If it exposes more people to the game, why is it so pointless?
I never heard of Siren before this, and I'm intrigued,

You know.... if you're going to sarcasticly laud a company for treating you like an idiot, try not being one.

Siren: New Translation is the remake. Will be released as a single game.

Siren: Blood Curse is episodic.

Or how about since the survival horror genre now seems to be the "eeek, something jumped out in front of my gun on my FPS" variety, you shut the hell up anytime we are thrown a bone in this genre. Especially a genuinely original and creepy series like Siren.

@Sir Wong: Blood Curse is the Western release of New Translation. Do you really think they are going to release two different Siren games at the same time?

skullivan... I could be wrong but...

This is the plot of the first Siren and as such Siren: New Translation.

"Siren is set in a remote, rural Japanese mountain village named "Hanuda" ("Hanyūda" (羽生蛇村, Hanyūda-mura?) in the Japanese version), which is characterized as being very traditional and particularly xenophobic. Following a ritual ceremony, the village teeters wildly between time and space, with an infinite sea of blood-red water in place of the usual surrounding mountains. The crux of the story focuses on the efforts of Hisako Yao, the leader of a strange local religion, to resurrect or re-awaken a being known as Datatsushi through an occult ceremony."

Now, according to PS3 fanboy, this is the plot of Siren: Blood Curse.

"The story takes place "in the Japanese village of Hanuda, where a TV crew from America arrive to research the legend of the 'Vanished Village' where human sacrifice is said to have taken place thirty years ago."

Now, considering the original Siren didn't have a single American in it's plot or setting, the updated info on New Translation still lacks this key info, and New Translation ships as a complete title July 24th in Japan, it doesn't look like Blood Curse is related to New Translation but rather Blood Curse takes place 30 years later.

@Wong:

New Translation is also about an American TV crew on Hanuda. It's not a simple "remake" of Siren so much as a total reimagining. It shares the same concept of people on Hanuda dealing with Shibito but otherwise is pretty much an entirely new game.

It's like Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes. It's not a sequel but it isn't really a straight up remake either. They're trying to make the series appeal to Americans since the first one bombed over here. This game will be the new foundation for the series assuming it's more successful.

If you check out IGN's article from when New Translation was first announced, it even mentions how the game is split over 12 episodes.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/867/867667p1.html

Well then, I am wrong...

Why would they break it up like that? Other than, you know, trying to prove Sony doesn't suck at episodic content while quietly sweeping Rat Race under the rock they found the abandoned scripts under...

I figure they're doing it episodically for a couple reasons:

1. Siren didn't do particularly well in the US (although it was apparently a modest success in Europe) so putting out a $60 installment is going to be a brick wall for a lot of people. I think a lot more people would be willing to play through a couple episodes (especially if they make the first 2 free) and potentially get hooked.

2. The game lends itself to being distributed episodically and Sony wants to test the waters with this kind of distribution. If it ends up going over like a fart in church it's no big deal because it's not a franchise they have a huge investment in. If it goes over well then they have established a franchise that was pretty much done for anyway.

I'm the kind of person who likes to actually get a disc when I buy a game, but at the same time I'm kind of excited to see what it's like to play an actual episodic game.

[+]

Side note: That picture seems like the text is getting bigger when I'm focused on reading what's written beneath it. Kinda creeped me out, I thought it was an animated JPG for a while.

I swear I was replying to Eothein. Lesson learned : be sure it says "replying to..." above the comment box. Sometimes it doesn't pop up.