Robo
2011-06-30, 09:38
So, I'm not sure if you all have heard, but there's a pretty big fan campaign to get Nintendo of America to release three Wii games — Xenoblade Chronicles, Pandora's Tower, and The Last Story — in the North American market. Yeah, yeah, internet petition, those never work, but this one's gathered a fair amount of steam, and media coverage.
The interesting thing about those three games, as opposed to a zillion other great RPGs we'll never get here, is that it is confirmed that at least two of the three are already being translated into English, and other languages, for European release. Nintendo just isn't going to ship some over here, which seems to make very little sense: if you were going to spend time and money translating and re-recording dialogue in English, wouldn't you want to release the translated version in what is by far the largest English game market? Incurring all the same costs of translating, but actually selling the game only in the smaller European market, is kind of stupid.
These games are also all higher-profile titles, and Wii exclusives. The Last Story, for example, is helmed by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is pretty obviously a spiritual successor to his work on FF (note the similar titles and logos and box art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Story)), right down to a soundtrack by famed FF composer Nobuo Uematsu. It's more FF-ish than most recent FF games! It also received a very high 38/40 from Famitsu. Pandora's Tower was so special that Nintendo released it in a unique black box. And as for Xenoblade Chronicles, Nintendo of Europe is giving it a special collector's edition with an exclusive red Classic Controller Pro. So these are all, you know, fairly major releases, for original IPs.
Here's what's happened so far: Despite a US release not being planned at this time, Xenoblade Chronicles is actually still listed (http://www.amazon.com/Monado-Beginning-World-Nintendo-Wii/dp/B002IM1MYG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1309443687&sr=8-1) for pre-order on Amazon, under its original name, Monado: Beginning of the World. So everybody started pre-ordering that, to demonstrate interest in seeing the game actually come out. It became the #1 game on Amazon. A game that isn't announced for release.
I normally don't do the whole e-petition thing, but I think this one is sort of important, and not just because I really want to play The Last Story: Nintendo made a big deal at E3 about how they were going to court the core gamer market with the Wii U, and about how they weren't going to cede that market to Microsoft and Sony any more. And that's great. But the thing is, Nintendo needs to walk the walk. Here is a concerted effort of core gamers desperately trying to persuade Nintendo to take their money, and Nintendo's, what, going to ignore that? That just seems counterproductive, especially since Nintendo's going to really want all those core gamers to shell out $300 for the Wii U in eighteen months.
And it's not like there's just too many Wii releases. This holiday season has Zelda and that's pretty much it. It's like the Gamecube's holiday 2006, except that in this case, the Wii;s successor is still a year away. What is Nintendo of America going to be able to sell in Q1 2012? Q2? Q3? It's understandable that they're going to focus their internal efforts on readying a Wii U launch onslaught, but these games are already done. At least two of the three are already in English. You would think NoA would welcome a few already-done, already-translated games to fill the void until the Wii U launch — especially ones that would suggest to gamers that Nintendo wasn't totally bullshitting everybody with wanting to appeal to core gamers again.
Anyway, it's @OpRainfall on Twitter, and here is the website. (http://oprainfall.blogspot.com/) @RichIGN is inviting people to email him "civil" responses to Nintendo's decision not to publish the games, which he will presumably start bugging Nintendo with, at nvc [at] ign.com. Sorry for the rant, but, like, WTH Nintendo?
The interesting thing about those three games, as opposed to a zillion other great RPGs we'll never get here, is that it is confirmed that at least two of the three are already being translated into English, and other languages, for European release. Nintendo just isn't going to ship some over here, which seems to make very little sense: if you were going to spend time and money translating and re-recording dialogue in English, wouldn't you want to release the translated version in what is by far the largest English game market? Incurring all the same costs of translating, but actually selling the game only in the smaller European market, is kind of stupid.
These games are also all higher-profile titles, and Wii exclusives. The Last Story, for example, is helmed by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is pretty obviously a spiritual successor to his work on FF (note the similar titles and logos and box art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Story)), right down to a soundtrack by famed FF composer Nobuo Uematsu. It's more FF-ish than most recent FF games! It also received a very high 38/40 from Famitsu. Pandora's Tower was so special that Nintendo released it in a unique black box. And as for Xenoblade Chronicles, Nintendo of Europe is giving it a special collector's edition with an exclusive red Classic Controller Pro. So these are all, you know, fairly major releases, for original IPs.
Here's what's happened so far: Despite a US release not being planned at this time, Xenoblade Chronicles is actually still listed (http://www.amazon.com/Monado-Beginning-World-Nintendo-Wii/dp/B002IM1MYG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1309443687&sr=8-1) for pre-order on Amazon, under its original name, Monado: Beginning of the World. So everybody started pre-ordering that, to demonstrate interest in seeing the game actually come out. It became the #1 game on Amazon. A game that isn't announced for release.
I normally don't do the whole e-petition thing, but I think this one is sort of important, and not just because I really want to play The Last Story: Nintendo made a big deal at E3 about how they were going to court the core gamer market with the Wii U, and about how they weren't going to cede that market to Microsoft and Sony any more. And that's great. But the thing is, Nintendo needs to walk the walk. Here is a concerted effort of core gamers desperately trying to persuade Nintendo to take their money, and Nintendo's, what, going to ignore that? That just seems counterproductive, especially since Nintendo's going to really want all those core gamers to shell out $300 for the Wii U in eighteen months.
And it's not like there's just too many Wii releases. This holiday season has Zelda and that's pretty much it. It's like the Gamecube's holiday 2006, except that in this case, the Wii;s successor is still a year away. What is Nintendo of America going to be able to sell in Q1 2012? Q2? Q3? It's understandable that they're going to focus their internal efforts on readying a Wii U launch onslaught, but these games are already done. At least two of the three are already in English. You would think NoA would welcome a few already-done, already-translated games to fill the void until the Wii U launch — especially ones that would suggest to gamers that Nintendo wasn't totally bullshitting everybody with wanting to appeal to core gamers again.
Anyway, it's @OpRainfall on Twitter, and here is the website. (http://oprainfall.blogspot.com/) @RichIGN is inviting people to email him "civil" responses to Nintendo's decision not to publish the games, which he will presumably start bugging Nintendo with, at nvc [at] ign.com. Sorry for the rant, but, like, WTH Nintendo?