Nintendo And Europe - Not Best Of Friends

Thanks to C+VG for their report revealing that Nintendo's e-Reader device for GBA will not be released in Europe. This official confirmation from Nintendo comes after "e-Reader was [originally] confirmed for Europe back in May", and adds to the pain of European gamers still waiting for the multi-language PAL version of Animal Crossing for the GameCube, despite the fact the PAL Australian release is now announced for October, and Aussies still get the e-Reader. Why does Nintendo continue to give consumers a raw deal in Europe?

Comments

why? a few guesses...

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

1. more liberal laws concerning reverse engineering. this could have affected the e-reader decision specifically.
2. less perceived market. this could affect the animal crossing decision specifically.

both of these come down to "risk" for releasing a product. there are costs for releasing a product -- returns, bugs, shelf-ware, etc. it's the reason "Futurama" isn't coming to the Cube (and they can bite my shiny metal ass over that one) -- the perceived risk for releasing the product was too high for the perceived rewards.

AC Based on Culture

[Zandia]

Okay, does anybody realize that Europe is one of the most multicultural areas of the world and the AC is highly based upon the culture of the users playing it? I mean do you think that everyone in the world celebrates Thanksgiving and the 4th of July? It takes time to taylor the culture in AC. This tayloring not only includes the holidays but the items too. Not only that, they would have to make it multilingual (not everyone in Europe speaks English). However, in Australia they do speak English and they only have to change/add a few holidays here and there. So, I don't think it's a personal beef with Europe. I just think Europe is a little bit more complicated place than other areas, which would take more time to produce a game for them.

Re:AC Based on Culture

[SmallFurryCreature]

You seem to have a very odd perception of how products are released here. You mention holidays. In holland we have "Sinterklaas" on the 5th of december, a saint who rides a white horse over the rooftops and delivers presents. Do you think a single movie, book or game has ever been redesigned to use sinterklaas instead of santa claus? Of course not. Same with many other slight variances found all over the world.

The world today is far more global then you give people credit for. Don't forget that they also had to this work for the american version, there are a hell of a lot more differences between america and japan then between american and europe. If nintendo had a clue they would have could have done it at the same time.

As for multilingual, this is a valid point to a certain extent. Very few games are fully translated over here. Don't forget that most of us learn english as a second language early in school and that most of popular culture comes from the US.

Oh well great way to get people to buy your stuff. I guess they are okay with coming in third.

Re:AC Based on Culture

[Zandia]

That is the point of the game to be taylored to the region it is being produced for. I believe I read somewhere that it took an extra six months to release AC in America to make the changes.


I fully realize that not everything is taylored like that but this game is. Part of the fun of the game is celebrating the holidays and seeing what happens during them. (For the American Thanksgiving, you try to find a Turkey to get presents.) It's those little things that make the game special and enjoyable.


With all the different regional holidays that Europe has to offer, it would be hard to decide which ones to integrate into the game and even harder to figure out how to do so (i.e. deciding how to celebrate the holiday).

Nintendo Hates Europe

[Lewisham]

Nintendo has no reason to hate Europe:

Multi-language?
Five main languages isn't that hard, really. You'd need five translators on the payroll. The appliances company I worked for simply used their marketing departments overseas to do the translation of their web sites and sent the translations back to the UK for input. I don't see how hard/expensive Nintendo thinks translation must be.

Different display format?
Aussies are quite happy with PAL as well.

Different regional legislation?
Slap on a blood patch for Germany. Hang on, Nintendo haven't had any blood in their games in the UK since they begun. They haven't been censoring us have they?!

Different cultures
This argument I simply couldn't buy. Tastes are different everywhere. UK tastes are different to US, US is different to Japan. I can't name one country that has radically different games they enjoy than the rest of Europe.

There are only two answers. Nintendo is incompentant in Europe and arrogant towards Europe. It has always given Europe the shaft; it's not a new idea for them. Seeing as all the excuses they could come up with are as thin as Japanese paper walls, I have to say that the split must be 50:50 between the two issues. They don't need Europe, they're only the third biggest games market. They're a company trying to save cash, when in fact they're pushing themselves further over the edge by cutting out a major territory. Their business plan consists of: "If it ain't no work to convert, then ship it 6 months later and clamp down on importers in the mean time!" No joke, they sent cease and desist letters to all importers last month trying to get them all to stop selling the games that Euro Nintendo users want but can't get.

Total. Bloody. Genius.

Re:Nintendo Hates Europe

[Firehawke]

There's only one problem with that overview. It's not just Nintendo.. Konami, Capcom, Microsoft, and Sony are little better about getting stuff over to Europe in a reasonable time. I seem to recall a number of PS1 games having really shoddy European ports with bad bordering and framerate issues.

