on Xbox Live by not bothering stores that sell point cards online and not requiring users to set a billing address if paying for content by point cards. However, sadly the same can't be said about Zune, thanks to Executive Meddling by the RIAA and MPAA and their European and Japanese counterparts.
• Owning a TurboGrafx-CD or Turbo Duo was a great incentive to import games from Japan, since PC Engine CD-ROM² and Super CD-ROM² games (unlike HuCards) were compatible across regions and many of the titles that were supposed to be released in North America never were. Perhaps the most notorious is Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, which finally saw international release in 2007 as Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP, and was also later released in the US and Europe on the Wii Virtual Console (using the dub from the PSP version). The PC Engine Super CD version of Gradius II also found belated international distribution on the Virtual Console; Gradius Collection for the PSP was the first North American release of any version of that game. Other Turbo CD games whose NA releases were not to be, besides those mentioned above, included Far East of Eden 2, Image Fight II, Military Madness 2 (i.e. Neo Nectaris), Rayxanber III, and the Compile shooter Spriggan. There were even plans to bring the Arcade Card to the U.S.
• Many earlier third-party titles for the Famicom were only officially released in Japan, though their relative simplicity and lack of a language barrier made them common on bootleg NES multicarts. Nuts & Milk is the example that to this day lacks a proper international release on any platform.
• The best Commodore Amiga games and demos were only done in PAL, as the system was more popular in Europe than in North America. Fortunately, emulators can use both NTSC and PAL software. On the flipside, many adventure game ports (particularly Sierra adventure games) are NTSC-only and do not work properly on PAL Amigas; they usually run too slow if they work at all. This means that they were never officially sold outside of the US. Again, emulators usually can run both.
• If an arcade game was developed by a Japanese developer in the late 2000's or The New '10s, don't expect it to get a release outside of Asia, even if it's a well-known title like Persona 4: Arena. Even if an arcade game does get released worldwide, arcades outside of Asia are very scarce and probably won't be able to afford these new titles. Even if that is the case, chances are the international version will be a stripped-down version with no network connectivity, as is the case with Mario Kart Arcade GP DX. Games by Namco or Sega usually get released in America. Games by any other company? Not so much, unless an American company decides to release it there.^note like with what happened with Haunted Museum and Haunted Museum II, which were renamed in America to Panic Museum and Shh...! Welcome to Frightfearland respectively However, the expansion of Round 1 (a Japanese "entertainment chain" similar to Dave & Busters) got into the US, allowing for many games to get unofficial releases thanks to their existing ties with developers. Also, if it's a fighting game, the home port might get an unofficial arcade release in Latin America on a hacked Xbox 360 arcade cabinet.
• Europe has it weird with the 3DS. While some games come to Europe ahead of NA region (like most Level-5 releases), most of the time, even if a game is released in English for the Americas, that does not guarantee it will ever be released for Europe. This is despite Nintendo's assurances that imposing the region lock on the 3DS, a first for Nintendo handhelds, will not hamper game availability between the two non-Asian regions.
• TurboGrafx-16:
  • The TurboGrafx-16 was never released in the PAL regions, save for a small initial production run that was unceremoniously dumped off on mail order outlets. This is mainly due to the poor sales the console was having in the US as well as the fact that Sega was a leading branch in those areas. NEC feared that it would only lead to more losses as the Sega Genesis had some notoriously great advertising and lots of western third-party support.
  • The poor sales of the TG-16 and even worse sales of the TurboGrafix CD in the U.S. also meant that SuperGrafix (an upgraded PC Engine that only saw 7 games released^note Though it was backwards-compatible with PC Engine games) and the PC-FX (the PC Engine's successor) never saw release outside of Japan. Both consoles flopped in their home market, and NEC quietly exited the video game business in 1998.
• The Commodore 64 GS and the Amstrad GX 4000 are two examples of consoles that were only released in Europe. The poor sales in Europe prevented them from trying a foreign release.
• Even though every other version of the game came out in all major regions, the PS1 port of Mickey Mania only saw release in Europe and Australia. Similarly, its PSN re-release is also region restricted to the PAL PSN store.
• The Neo Geo Pocket was never released in North America. This was most likely due to the Game Boy Color releasing. However, the Neo Geo Pocket's successor, the Neo Geo Pocket Color, was released in North America, though 9 games on the Neo Geo Pocket Color were released in Europe but not the former: Cool Boarders Pocket, Dynamite Slugger, Evolution: Eternal Dungeons, Fantastic Night Dreams Cotton, Faselei!, The Last Blade, Neo Baccarat, Picture Puzzle, and Pocket Reversi.
• Cell phone services in Japan have received Updated Rereleases of games with no international release, including Dragon Quest I & II, Dragon Quest III, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IV, and Final Fantasy Adventure. Many of these games feature enhanced graphics and additional content.
• Inverted with many Sega Master System games. The Master System didn't do so hot in most parts of the world, but it gained a surprising fanbase with European gamers, causing Japanese developers to produce games exclusively published in Europe.
• For a while between 1990s and mid-2010s, many publishers, particularly of the top-flight ones, never bothered to release PC versions of their games into Japanese market, even on digital distribution platforms such as Steam. A few developers and publishers, such as Capcom and sometimes Sega, bothered to make Japanese PC ports of their games, with varying results. This was lessened sometime in late 2010s with e-Sports revitalizing PC gaming scenes, encouraging many publishers to sell PC versions of their games in Japanese markets.

