Not every Western game is subtitled. Remember the irritation from Japanese gamers over the dubbing Modern Warfare 2 got? Japanese gamers wanted to play the game with its original voices. But do all Japanese gamers want that?
From April 2007 to December 2009, Japanese game company Spike polled over 6,000 users via postcards included with Spike titles. Here are the results:
Which do you want to play — Western games with subtitles or dubbing?
• Subtitles — 49 percent (3,277 votes)
• Dubbing — 47 percent (3,139 votes)
• Other — 4 percent (240 votes)
The breakdown by genre is especially interesting. For FPS games, 31.9 percent of players want subtitles, 59 percent want dubbing and 9.1 percent want literally "other", but more likely here it refers to "no preference". For action games, 37.4 percent want subtitles, 46.5 percent want dubbing and 16.1 percent want "other". For role-playing games, 54.4 percent want subtitles, while 45.6 percent want dubbing.
Hardware-wise, 54.4 percent of Xbox 360 owners want subtitles, 45.6 percent want dubbing and 1 percent want "other". Regarding the PS3, 45 percent want subtitles, 52 percent want dubbing and 3 percent want "other".
海外ゲームは字幕 [Spike]