It's an attitude from the entire industry that Europe doesn't really matter. Japan is the most important market and everyone else can suffer for all they care. Hell, the US gets shafted more often than not with the truly innovative or good games. It's all mindset-- the Japanese don't know or care what the rest of the world wants. They'll just release what they THINK will sell, because finding out what really WOULD sell is too much effort.

Re:Nintendo Hates Europe

[PainKilleR-CE]

Multi-language?
Five main languages isn't that hard, really. You'd need five translators on the payroll. The appliances company I worked for simply used their marketing departments overseas to do the translation of their web sites and sent the translations back to the UK for input. I don't see how hard/expensive Nintendo thinks translation must be.

Given how long it takes for translations of most Japanese games, it sometimes seems like they have only 1 translator working on each game, but the reality is that it takes more than that. These aren't appliance manuals (or game manuals for that matter) we're talking about here, it's all of the text in the game and the voices, at the minimum. Animal Crossing doesn't need voice translations, but definitely a lot of text, and then you'd be stuck with Japanese or American holidays and items if they didn't do any localization beyond language translation.

Different display format?
Aussies are quite happy with PAL as well.

Japan and US both use NTSC, Aussies are in the same boat as Europe most of the time.

Different regional legislation?
Slap on a blood patch for Germany. Hang on, Nintendo haven't had any blood in their games in the UK since they begun. They haven't been censoring us have they?!

Check the 'M' rated games on the GC. The rest usually don't have problems, though, and I doubt it's much of a discussion for most of them. That being said, it's still something that has to be dealt with by some developers, regardless of what console they're using.

Different cultures
This argument I simply couldn't buy. Tastes are different everywhere. UK tastes are different to US, US is different to Japan. I can't name one country that has radically different games they enjoy than the rest of Europe.

Animal Crossing specifically is highly culture-oriented, and requires a great deal of changes in the port. Japan doesn't even port a large number of their games to the US (which still has NTSC so just needs the english translation for the lowest port) because of perceived (and sometimes very real) cultural differences. Anyone that's really interested in those titles either gripes about it forever or imports it.

There are only two answers. Nintendo is incompentant in Europe and arrogant towards Europe. It has always given Europe the shaft; it's not a new idea for them. Seeing as all the excuses they could come up with are as thin as Japanese paper walls, I have to say that the split must be 50:50 between the two issues. They don't need Europe, they're only the third biggest games market. They're a company trying to save cash, when in fact they're pushing themselves further over the edge by cutting out a major territory. Their business plan consists of: "If it ain't no work to convert, then ship it 6 months later and clamp down on importers in the mean time!" No joke, they sent cease and desist letters to all importers last month trying to get them all to stop selling the games that Euro Nintendo users want but can't get.

Total. Bloody. Genius.

Talk to Nintendo Europe, then, just like we in the US bitch at Nintendo of America for not bringing in more games (thankfully they made the decision to bring back Metroid, which doesn't do well in Japan). Nintendo's business plan when it comes to ports is primarily 'let the locals (meaning NoA, NoE, etc) do it'.

As for Europe being the third biggest game market: while it may be that, it's also a fragmented market, because you have to translate to multiple languages and deal with cultural diversity for the sales. If you simply took the US version and made some minor adjustments (and the PAL conversion) for the UK market you could probably get most of the money you're going to get from Europe without the extra cost of translating to French, Spanish, Dutch, German, etc. but then people would still bitch about it.

Re:Nintendo Hates Europe

[Lewisham]

Fair point, well made. I certainly think this is true of Konami: Where exactly is the GC version of Winning Eleven? The GC is crying out for a decent football game.

Do you not think that Microsoft, for all the Xboxes failings, have done a pretty decent job in getting games here in an almost reasonable time? I don't recall the last time I heard someone complain that such and such was out in the US, but the game's release in Europe was any greater than about three months. Xbox Live has gotton off to a decent start as well, something I thought was certain to be implemented half-arsed over here.

I'd hazard that about 60% of wanted games from Nintendo clock in at a longer lead time than that. I think three months is pretty much the magic barrier on how long the lower-hardcore (educated gamers, but not desparately clawing for every game straight away) are prepared to wait before they end up in importing instead.

What are your thoughts on this?

Too many cultures?