Other

Music / Soundtracks

• The majority of game soundtracks are not officially exported, or are only released as some limited edition bonus. This applies even if the game you want the soundtrack for was exported. The Final Fantasy VI soundtrack was available in the US for a limited time through Nintendo Power, while in Japan, one could buy any soundtrack in a store, including arrangements, remixes, symphonic versions and live recordings. This has been improving over time, with major game publishers internationally releasing soundtracks on digital download services like iTunes and subscription services such as Apple Music and Spotify, but even then a given publisher may not put all of their soundtracks up for global listening. Also, digital versions of Japanese game soundtracks will almost always be in lossy formats like .mp3; if you want the stuff at its best quality with no lossy compression you'll have to import CDs.

Music /Soundtrack Changes for Foreign Releases

• BIOMETAL, in its original Japanese release, featured music by Yoshio Nagashima. But when it came to America and Europe, that soundtrack was replaced by a series of techno pieces by 2 Unlimited. Yes, the group behind "Get Ready For This".
• Despite Bullet Witch being released overseas for the Xbox 360 (with some unfortunate gameplay changes thanks to Atari) and later ported to PC by XSEED and Marvelous AQL (without the tampered mechanics by Atari), its Original Soundtrack did not get released elsewhere.
• Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse originally utilized the VRC6 chip, which allowed more advanced music instrumentation than was normally heard on the Famicom. Unfortunately, the NES doesn't support external sound chips, so the western releases had simplified music.
• Chaos Field's original soundtrack was never released outside of Japan.
• Although the video game adapation of Chaos Legion was released overseas, the game's original soundtrack, however, stayed in Japan.
• Cool Boarders 2 had two different soundtracks: The Japanese version had mostly techno and electronic pieces, while the U.S. version favored hard rock/heavy metal.
• Gran Turismo also featured different soundtracks between regions. Notably, "Moon Over the Castle", the signature theme song for the Gran Turismo series in Japan, is virtually nonexistent in the American/European releases, which instead use remixes of various songs for the intro sequences.
• The Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja series had its original soundtracks only released in Japan.
• Rapid Racer had two entirely different soundtracks between regions; the European release (which came first, in October 1997) featured music by Apollo 440, while the American port, now titled Turbo Prop Racing, featured different music by Loudmouth.
• Sonic CD, when it was being released in the United States, gained a "Special Edition" soundtrack composed by Spencer Nilsen that excised the vast majority of the original one by Naofumi Hataya (Europe, meanwhile, got Hataya's soundtrack). Sounds fine, right? Except this is the only soundtrack America got, and most critics and gamers agreed it was inferior to the original. There was also the issue that some of the original remixed music was kept unchanged, which resulted in these tracks sticking out like a sore thumb. The PC version used Nilsen's soundtrack in all three regions, and the version in Sonic Gems Collection only uses Hataya's soundtrack in Japan (unless you're using the PS2 version and you're still able to change your PS2's language to Japanese). Crossovers are odder in the issue: although hacking has hinted that both soundtracks would have their theme songs usable on Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Green Hill Zone, only Nilsen's soundtrack is represented in the the final release (though there is an explanation for that one; see the point below); meanwhile, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (which itself seems to be No Export For The Japanese so far in spite of its roster) only have Hataya's soundtrack represented (for the latter, there is the justification that Sumo Digital is a British developer.). The 2011 rerelease finally breaks this down with the option of choosing either soundtrack in all three regions (although the JPN soundtrack is the default one).
• Sword Maniac, a Super Famicom hack-n-slash sidescroller, was ported to the U.S., but its soundtrack by Hitoshi Sakimoto and Hayato Matsuo was thrown out and replaced with a techno soundtrack by Minneapolis-based band Psykosonik.
• Many game soundtracks produced by Inti Creates are never released overseas. While the game and vocal soundtrack of Azure Striker Gunvolt has been released through Steam, many of its other related soundtracks and soundtracks from later installments of the series have yet to be released outside of Japan. The 2-disc Official Soundtrack for Mighty No. 9 is also in a similar situation.
• The MileStone Sound Collection soundtrack, a compilation of music from various shoot 'em ups they have developed that also includes a port of Radirgy Noa Massive stayed in Japan.

