Language (translation) is the biggest problem for simultaneous releases.
Smaller games and games with little text can be translated rather quickly, but RPGs take longer.
Layton games take very long because some riddles depend on language and/or special knowledge that might not be known in other regions. So those parts have to be adapted, which takes time.

Well, not really, because every game released in the UK have to have the 5-in-1, even if it's English-speaking with the other languages merely being subtitles. 

And if you do it your way, having a RPG released in Jan. 1st 2000, you'd get the American version in June, the English version in October, the rest in Europe in February 2001 and other countries in October. That's 22 months from inital release.

TBH, the way it is now, where we wait about 5 months for most games, is perfectly fine. We'll be seeing the next Layton in September or October.

Not having global release dates is going to push people towards piracy. Why would they wait when they can get the game from their "Russian friend"?

True. This is one of the things I was thinking of.

I have to mirror Rol's objection, supposedly the map is "fixed" now but I am still at a loss as to what criteria the world is being split into.

Oh, and global releases for all games would be nice, but it's not always feasible for small budget games or small developers.

not sure about what you said with apple. they release products on different continents at the same time but therefore not every country on that continent if i'm right. as example i believe the ipad 3 came oute first in usa, japan, germany, uk , france, australia but not in countries like portugal, poland, greece and so on. but a game will release in whole europe at the same time. so it doesn't release on all continents but therefore in more countries of that continent.

maybe i'm wrong but i believe it was like this.

ahh and one apple product alone is almost bigger than the whole gaming market so it's more profitable for them to do that.

It takes time to translate and go through the bureaucracy for some games.

Oh, and your map hurts. No offense, but I cried a little.

You know, I'd completely forgotten about the whole PS3 launching a year late thing

another point is also manufacturing and distribution. the plant would have a huge workload making a whole lot more copies meaning probably people would be hired then after fired. whereas if they staggered it manufacturing would be alot more even. and same goes for distribution. the even part.

Basically money and time
For a global launch you have to have a lot of money to blow at once because you need to produce enough copies for the global demand, localise the game the game into dozens of different languages, advertise in every region which takes planning to tailor advertising to each region, distribute copies (can take weeks to build up supply and ship to some countries and have the product distributed to stores which makes leaks and broken street dates more likely).

And also ratings systems which also means you have to plan in advance enough to have dozens of different ratings organisations all have rated the game and any edge cases dealt with as many regions and countries have very different standards and edits may have to be made (Countries like Australia and Germany have tight restrictions so gore often has to be cut and swastikas etc cut for Germany etc) to the game to get the the rating the publisher wants.

Basically only the biggest publishers can afford to do global launches and only for big games that are sure fire sellers globally, can afford to do it. It's not cheap, requiring a big investment all at once, and also requires a lot of bandwidth to do localisations all at once or delay the game for months to get it ready. If publishers did global digital launches with a slower rollout of physical copies that would make it easier but even then it is still a big investment.