What a delightfully...Pachter-esque...analysis. I don't know what's going on, so let's blame the currency exchange!

Let us assume, for the sake of discussion, that you're somehow correct, and that the value of the Euro will continue to soar against that of the dollar (It's actually trending downwards now, and as MontanaHatchet pointed out Europe's economic future isn't looking any brighter than ours, but let us ignore reality for now, since that seems to be the name of the game for this discussion).

Let us also ignore the part where I said this isn't a contest between Europe and the Americas; it's about NoA's recent localization record, and nothing more.

Having made the (massive) allowances necessary to continue the discussion on your terms, we sadly see that you're nonetheless still wrong. Your entire thesis hangs on the European market being more valuable than the American one: that's why NoE is getting more games localized than NoA (by the by, care to offer proof for that assertion? Because strangely enough, I don't recall saying that...note also that pointing out one or two games won't qualify; if it did, then Terranigma implies that Europe's been getting more attention than the Americas since the SNES era. Do you really want to make that assertion?).

And yet the European market only passed the Americas in terms of profitability two months ago, and that by only a narrow margin (some of which is owed to the Euro having almost half-again the value of the dollar, but those gains have been vanishing recently). So why has Nintendo of America been acting like this for the past three years?

Does Nintendo employ augurs and fortune-tellers, who tell them to start acting in a certain manner that kinda sorta complies with what the market will do three years into the future? Or do you reckon that maybe you're trying to use (flawed) present data to retroactively explain things that have been happening for a while now?

Long story short: in the highly unlikely event that you're right about the future, what does that have to do with explaining what happened in the past?

They're not.

A clarification: Nintendo as a whole is awesome, and I think they're on top of their game.

Nintendo of America is a whole separate entity, whose primary job is to bring games over to the Americas and market them properly.

They're doing the latter part very, very well. The data tells us that they're not doing so hot on the former anymore...

Although in fairness, NoA (and NoE) aren't independent, but answer to NCL. Perhaps none of this is actually their fault, and they're just doing what NCL is telling them to. I don't know enough to say either way. What I DO know is that NoA's localization record is getting weaker and weaker.

NoA and NoE are the worst companies in videogame history, period. They don't have a fucking clue about what's going on or not. I know that every game showcased in the Japanese conference will not make it out of Japan (Save for Punch Out, Sin & Punishment 2 and the GC ports).

I can't understand why we have to wait for years for games to come, while Japanese get them as fast as they can. Nintendo releases many more titles in Japan every year than in the rest of the places. Hell looking at the chart 45% of the games didn't make it to America this year.

Japan gets a sensational conference like always (12 new Wii games announced), while our conference is a piece of SHIT. Only 2 new Wii games announced, no one knows anything about Disaster or FF4, no one knows anything about the new Japanese games. Nintendo of America is the worst crap. They simply don't care. I'm very fucking pissed because I got my hopes up for those Japanese Nintendo games, but now it seems that none will make it out.

The Mother series is not niche. Only one game in the series has been released in the West and that was on the SNES. Who knows how popular that series would be if it was fully supported by Nintendo.

On Topic:

Nintendo determines what they think will sell in North America and what they believe will not. I disagree with this policy because I would localize all games. You never know what will become popular. But I do not have to look at the company's balance sheet at the end of the day. This is a reason why digital distirbution is so important. Developers and publishers do not have to worry about the cost of promotion and distribution of games. Release the games on Wii ware/PSN/XBLA and if the game does do well then their might not be a market for the game. Japanese love sims might prove to be a popular casusal genre in the West.

I think NOA's biggest problem is they suck at marketing. Since Gamecube Era only 1 game has been marketed corrected. WiiSports. They show it as fun, they show it as a family game, a party game, and it's why the Wii has been so successful. All of of the other advertising of games has been either abysmal or non-existant. As such, you see Mario's and Zelda's have great sales because they are a known commodity. That's why you'll also see the abysmal DK barrel blast get released here because it will sell because it is DK, they don't need to spend marketing $ or develop a marketing plan. Then you see niche games that are good get constantly passed over for crappy games with name recognition. So now that NOA has shown they are inept at marketing, these games with not receive localization because no matter how good they are they won't sell because consumers won't know they exist.

True, and I appreciate the thought. I'm positive that many of the big titles are all coming sooner or later, and that many of the smaller ones will as well. But the post really opened my eyes to just how much NoA's increasingly been leaving games unlocalized recently, and I'm worried that the trend will continue. Time will tell, I suppose.

And I do apologize to those of you in Europe for posting this. It seems a mite unfair to b**** to you guys about games not being localized. Sorry!

Also Noname, games aren't in a vacuum. Nintendo has dozens of teams working on dozens of different projects at a time. Their goal is not to accept any project that could make them money but to spend their resources on what will make the most money. Odds are that none of those titles you mentioned are going to light up the sales chart. As such, if one development team had some available time and you know the following.

1. Average price of a game in Europe is $50 Euros, even with the recent recovery of the dollar, this is 40% higher than the cost of similiar game in the U.S.

2. The European region is most likely going to end this generation as the top sales/revenue earner in revenue.

Which region are you going to have them make the port to? Europe is going to win in a case of limited resources.

I totaly agree. Sony and Microsoft release almost all of their titles in all regions within a reasonable time frame, mostly within a month. It takes Nintendo usually months to release one game in all regions. Half of the Nintendo published games never make it out of Japan.

Imagine how much more Nintendo would kick Sony and Microsoft's ass if they got their act together!

Granted that efficiently allocating resources is the key to maximizing profits. My problem is that I still don't see what's changed between now and before that's causing localization in America to be less efficient than before.I really don't think there is any.

And I really don't think this has anything to do with Europe: European localization is handled by NoE, not NoA, and the growth in the European market means Nintendo now has an extra field to reap, not that it must somehow choose between localizing in one or the other.

As to some of the games not lighting up the charts, I don't buy that argument either. I've already stated my case on Fatal Frame and Disaster, and you'd be hard-pressed to tell me that games like Band Bros. or Mother 3 (post Smash Bros. exposure) wouldn't do well enough in the Americas. On the flip side, they've decided to localize games like Magical Starsign and Cubivore DS (Walmart only...). Companies, including Nintendo, are constantly releasing games that see only a modest profit; blockbusters are few and far between, and the release of things like Captain Rainbow and Sin & Punishment 2 tells me Nintendo knows this as well as anyone.

Simply put, none of those explanations are adding up either, at least not as far as I can see. What am I missing?