Gaming-Related Bonus Items

• This trope can also apply to franchise that generates cool trinkets later on (posters, cards, etc.) Generally, Japan usually gets all the good stuff (examples like a SNES shaped classic controller for the Wii, the official soundtrack to Super Mario Galaxy, etc.) while no one else gets it unless they manage to import it.
• Club Nintendo, a club from Nintendo, allows its Nintendo fans to register their games on Nintendo's website to earn points. Saving up for enough points earns them free gifts and if the people save up a certain amount of points, they can reach gold or platinum status, which earns them a free gift at the end of the club's year. Even though Club Nintendo finally came to North America at the end of 2008, Japan generally still has the cooler stuff, such as a golden Wii Wheel. The US shop has even become infamous among members for having almost only bad rewards! Luckily, the North American Club Nintendo has slightly improved their rewards in the past few years and they also started to include Virtual Console games as well. And for Europe, theirs is the only Stars Catalogue so far to allow you to convert your Stars to Wii Points. Lastly, if you live in Asia outside Japan, Australia, New Zealand or South Korea, or in Europe outside UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal or Russia, No Club Nintendo For You!
• Operation Darkness had a Mini OST sold via Amazon Japan only if you reserve the game through the website. Atlus didn't include the OST in its North American release.

Game Hardware

• Japan, while also adopting Western computers like the IBM PC(-compatibles), Apple Macintosh, and to a much lesser extent the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST in the 1980s and early 1990s, also developed their own computer platfoms like the MSX, NEC PC98, Sharp X68000 and Fujitsu FM Towns^note Which is, for all intents and purposes, a proprietary extension of the PC platform that never saw international releases. ^note While PC-compatibles and Macs did make it to Japan, their market was mostly the Japanese branch of western multinational companies, although Japanese households eventually started warming up to the Mac's stylish design. PC-compatibles in particular had it bad because earlier systems could not natively support Japanese text and input, requiring a third party solution like DOS/V, often in tandem with a proprietary graphics card. However, the abundance of homegrown PC platforms with no cross-platform specification, plus the importing of Apple and IBM PCs from the west, ultimately led to the complete obliteration of the Japanese PC market- as of 2021, the Japanese no longer have any homegrown PC platforms and the only surviving platforms are the Macintosh and PC. The multiple incompatible platforms are also why some Japanese developers don’t want to develop for PCs, claiming the multiple incompatible platforms with no standardization too costly to deal with.
• Double subverted with the PC-98. NEC exported the PC-98 series, renaming it APC (Advanced Personal Computer). However, issues arose due to compatibility discrepancies with IBM PCs. Attempts to upgrade to MS-DOS 3.30 often resulted in reboot loops, as the PC-98 required a specialized version of MS-DOS. Certain software also encountered difficulties, ranging from spontaneous reboots to system freezes, especially with complex programs. While text mode software like WordStar and Lotus 1-2-3 had better success rates, games, particularly those accessing hardware directly, faced more challenges. NEC eventually shifted focus to PC-compatible platforms in Western markets. Despite this, the PC-98 left a mark internationally, as its 640x400 8-color mode became a VESA standard and its keyboard power-on/off feature influenced Western PCs.
• The MSX, while actually having seen release outside of Japan, never caught on in North America. Many MSX games weren't released even in Europe, although there were also many MSX games that were released in Europe.
• This is also true in Europe, certain computing platforms like the Acorn and Amstrad computers which never saw light in the US or Japan.
• The WonderSwan and WonderSwan Color were Japan-only handheld consoles. There were rumors of an American release before the new millennium, but those rumors proved to be false. WonderSwan Color versions of Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy IV, and the cancelled Final Fantasy III might have been an appropriate time to reintroduce the older games, before the DS versions existed. Special edition versions of the WonderSwan Color came with one of the games included.
• The e-Reader and cards for Game Boy Advance. The e-Reader itself was released in only Japan and North America, was quickly discontinued in the latter due to bad sales, and therefore many of the cards for it only came out in Japan, including:
  • Additional levels for Super Mario Advance 4, out of which 12 out of 38 got a US release, and even the Japanese version has lots of unused level features which hint at more unreleased levels. There are also special cards which would affect the difficulty, or restore some features from previous games (the vegetables from 'Mario 2 USA', and the extra item slot from 'World') and even items (a 100-Up mushroom (!), a Blue Boomerang which wouldn't make its way outside Japan until the 3DS titles, and a usable-anywhere Goomba Shoe !). Averted with the Wii U Virtual Console release on January 21, 2016.
  • Rockman Zero 3: There is a plethora of special cards enabling changes to Zero's attacks (7 Combo Saber, anyone?) and to other aspects of gameplay. It is translated but Dummied Out on the US GBA copies. It took the Updated Re-release for the Nintendo DS to finally have them properly accessible, from the main menu. The Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection would also implemented this feature, but unlocking the "ZZ Cards" in this collection are obtained through unlocking achievements. As for Rockman.EXE e-reader content, though...
  • The Pokémon Battle-e Cards, when scanned into Pokémon Ruby or Sapphire Japanese or US copies, allowed the player to load up special trainers to battle or to get special berries. There are other sets for for Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, Pokémon Emerald, and Pokémon Colosseum, but only for the Japanese versions.
  • Mario vs. Donkey Kong for the GBA has a limited run of 1000 cards available worldwide for the game, of which the E-reader support is unknown. Fortunately, they are of the kind of the On-disc DLC, and ARE accessible through some GameShark tricks.
  • Mario Party-e: A whopping 64 cards were released for this, as well.
  • Pikmin 2, believe it or not, in its Japanese version, had cards that included minigames for the GBA.
  • Many other Japanese-only games, as well as a complete set for self contained NES games.
