Thanks Soriku.
It used to be that when people complained about Nintendo's abominable localization practices, I sort of didn't care. We have it better that Europe, a lot of stuff is still making it over, a lot of the stuff that's being passed on is junk, and most of the decisions tended to be at least sort of justified by sales potential.
Until recently when I realized that none of these are true and Nintendo of America just really sucks at properly bringing over software. Europe now has exclusives; Tingle on DS, Disaster: Day of Crisis, and possibly Captain Rainbow will all be making the journey to Europe while North America isn't getting anything... and guess what, Nintendo in Japan just announced 13 Wii games and a half-dozen DS games; Nintendo of America turned around and announced the localization of two Wii games and a DS game. Gee, thanks guys! A real record of faith in your parent company's products. I'm sure people will be happy to hear you've got a grand total of two titles announced for the 1st half of 2009 and one of them should have been released this Christmas anyway.
Is it localization costs? No, it isn't. Games are being localized by Treehouse, tested by NoA's testing team, and then thrown into a void. Case in point: ASH-Archaic Sealed Heat. This game was localized. This game was tested. It's been done and ready for release for six months. It's ESRB rated. No planned release at this time. None of this is in dispute.
Is it a busy release schedule? Hell, no. It's not even a case of giving other titles excessive room to breathe. Nintendo is going full calendar months without releasing titles.
Is it prestige? Thanks for Donkey Kong Barrel Blast. I'm glad you passed on a half-dozen DS titles during the same meeting you approval that stinker for import.
Is it release costs and promotion or sales potential? No. Nintendo's localization decisions on their face have nothing to do with this. We got Chibi Robo DS exclusively at Wal-Mart (enjoy your low-5 digit sales, guys!). We got Magical Starsign (hope the massive GameFAQs ad campaign helped when the game was ten bucks four months after release). We got Endless Ocean; a solid title to be sure but hardly a breadwinner. If we were allowed to share the leaked NPD data that's popped up over the years there'd be pages and pages of examples of Nintendo passing on obviously profitable titles and localizing swill that bombs. In the mean time, enough people imported Ouendan from Play-Asia (last available number was solidly into the five digits) at twenty dollars over the would-be domestic price to make a domestic localization and release profitable.
It's certainly not creative potential; why else would we get Custom Robo DS, the fifth time the exact same game was released, but skip out on theta, Mag Kid, and other more experimental DS titles.
After this weeks conference various game writers asked about some 2008 Nintendo products that aren't coming over. Disaster (the game has English VA, plays to western audiences, and is being localized for Europe so will have English text)? Well, they're waiting to see how it does in Europe. Fatal Frame IV? NoA passed; some other publisher has it. Soma Bringer? What's that? Seriously.
But the proof is in the pudding:
(Two notes: I excluded Virtual Boy, N64 Disk Drive, SNES Nintendo Power mail-order games, the recent Club Nintendo DS games, and I did not include the Famicom/Disk System in the early years of the graph because I understand that having to cross-engineer FDS titles to NES was a bit of a pain and I'm willing to give them credit for that).
This chart is designed to be biased in favour of Nintendo of America. I specifically gave Nintendo credit for any game that would not be well suited for America (Mahjong, DS novels, etc). I specifically gave them credit for any licenced games. When Nintendo released a game in Japan and then later released an upgraded version but we only got one or the other (Animal Crossing Cube, Clubhouse Games), I gave them credit for both. I counted bitGenerations as one title. Edit: I also gave them credit for Cubivore / Polarium Advance / anything else they punted off to another publisher. I'm bending over backwards here to make Nintendo of America's record look good.
Well, it doesn't look good. It's pathetic. Hey game journalists, stop asking questions about individual titles not being localized and ask Nintendo why they're localizing a substantially lower preportion of their titles regardless of genre, quality, or profile. I'm sure your readers want to know about Mother 3, but the more troubling thing is that more titles have gone unlocalized in the last three years than in the previous ten.
Need some game suggestions for 2009 to fill the holes? How about Fatal Frame IV, Disaster: Day of Crisis, Captain Rainbow, Soma Bringer, Glory of Heracles, Band Bros DX, We are Fossil Diggers, Card Hero DS, Make 10 (already released in English-speaking territories), theta, Kurikin Nano Island Story, Tingle, Project Hacker, Chou Soujuu Mecha MG, either of the DS Starfy titles, or ASH?
I've done Nintendo the favour of writing their canned reply so they don't need to bother: "Nintendo is always evaluating new titles for domestic release. A variety of factors are included in each and every decision. We regret that we are unable to domestically release all titles our fans ask for, but we are committed to delivering a broad slate of titles in 2009 and beyond. Keep checking back for news about great new games."
See Mike from Morgantown? Disaster isn't just one case. It's a recurring example of NoA's new attitude. I'm sorry but I would like some of the niche Nintendo titles even if they aren't going to be powersellers. Nintendo knew that when they greenlit stuff like Captain Rainbow, Odama and Chibi-Robo. We may as well get a crack at it too, at least in a limited release.
Tag: Became a freaking mod and a complete douche, coincidentally, at the same time.
