14 DAY TRIAL // Following the success that Race Driver GRID enjoyed on launch in both Europe and the United States, Codemasters is thinking about taking the title to Japan, with fully localized versions being worked on for both the Microsoft Xbox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3.
Rod Cousens, Chief Executive Officer at Codemasters, stated that "As Codemasters continues to gain significant ground in the global video game business, the release of Race Driver: GRID in Japan will also see the arrival of the Codemasters brand as a publishing label in the market. We have pursued options in the market for some time and this announcement is but a first indication of our ambitions in that market."
Codemasters plans to create specific content for the Japanese release, apart from the inclusion of speech and text in Japanese. There will be three new locations for races from Japan, in the form of tracks in Shibuya in Tokyo, Yokohama and Haruna. Two new types of races, Drift and Touge, will also make it into the game.
Codemasters also plans to bundle Race Driver GRID with a full version copy of DiRT, as a marketing push designed to promote the other racing titles that Codemasters produces for the Japanese market. Initially, Codemasters titles were only available through local publishers that did all the conversion work, often resulting in games that were not as good as the original ones because of hastily done translations. Now, the company is seeking to establish itself as an important player on the Japanese videogame market by porting the games itself, to make sure that the quality is consistent with the versions of the games as they are released in Europe or North America.
There's no word yet on whether the PC version of the game will make it to Japan, as the initial announcement makes no reference to it. There's also no set date yet for the Japanese release of Race Driver GRID.