• One more Gameboy Advance accessory that never saw the light of day outside Japan was the Play-Yan, a multimedia player that could play MP3 files and digital video files stored on an SD card. It was scheduled for an international release in 2005 but the Gameboy Advance was dead by that time. It did get a revision in the form of the Play-Yan Micro, which made it out to Europe as the Nintendo MP3 Player, but not to North America.
• Nintendo seems to have a very bad habit of making add ons or other features that never see the light of day outside Japan. Just look on the bottom of any console and you'll likely find some kind of expansion port on it. The GameCube had a DVD add on that would let people play DVD movies for example. Even in Japan, Panasonic released the Panasonic Q, a combination Gamecube & DVD player. It never saw the light of day anywhere else.
• Japan had an addon for the Super Famicom, the Satellaview. It allowed downloadable content over a decade before this became common. Nothing for it ever got to the States. Notable games that were released for it include:
  • Radical Dreamers, the first sequel to the incredibly popular Chrono Trigger - although Square is finally going to export this one with the Chrono Cross HD Remaster.
  • A port of the original The Legend of Zelda game, known as "BS Zelda", albeit with different dungeon layouts
  • A Mission-Pack Sequel for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, running on the same engine, and involving finding the eight stone tablets to re-seal Ganon, with some twists on the gameplay.
  • Two sequels for the Action-adventure Super Famicom game MARVELOUS, better known for being the game that promoted Eiji Aounuma to direct The Legend of Zelda series, since its N64 outings.
  • The third and final game for the Famicom Detective Club series, involving the female protagonist from the previous games investigating to clear her mother's name from a murder accusation.
  • Additional maps for F-Zero, Excitebike, Dragon Quest, and Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem (Which got incorporated within the DS Remake, Fire Emblem 12).
  • The Super Mario Collection for the SNES was also re-released partially, notably the Mario 2 USA title, and some world maps from Mario 3, including one exclusive map with Mario 1 maps on it using the 3's engine.
  • Some lost games, such as Magical Doremi sequels.
  • Mario's Excitebike which was a remake of the NES game Excitebike with a Mario-themed makeover.
  • Undake 30 Same Game which was a version of the puzzle game Same Game with Super Mario-themed sprites as the game icons.
• Because of the Virtual Boy's failure and shame in Japan and North America, the console was never released in Europe.
• Many different console looks are Japanese only, such as the orange Nintendo GameCube (oddly, the matching controllers were released in the US).
• The Super Game Boy 2 peripheral was an updated version of the original which featured link cable connections and different built-in borders. It was only released in Japan.
• The Game Boy Light was a modified Game Boy Pocket which included a screen back light made by Sharp, based off of their Indiglo technology. Only about 12,000 of them were made and it never saw release anywhere outside of Japan.
• The original size version of the New Nintendo 3DS originally only came out in Europe as a "Nintendo Ambassador Special Edition" and did not come out in North America in any form because Nintendo of America claimed they did not see an audience for it and the system's most hyped feature of interchangable face plates was not enough of a reason. Ultimately, it was finally subverted six months later when Nintendo of America finally released the New Nintendo 3DS stateside with two Animal Crossing Plates and the game Happy Home Designer, with another Pokémon version to follow, and it seems that these will be the only ways US-region gamers can get their hands on an original size New Nintendo 3DS.
• Several limited editions of game consoles are not released elsewhere. The PlayStation 2 in Charcoal Black, Ceramic White, Satin Silver, Sakura Pink, Ocean Blue, Midnight Blue, Toys R Us Blue edition, and Final Fantasy XII edition. The PlayStation 3 Lightning Edition with Final Fantasy XIII. The PlayStation 4 Dragon Quest Heroes edition. The Play Station Vita Dragon Quest Metal Slime Edition. The Xbox Kasumi-chan Blue edition. Several Game Boy editions such as Game Boy Advance in Spice Orange, Game Boy Micro Mother 3, Final Fantasy IV and Pokémon editions, and several Pokémon-themed Nintendo handhelds.
• An NES themed Game Boy Advance SP was released in tandem with the Game Boy Advance Classic NES Series. In Japan, the Game Boy Advance SP was released with a Famicom theme, along with three different Famicom 20th anniversary game collection boxes.
• The Pocket Station was a hand-held console produced by Sony which never seen the light of day outside of Japan and was planned to be released overseas. Upon playing it, you can transfer data from the memory card slot to a designated game and receive useful items, features, and 100% completion. One notable game with the PocketStation function is Final Fantasy VIII which has Chocobo World. It was referenced in the localized versions, but was effectively considered Dummied Out, as even though it is accessible you will need to import a PocketStation from Japan. Fortunately, the PC version included the program. Another example was the Pocket-Ray game hidden in RayCrisis. Apparently, worry of having enough stock in its native Japan was a big reason the PocketStation never left the country.
• The Amiga CD32. All of it. And all because of an injunction that blocked all imports to the United States of Commodore products over failure to pay a patent royalty. This injunction turned out to be the Creator Killer for Commodore, as the United States would've been a key market in selling the Amiga CD32 to put the company back in the black.
• The Nintendo 64DD, delayed for years and finally got a release in Japan in which the games and consoles were shipped with a subscription mail order. While it was a major failure, it did mean players received things like Mario Artist and an F-Zero X Expansion Pack.
• When Rock Band 3 was released, Canadian airwaves were bombarded with ads and reviews praising the pro mode that lets you learn guitar for real. Unless you were one of the few people lucky enough to snap one of the ultra rare pro mode controllers sent to a western Canada store, you are still flat out of luck getting anything BUT the game disc as eastern game stores were denied all but a small handful of Wii version keyboards. To this day, guitars and drum kits are still unseen on shelves and cannot be obtained outside of making an international postal order.
• The many games released in Japan for i-mode cell phones can't be obtained in other countries, unless and until they get Remade for the Export (like Kingdom Hearts coded).
• The Wii does not get GameCube backwards compatibility in Korea. Nintendo decides to reimburse Korean Wii owners with reduced prices at the Wii shop.
  
