That's the problematic bit, right there. There's a connotation implied there.
There's an *active* decision - "We have specifically and explicitly decided against selling translations," and there's the passive, "We are not ready to licence for translation at this time."
What you give above makes it sound like the former, when it could also be the latter.
And what I'm saying is that Hobby Japan is unequivocally saying it's the former. They don't say "WotC said they are not ready to license at this time," they say, "WotC has decided to not license translations." That by itself might be enough to assume WotC is planning on doing it in-house, but HJ continues to say, "WotC has decided to only sell to the English-language market."
Running the kanji by a friend's wife (who is japanese); she is saying that the intent is "WotC has no licensing plans yet" rather than "there will never be a license".
I disagree, and so does Synsuke, the Japanese OP of this thread. There is no mention of "yet", or "at this time." If this was simply WotC telling HJ that they haven't finalized their overseas strategy yet, HJ would not have made this announcement in this way. Because "no licensing plans yet" at least implies that long-term HJ could expect WotC to come to them with plans, so they could simply say, "No news yet. Please wait for more information." This was flat out, "Eigoban nomi wo hanbai shi, Honyakuban no raisensu wo hakkou shinai to iu kettei wo shimashita": WotC has decided to not issue a license and to sell only English versions.
The announcement doesn't preclude the possibility of a "change in policy", but it most definitely is not a "let's wait and see" announcement.
FWIW your first post sounded ignorantly dismissive to me, too. It sounded like you were saying HG is some some funny little operation that can't spot the difference between English and Engrish. Glad to hear that this isn't the message you intended to send.
FWIW, I did not take Morrus's post as insulting towards HJ. To an extent dismissive, as if this was just second-hand rumor mill news, yes. But insulting, no. Given HJ's industry status and history with WotC, I think that if an equivalent English language licensee made a similar statement it would have been put up in the news section, not just chalked up to misunderstanding. (That said, I fully understand a reluctance on Morrus's part not to put items in the news section that he can't personally verify.)
WotC does not have a direct communication pipeline to the Japanese D&D market. (They do have one for Magic, but not D&D.) As their exclusive Japanese licensee, Hobby Japan is for all intents and purposes their voice in Japan. Japanese customers can get official D&D news only through Hobby Japan. The chances of a misunderstanding, things lost in translation, are above nil, but extremely low.
I think the most likely scenario is that they have no plans at this time, and HJ took it to mean (or attempted to put pressure on WotC by stating) that Wizards isn't going to seek foreign language markets at all.
This early in the release, before they even know if the game is gonna sell (I think it will, but you never know), is not the time to start spending money on translation. We already know the team is smaller. I suspect they're working with a smaller budget as well.
Their budget has nothing to do with this. Hobby Japan pays
them money for the Japanese version license, then does the translation and publishes the books.