Monster Hunter Tri Officially Coming to North America in Early 2010

The hit Japanese Nintendo Wii title, Monster Hunter Tri, has finally been officially confirmed for a North American release. The exclusive game will be released sometime during early 2010.

The Monster Hunter series is popular in one region while widely ignored in the other. While the games are popular in Japan, the same titles have a hard time selling when localized for North American audiences.

The original title came out in Japan for the Playstation 2 on March 11, 2004. It would later be localized for North America on September 21, 2004. While Monster Hunter was successful in Japan, it was considered a big flop in North America due to low software sales.

To further compound the problem for the publisher and developer, Capcom, Monster Hunter has a monthly fee structure in Japan while the online gameplay remained free in North America. Because of the presumably high server costs in addition to the low user base, Capcom lost plenty of money by bringing Monster Hunter to North America. As a result, Monster Hunter G and Monster Hunter 2 for the Playstation 2 stayed in Japan only.

As popular as Monster Hunter was in Japan, however, it really exploded as one of the biggest brands in the Japanese gaming industry due to the release of the handheld editions. Capcom decided to port the Playstation 2 Monster Hunter games onto the PSP. The results became quite unprecedented. Monster Hunter Freedom, Monster Hunter Freedom and Monster Hunter Freedom Unite are all million-sellers in Japan. Not to mention that the popularity of handheld Monster Hunter titles also led to the resurgence of the PSP in terms of hardware sales. Thus, Monster Hunter gained the status of being a killer app.

For the next entry in the growing series, Capcom first announced Monster Hunter Tri for the Playstation 3. However, development was moved exclusively to the Nintendo Wii due to the high costs of creating a game on the Playstation 3.

Monster Hunter Tri will certainly be one of the best games on the Nintendo Wii when it comes out in North America sometime during early 2010. Despite not releasing previous console Monster Hunter games in the west, Capcom were confident enough with the series' growing reputation that they were willing to localize the third mainline title.

The Japanese version of Monster Hunter Tri is already a big success with Capcom already shipping 1 million copies during the first week of release. Like its home console predecessors, the Nintendo Wii exclusive game comes with monthly fees for online play in Japan. It is unknown if Capcom has a similar plan for the North American release.