  This is happening with newer release consoles also have the compatibility removed, the best way to identify them is the fact they are designed to be run sitting horizontally rather than vertically, with the printing of the logo matching this. Even that goes with the trope itself because the newer horizontal version of the Wii without GC compatibility was not released in Japan despite Nintendo being based in Japan. All Japanese Wiis are compatible with Gamecube games.
• Sega Master System:
  • The Japanese system got an FM synth card that was never available with Western models, even though most of the same cartridges were released internationally with the FM soundtracks intact. However, some Master System games that supported FM sound weren't even released in Japan, since Sega discontinued the console so soon and abruptly in its native country. Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap was one of these games; while Japanese players did receive a Game Gear port and the altered PC Engine version, they could get the FM synth music only by importing cartridges until the Compilation Re-release came out much later.
  • Most later Master System games came out in Europe and Brazil only; the ports of Fire & Ice: The Daring Adventures of Cool Coyote and Battlemaniacs were developed in Europe but released only in Brazil.
  • The Master System's paddle controller only came out in Japan, as did the few games requiring it (with the exception of Woody Pop, which saw international release on the Game Gear).
• The Famicom Data Recorder was only released in Japan, which is why Excitebike, Lode Runner, Mach Rider and Wrecking Crew for the Nintendo Entertainment System have nonfunctional "Save" and "Load" features. Manuals hinted that "potential product developments" might enable these features, but they never happened. They were ultimately added into the Virtual Console releases of those games though.^note On the flipside, one can argue that the Data Recorder is basically a trojan horse like The R.O.B, as it is otherwise a bog standard off-the-shelf mono tape recorder with Nintendo branding slapped on, and the real encoding/decoding circuitry is in the Famicom Keyboard One reason for the non-export of the Famicom Data Recorder was that it needed the Famicom Keyboard to be present to operate (the recorder plugs into two mono headphone-type jacks on the back of the keyboard). The keyboard itself is a pack-in with the Famicom Basic cartridge, and thus both are another NEFY.
• The Famicom Controller II, with a microphone used in Atlantis no Nazo, Kid Icarus, Raid on Bungeling Bay, SD Kamen Rider, Takeshi's Challenge, and The Legend of Zelda, was not available outside Japan, so those features were unavailable.
• The Datach Joint Rom System was a Japan-only card reader accessory and mini-cartridge slot for the Famicom used in games like Dragon Ball Z: Gekitō Tenkaichi Budōkai and SD Gundam World Gachapon Senshi: Scramble Wars. Think of it as an Aladdin Deck Enhancer combined with a barcode card reader and you get the idea.
• The Sharp C1 TV came with Donkey Kong Jr. + Jr. Math Lesson, a mix of half of each game, and a built-in Famicom. However it was only sold in Japan. To it's credit tho, Sharp did release a North American equivalent, but only in several test markets on the west coast, but it was discontinued just as soon as it was launched because it was very expensive and did not sell well in the test markets. Its successor, the Sharp Super Famicom Naizou TV SF1, never left Japan either.
• The NES Classic Edition includes eight games exclusive to North American and PAL regions. The Japanese equivalent, the Famicom Mini, includes eight games that are not available on the NES Classic Edition.
• A number of Sega Genesis games supposedly never released in the U.S. were brought there only on the Sega Channel, an early attempt at streaming games on demand. Most of these have since received international Virtual Console releases, thus no longer fitting this category.
• SCEE got console colors for the PS3 (Red, Blue and White like JP and Asia) and PSP. The US? Didn't even have a Blue or Red PS3 color model! People who wanted color choices were not amused, and there's a high chance it'll repeat again with the Play Station Vita... save for the white one that came as a bundle for Assassin's Creed III: Liberation. The US will be finally having White and Red models (The Red one as part of the God of War legacy bundle)... a few years after the Japanese release way back in the 1st slim model. (In short: The White and Red models will be available in the US for the Super Slim model, not the 1st Slim one the Asians and Europeans had). Happens again with the PS4- The western world won't get the laser-etched versions of the console Japan has for Destiny, The Last of Us Remastered and... Frozen (2013)?! (Complete with the US logo, not the Anna and the Snow Queen one)
• Though every major first party game for the Wii, 3DS, and Switch, as well as the consoles themselves, was released in Korea, the Wii U and its software never were. Beginning in the week of E3 2013, Nintendo of Korea teased Korean fans with a link to the Nintendo of America E3 site, giving Koreans a look at games that Americans, Europeans, and Japanese would enjoy in the near future, but not Koreans.
