| sparkit34 said: Firstly, i have never heard of most of the games that you argue have not been "localized". And as far as i know, none of them are currently sold in Europe. That includes Fatal Frame and DDOC. Secondly, in Europe people have to pay a lot of money for games. Shovelware here goes for 70 dollars. In the US you probably cannot even imagine paying that much for a PS3 title. But worst of all, Europe doesn't know the concept of budget titles. Zack and Wiki = 44 Euros, Resident Evil = 44 Euros, Samba de Amigo = 49 Euros, No More Heroes = 55 Euros. Thirdly, a lot of games that are available in the US have not yet been "localized" in Europe. Try Professor Layton for the DS or Trauma Centre 2 for both the DS and the Wii. And last of all, most good games come out either at the same time or a lot later than in the US (SSBB anyone!!!) So as far as i am concerned, in the US, people are getting the best games first often at a budget price. Damn Nintendo of America. |
You make some fair points, but that's not what the data are arguing. This isn't a pissing contest between who's getting screwed over more: America or Europe? The data tell us that Nintendo of America in particular has been getting worse and worse about localizing games as time goes on.
I direct your attention to the graph, and the alarming slope it's showing. I also direct your attention to the lack of any method to the madness: Donkey Kong Barrel Blast gets localized, but Soma Bringer does not. ASH has been translated, rated, and finished for six months, but it has no release date.
Fatal Frame IV was funded by Nintendo, and Tecmo rightfully refers all publication questions to Nintendo, but Nintendo of America representatives didn't even know what the game was at E3, and now Reggie's telling people to talk to "the publisher" (they are!).
The post has a simple message; for whatever reason, Nintendo of America's been doing less and less localizing lately. This applies to their core and expanded audience games (cooking navi is finally being released here...two years after it came out in Japan. Several "training" games that have been available in Europe for a while are still MIA). Disaster is an American-oriented game, set in America, with American voice actors, and yet it won't be localized until NoA sees how it does in Europe!
Something's rotten in the state of Washington, and while it's far from the end of the world, I for one find it annoying. Nintendo's giving us new, experimental IPs left and right for the past few years, but Western audiences remain ignorant about them because NoA (and NoE) don't bring them over.
