Ps4 adoption in japan is lower than the vita(around the time where marketing was relevant) vita is at 6m sales, ps4 is at 9m now, but at the time of marketing, was about the same.
Let alone, the experience of 2077 on the base ps4/xbox to be abysmal. The practical size of the userbase that would be even able to play the game is extremely low.
Theres a HUGE reason why the head of playstation decisions is from the American branch and not the japanese one.
That’s because Japan is pretty much the only country where the Vita sold well. More than a third of its sales are in Japan.
And they even mention in that article that despite the launch issues on ps4, the game was well-received.
Plus it doesn’t even really matter since Edgerunners has been announced 5/6 months before the game was even released, so the actual reception in Japan was probably not a factor in distribution.
Its not a factor… because it wasnt the target audience. It has dubs because thats what they have access to on hand and that some people would enjoy it in japanese. But the target audience was definitely western.
But that other stuff didn’t get dubbed. Dubbing is a choice, and not a cheap one, especially in Japan. They even got KENN and Aoi Yuuki for the lead roles, it wasn’t some second-thought dub “just because”.
The MAL definition has been tested for years and has proven to be pretty effective (most other sites have a similar one afaik), the biggest detractors are the ones who think stuff like ATLA or RWBY (main series) should be considered anime just because of the style, but they’re generally ignored in database matters.