• Until the South Korean government lifted its ban on Japanese video game imports in 2000—which in turn allowed Sega Publishing Korea to officially start operating in 2003, with Nintendo of Korea following in 2005—no Nintendo or Sega system or game was officially released in South Korea. One technical way around the ban, apart from importing them illegally or producing bootleg knockoffs of the hardware (e.g. "Famiclones"), would be for a Korean company to license something from its American counterpart (as it's now an American import, not Japanese); for instance, Hyundai would license Nintendo's consoles from Nintendo of America and market them locally under the Comboy brand, while Samsung licensed Sega's consoles and marketed them as the Super Gam*Boy and later the Super Aladdin Boy. But because of the ban, an entire generation of Koreans generally lack the nostalgia that Japanese, American, and European players have for Nintendo and Sega.
• Most second generation consoles, like the Atari 5200 and the ColecoVision, were never released in Japan. It's true to say that Japanese had their own second generation consoles, but all of the second generation consoles there (Epoch Cassette Vision and Gakken TV boy for instance) weren't as attractive as their US and EU counterparts, as they were mostly near 4-bit quality consoles (As in the same graphical quality you'd get from either early Atari 2600 games or even those brick game handhelds).
• NESiCAxLive is a digital content delivery platform for arcades, allowing arcades to purchase new games digitally, without the pain of having the physical hardware shipped and then installing it. (Think Steam, except for arcades.) However, and unsurprisingly due to the status of arcades outside of Asia, it is Japan-only, so don't expect to see NESiCAxLive titles like The Rumble Fish and Crimzon Clover to pop up in a Western arcade in the foreseeable future. The only exception is Groove Coaster (Rhythmvaders outside of Japan), which does get releases in Asia.
• The successor to Sega's failed Pico edutainment console, Advanced Pico Beena, is only available in Japan. Why would anyone care given that it's a Kiddie Console and its predecessor failed to sell well in the US and Europe, you ask? Well, the Beena received licensed titles from tons of anime and manga franchises, which is obviously of interest to fans of the anime/manga franchise that has titles that appeared on the platform, if just for the sake of collecting. And the Pico also got a host of Anime tie-ins that were released after its demise outside Japan and thus were never exported.
• The Neo Geo Pocket system. The original system was monochromatic and came out in Japan in 1998. The system was unsuccessful and died in less than a year so it never saw release outside of Japan. Its successor the Neo Geo Pocket Color was more successful and did get a release worldwide.
• The Wii Mini is actually a case of "No Export for You" for Japanese gamers as it is the only territory it did not release in.
• The Xbox One isn't being released in Malaysia yet despite already being launched in Singapore. The most likely reason is that Microsoft has not launched Xbox Live Gold in Malaysia, which is compulsory if you're even planning to do anything with the Xbox One. And the reason Xbox Live Gold isn't available? Microsoft gives all sorts of excuses, ranging from poor internet connectivity in the country to piracy, to even pointing the fingers at Singapore and blaming that they're vetoing the HQ in the US from launching the service in Malaysia out of fear that Singaporeans would cut their Singaporean subscriptions to try to get a cheaper subscription from Malaysia, never mind that they could've priced everything at equal value to Singapore, which many Malaysians are still willing to pay.
• Casio's obscure Loopy game system which was released in Japan as the first game system marketed exclusively at girls and had a built-in printer that printed colored stickers of a surprisingly good variety. It never released elsewhere likely because there was no perceived audience.
• Sega's official lightgun was region-locked out of North America's Dreamcast market thanks to Columbine, as the console was released five months after the shooting. Gamers have to use the scant few low-quality third-party guns available to play compatable games such as The House Of The Dead 2.
• The Sega Game Gear Classic Micro were a collection of five Game Gear retro-revival reproduction systems each a different color (black, red, yellow, blue, and white) and each with four games built in. The systems did not leave Japan likely because of their size which had them considered as a collectible widget product vs an actually usable system and the fact that audiences outside of Japan would not see the novelty.
• The Sega Genesis Mini 2 AKA Sega Mega Drive Mini 2 have Japanese, North American, and European versions but was unordabable in some some countries in the latter two regions. There was also no general Asian version of the Sega Mega Drive Mini 2 like there was for Sega Mega Drive Mini.