[Cyhwuhx]

.::: Localisation is hardly the problem. EA, Sony, Microsoft they can all handle multiple languages and the like. The problem is that Nintendo wants to do all of that internally. Whereas their competition hires other companies to do that for them. I also don't know why on Earth some people here wnat to take politcal reasons into consideration. The usual route for a game to be released here (Europe) is to be accepted by Japan as well as America. After those releases, the game is usually evaluated, in which they make judgement how it will sell in Europe and release it accordingly. (we've had two exceptions to that; Doshin the Giant and Shining Soul (GBA)). WHY ON EARTH they want to release both products in Australia and not Europe is beyond me however. Not only does Australia practically hate the GC (it's simply not selling at all there), it's ALSO a PAL territory. We get parallel imported Australian titles in the shops here, which simply work, so we'll get AC eventually anyway. However all of this has caused some strong comments concerning Nintendo. Just about everybody on forums and such that I know of and like Nintendo have condemned Nintendo of Europe for this. Not about AC being released in Oz so they can eventually get their hands on it, more that Europe was just skipped altogether. Whatever the reason might be I hope Nintendo really thought it over. Because when even your most dedicated fans turn against you it might become very difficult. In related news; EyeToy sales have risen above both Pokemon sales for the GBA.

Re:Too many cultures?

[PainKilleR-CE]

.::: Localisation is hardly the problem. EA, Sony, Microsoft they can all handle multiple languages and the like. The problem is that Nintendo wants to do all of that internally. Whereas their competition hires other companies to do that for them.

Let's see: Microsoft decided to release untranslated (ie English-language) non-localized versions of X-Box games in Japan. Many people complain about bad PAL conversion of titles from any number of US and Japanese developers. Many companies other than Nintendo do translation internal, and the choice is often made on a title-by-title basis, rather than as a company-wide policy (and Nintendo leaves those things up to the regional arms of the company, so Nintendo Japan is not making that choice for NoA or Nintendo Europe). I know that Namco's US division hires native-English-speaking Americans (with education in the Japanese language) to do translations of their titles for US release, rather than farming the translation out to other companies.

I also don't know why on Earth some people here wnat to take politcal reasons into consideration. The usual route for a game to be released here (Europe) is to be accepted by Japan as well as America. After those releases, the game is usually evaluated, in which they make judgement how it will sell in Europe and release it accordingly. (we've had two exceptions to that; Doshin the Giant and Shining Soul (GBA)). WHY ON EARTH they want to release both products in Australia and not Europe is beyond me however. Not only does Australia practically hate the GC (it's simply not selling at all there), it's ALSO a PAL territory. We get parallel imported Australian titles in the shops here, which simply work, so we'll get AC eventually anyway. However all of this has caused some strong comments concerning Nintendo. Just about everybody on forums and such that I know of and like Nintendo have condemned Nintendo of Europe for this. Not about AC being released in Oz so they can eventually get their hands on it, more that Europe was just skipped altogether. Whatever the reason might be I hope Nintendo really thought it over. Because when even your most dedicated fans turn against you it might become very difficult.

Personally, I don't understand why Nintendo of Europe wouldn't do at least a UK port of AC if it's already being ported for Australia, unless they have some issues regarding porting a title for just the largest market in Europe, rather than Europe as a whole. That being said, it is still Nintendo of Europe's choice, not Nintendo as a whole (though perhaps if Nintendo really was worried about backlash in the European market they could push it through).

In related news; EyeToy sales have risen above both Pokemon sales for the GBA.

Considering that the EyeToy price in Europe is significantly lower than what they've announced for the US price (it hasn't come out yet here), I'm not too surprised about that, especially since it's been on the UK charts longer, too. Of course, I can't find a lot of information on the UK charts (like amount of sales or units sold), either.

Yes

[pommaq]

Well, this is just the most recent installment in Nintendo's campaign to shaft us Euros! They've happily been doing it for 10+ years, so it shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone. Why they do it, I'm not sure. It's probably just the good ol' German censorship laws, localization (and most of us could do without localization, thank you very much), stuff like that.

Knowing this, as soon as the cube was released in the US (more than half a year before it hit our shores, how's that for a warning sign?) I imported myself a JAP/US cube. Yeah, it's sort of a hassle having to import all my games, but there's a thriving industry that's realized you can make a buck off this region bullshit. So now I'm a proud owner of Soul Calibur 2, F-Zero GX, Winning Eleven 6 and Mario Golf, neither of which are even CLOSE to releasing in Europe yet. Hell, WE6 probably won't even go outside Japan, seeing as footie games aren't very big in the US.
...but anyway, my point was - Nintendo have always been doing this, they will continue to do it, and the best you can do is try to work around it. It sucks, really; they make the best consoles, the best games, but their business decisions sometimes seem to be made by monkeys.