Source: Kotaku
Nintendo released their official Q1/Q2 games list earlier today for Europe, and as I was glancing over it I couldn’t help but notice that several of the titles on there have already been sitting on store shelves here in the US for weeks now. I have always known that Nintendo put Europe in the backseat, but I wasn’t aware that they were driving a bus.
The worst part about the entire list is the fact that Super Smash Bros. Brawl is nowhere to be found. After calls by Videogamer.com to Nintendo, it was in fact confirmed that Super Smash Bros. Brawl will not launch in Europe until after Q2. That means the game that Japan will be getting in January and the US in February will not come to Europe until possibly six months later!
What in the world could be the reason for this ridiculous amount of delay between regions? Is there a shortage on DVDs that the rest of the world doesn’t know about? Is the European division of Nintendo run by illiterate monkeys? Does Nintendo hate Europe for their superior historical architecture? It has to be something, because there is absolutely no excuse for this.
I know for a fact that location adaptation for a video game takes no more than a month, especially for a game like this that barely has any spoken lines or text. The only possible reasons that I could think of for this ridiculously long delay is either A.) they’re going to delay it again for Japan and America (like Nintendo loves to do) or B.) they are working on implementing a larger network in Europe to handle the huge increase of online play that will result from this game.
Either way this really sucks and my sympathies go out to all of our faithful readers from across the pond.
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8 responses so far ↓
1 IncredibleBulk92 // Dec 6, 2007 at 3:45 pm
“Is there a shortage on DVDs that the rest of the world doesn’t know about?”
Excellent point, but no there’s not. A fact that every pirate out there knows, also I’m pretty sure that most SSB fans would be more than willing to go through the huge hassle of downloading a torrent program, downloading a ripped version of SSB and then burning it. Especially if they get to play a couple of months earlier. Further proof if you needed it that Nintendo is run by idiots
2 irish boy90 // Dec 6, 2007 at 4:01 pm
well I don’t like how Europe is treated.
However When ever a game that gets delayed sucks we know about it 6 months early so we know not to buy it
3 8bitBass // Dec 6, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Europe does get pharmacuetical drugs before the US (since the FDA is so conservative these days) SO I guess you can say that we get games first, but drugs last!
4 Fearful Peasant // Dec 7, 2007 at 1:01 am
What do you expect, Europe and Japan are on opposite sides of the planet. Have you ever tried to look directly at your ass? Hard as hell right?
5 Minbad // Dec 7, 2007 at 5:36 am
Well thank you, from France!!
Of course this doesn’t represent the gaming population, but if you add Canada and South America to the figures, even if the population of gamers and ppl who can afford gaming is reduced, it might be considered worthy to plan an ENG-FR-SP localization at least, at the beginning of the project. But they don’t care, they’re still stuck at a time when loc was just about a cheap translation of the manual and the box. And even back then, we got the games far after Japan (logical) or you guys… The problem comes when you talk about the UK… This is the land of video games in Europe, trust me, crazy volumes although their size is almost the same as France, and… they do speak English in fact… But no, even for them a seriously planned european is not worth to the Japanese. To conclude using an example, let’s take a very “US succesful” console, the 360, with a very “US succesful”, in theory, game, Halo3. No japanese console, no japanese game… Well even so, Halo 3 sold out 3.3 million copies in the US in it’s five first days of release. During the same five days, approx 700k copies were sold in Europe, 400k in the UK only (80k in France lol). If you were an editor knowing than the key to success is “worldwideness”, what would you do?
Indeed as far as I heard, localization might take a couple of months no more, but costs a lot, so the delay comes with the budgets. This can be as well because Europe is treated as a “third market” of some sort. This might be very Japanese, maybe. Remember what Sony did with the release of the PS3? Not only did they plan to counter MS in the US as soon as possible to limit the damage, but most of all did they consider that sell through is higher in their home country, then in the US, no time to translate more than English first. the thing is that Japan holds 120-130 million ppl, the US approx 250-260, and Europe like 400
6 NJ. // Dec 8, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Evidently not for you, Fearful Peasant. If you seriously believe that, you can not only LOOK at your own ass, but your head must be stuck fairly far up there.
7 79. SSBB Delayed, Wii Fanboys Almost Lose It // Dec 20, 2007 at 8:34 am
[...] across the pond, I again send out my condolences because I can’t even imagine having to wait until after June to play this [...]
8 Neil // May 12, 2008 at 10:54 am
1. There must be another reason. Mario Kart came out well in advance in europe than the U.S. Maybe their labelling machinery has broken
2. If it is a language conversion thing, why can’t they still ship the English version? it’s not as if anyone has ever been bothered to change U.S. English to proper British English…
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