Game Streaming Services

• Stadia. Xbox Game Pass. PlayStation Now. GeForce Now. If you live in a third world country or even some second world country, chances are none of these game streaming services are available to you. For what it’s worth tho, you get the best experience with these only if you have high speed, low latency Internet, preferably fiber to the home. Still, it’s really infuriating.

Wii Channels

• The Wii in Japan also has gotten a channel or two that has never been released anywhere else, such as the TV Listings channel, possibly due to technical or logistical differences between Japan and western nations. There's even a channel where you can order food.
• The BBC iPlayer Channel, which is available in the UK and nowhere else (as is the case with every platform it is on —- this is because of British TV license laws).
• The Netflix channel is only available in North America. Its Wii U version is however available in Belgium as well.
• The Wii Shop is still unavailable in a handful of countries. Thankfully, Nintendo turns a blind eye to import gamers by not bothering stores that sell point cards online.

PlayStation applications (PS3/PSP)

• As mentioned above, the iPlayer option will only show up on UK PAL PS3s.
• South East Asian PSPs have the app menu disabled on the console, meaning that they cannot run the comic book viewer app.

Guide Books / Tie-in Materials

• Although Bullet Witch, similarly to its soundtrack, the Bullet Witch Official Guide and Art Book was also never released overseas.
• Similarly to the soundtracks of the Chaos Legion video game, despite the game being released overseas, its official guidebook was never released overseas.
• While guide books are released for most popular games, Japanese guidebooks can give phonebooks a run for their money in terms of page count. Best example would be the Ultimanias released by Square for their games, new and old, from Final Fantasy to Tactics Orge - Bradygames' guide book for Final Fantasy X is a lightweight compared to the THREE Ultimanias released for the same game in Japan (NOT including the International version). And there are art books that which concept art, production team notes, interviews...
• Tie-in materials also tend to frequently get left behind, namely Light Novels, CD dramas, and manga. Canoncity issues aside (e.g. Retcons, Executive Meddling), most tend to either help further flesh out the worlds and character backgrounds or be the artists/writers' takes of the games are set in. Occasionally, some of them do make it out, but not all - Devil May Cry had a total of four light novels, two CD dramas for the anime, and two manga volumes, but neither the two-volume novelization for Devil May Cry 4 that had details that aren't in the final release nor the CD dramas were ever released outside Japan. A particularly egregious example comes with Square Enix and its love of light novels, novellas and other supplementary reading material created for the Final Fantasy series. Majority of those are not released outside of Japan, so any reading material that may expand on the game's universe or even explain plot details made too vague in the games themselves is lost to majority of western players and they will either have to import the books themselves or hope other people have and given them (potentially missing some details) fan translations.
• The Japanese version of No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle came with a variety of bonuses including a mini-soundtrack, a book of official artwork, a short comic book, and a ten minute animated movie. These bonuses have yet to be released anywhere else. What makes this a particularly infuriating example is that the game in question is far more popular in the west than in Japan.
• In an inversion of the way things usually go, action-RPG Terranigma actually had an English translation which was released internationally... but only in Europe. For some reason it never reached the United States. (Although some people think it's because the game never made it there.) Club Nintendo also made a 32-page comic book about it which was only released in Germany. Making it probably one of the few tie-in materials from Nintendo not made for Japanese consumers. The game is far more and better remembered in Germany as well.
• Triggerheart Exelica had a guide book released only in Japan, although there are some shots of the book floating around, one of which suggests that Crueltear was originally supposed to be a mecha instead of a Triggerheart.

