You're forgetting that the opening week in "Others" never works like it does in a single big market as US or Japan. The "Others" market spans a ton of seperate countries, and games don't release there with a single big bang.

My guess is that it takes longer until all countries receive their shippings, until all sales numbers are collected, ... then there's different holidays, different languages, different marketing campaigns... there's a reason why "Others" always get the short end of the stick with fewer and delayed games: Because it's the most cluttered market.

The positive thing is that games tend to sell well for a longer period, instead of being frontloaded like in US and Japan. Just pick a few games and compare their first 2-3 weeks between US and Others.

I’m not expert and don’t claim to know how people think about games in Europe/America but in my experience there is a general ignorance about Nintendo gaming in others (well the UK at least). I could mention almost any hardcore Nintendo title and all I’d get is a blank face (i.e Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, Starfox, Pikmin), titles like Mario and Pokemon are probably the most widely known. So you can imagine titles like Red Steel, Mad World, No More Heroes, Dragon Quest – they just get completely ignored. I’ve seen two of those games for £5 in the local supermarket.

Living in the UK, I can confirm a strong bias against Nintendo consoles. It's tough being a Nintendo gamer over here.

That's interesting and good news for Silent Hill. In America some retailers don't buy core third party games, so there's no other option but buying them online. Maybe in Europe the situation is worse, and could probably mean some games may be undertracked in VGChartz. I hope that's the case.

Anyway, good news Silent Hill is selling great in your site.

I'd say this is most likely to be correct. Nintendo didn't make a good inways in Europe with the NES/SNES days. It was a market where Sega was able to do much better in. Then Sony came along, killed Sega off (essentially), and took over Europe in their place. Nintendo is now finally trying to make some ways into Europe, but it's pretty well controlled by Sony for the hardcore gamers. Nintendo is starting how they can there- get some fans, angle their "kiddy" reputation (even if I hate that), and try to get younger fans to grow up and get more Nintendo systems in a few console generations.

Europe has always been more casual. That's really it.

At least the games will usually have better legs. That's a bonus, no?

It has already been touched in the thread; but distribution, license and price are factors here in Others. I buy the games not from a game shop, toy shop, but from supermarkets mainly... yes. And there is no good online store here in Spain (Amazon has yet to arrive) so to buy online you have to use Amazon.de or Amazon.co.uk/play.com and even Amazon.com (shipping from the US is still cheaper sometimes...).
The luxury of buying games easily and cheaply is not common here. It's what happens when you have a scattered market rather than a unified big one.

Those games you mention do not get any advertising in Europe, the release dates are usually much later then in America. Plus its hard to compete for those games with heavily pushed HD consoles.

in the Netherlands I know alot of people who bought a Wii and left it in a closet or in a desk since then.. (or atleast after a few days..). PS3 and 360 tend to be the ones that stick around due to online networks... I know litterally dozens of people at my work who play together on PS3 online (mw2 only) and rarely ever buy new games.. (atlhough like 60% bought FFXIII when it came out because MW2 got kinda boring..


Wii is by far the best selling console in Netherlands (atleast I think) but it is also by far the least used one.. I know 3 people who still buy games for their wii and I can think of 24 people on the top of my head who own a Wii