Downloadable Content

• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker had a lot of DLC in the Japanese version that was never released in other regions due to being incomprehensibly Japanese - such as joke voices for the AI weapons (a Peace Walker that talks in Nagoya dialect and a 'summer festival' Cocoon being just a couple).
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies has one add-on DLC, Turnabout Quiz, that is Japan-exclusive. Capcom's excuse for this one is that it relies too much on one's knowledge of Japanese cultural references and thus won't fly outside of Japan. The "Nostalgic Sweater" costume originally unlocked by completing the quiz is instead unlocked by completing the Turnabout Reclaimed DLC case in international versions.
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice has a second set of DLC costumes based on Sengoku Basara characters in Japan only, likely because most of that series has not been released outside Japan itself.
• The only major content excluded from The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is the two short gag DLC cases for the second game. Since they were advertised as limited-time early purchase bonuses, Japanese truth-in-advertising laws forbid them from being released again.
• In StreetPass Mii Plaza, the Puzzle Swap game contains panels for licensed tie-ins that remain specific to Japan. The most notable of this is a panel depicting a Big Mac due to McDonald's being a sponsor, which is odd considering the chain is a worldwide sponsor for Nintendo's StreetPass service.
• In WarioWare D.I.Y., notable people would make microgames to be distributed for free online, and a new one would pop up weekly or biweekly. In a case of this trope going both ways, the guests, and their microgames, were mostly mutually exclusive between Japan and the rest of the world, the only exception being people within Nintendo or people with ties to Nintendo. That being said, it became evident that Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe were not quite as able to recruit outside talent the way Nintendo in Japan did: Whereas the Japanese list consisted of people outside of video gaming too, such as directors, actors, artists, and musicians as a demonstration that anybody could learn the game engine, the Western roster consists solely of game developers, most of whom made microgames for the purpose of Product Placement.
• From the WipEout series:
  • Wipeout Pure has multiple region-exclusive DLC packs, with Europe, Japan, and the United States all getting their own exclusive content (in addition to the Gamma, Delta, and Classic Packs, which were worldwide releases). The Omega Pack, the only one among them to include new courses, was exclusive to Europe, along with four ships (one themed after each of the new courses) — Europe also received many music packs from artists all across the continent, as well as two more exclusive ships in the Delta Pack as Product Placement from Puma. While Japan received some exclusive music, the majority of its DLC is, of all things, product placement from Coca-Cola, including a ship that looks like a flying Coke bottle! The United States' exclusive DLC is free, and unlocked via cheat codes — it consists of four ships and skins, intended once again as product placement, this time for the SOCOMUS Navy Seals and Jak and Daxter series.
  • The DLC for Wipeout Pulse features four ships (three old and one new, including series mainstay Auricom) and four new courses, but none of it was released outside of Europe. The PS2 port includes all of the DLC at no additional cost... but the port also never left Europe.

Others

• While most Europeans and North Americans lament the non-export of various Japanese titles, think of the South-East Asians stuck with Japanese/Asian consoles (up to the PS2 era) who lament that they can't play the games they want because game stores are so flooded with so many different games that it becomes way too difficult to understand which games you should and shouldn't buy, because even there shovelware exists. That, and that some companies (such as THQ) refuse to release their titles in the Asian region as well, thinking it won't fly due to being "too niche a market".
• Initially, the Tenkaichi otoge sai Zenkoku issei nintei taikai event where one song from Maimai ORANGE, Jubeat Saucer Fulfill, Groove Coaster EX & Taiko no Tatsujin Kimidori ver. is available for all the games mentioned and then having one composer working on these games composing a music track for play for them, is limited to AOU arcades in Japan. However, it is then averted when all these music tracks are added to machines outside of Japan on 15th February 2015.
• Nintendo's digital distribution platforms still have games exclusive to certain regions, including games on WiiWare, DSiWare, and Virtual Console services for Wii, Wii U and 3DS. And region exclusive games can be delisted, becoming Permanently Missable Content.
• Nintendo support in general. Part of the reason why Japanese games always were considered to be superior to Western ones was simply due to unfair design. While Nintendo would often give detailed information about the Game Boy and say which engines work well with it sometimes years in advance to Japanese companies such as Konami and Hudson Soft, Western companies such as Acclaim and Rare had sometimes to wait years after the release of the console or handheld in order to have the same detailed information and were lucky if those particular engines got a release in the west. This all forced those companies quite often to rush products in order to make some sort of profit at the expense of general quality, making them look like shovelware developers in the process.
• Nintendo fans in Asia outside of Japan and South Korea tend to get the short stick, with virtually no support for hardware (support for the hardware is handled by the distributors themselves, meaning that if they don't feel like tending to your hinge-broken 3DS just because you bought it while on vacation elsewhere or even from a shop that grey-market imported it, you're screwed). Additionally, there is the software issue mentioned earlier- no eShop and no Nintendo Network.
• The original Korean release of Kritika offers a total of 11 character classes to choose from. The English localization only has 5 of these characters available, and the chances of the other 6 being imported are very slim.
• Just look at this list of The Rarest and Most Valuable PAL SNES games. It seems that being released in PAL is not a guarantee that a game will be released everywhere in Europe.
• The Sega Genesis had digital games and online multiplayer as early as 1990 through the use of the Sega Meganet service. Too bad it it only came out in Japan and Brazil. Similarly, most of its digital games were never released outside of Japan in any form with Flicky and Fatal Labyrinth being notable exceptions.

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