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Nintendo And Europe - Not Best Of Friends

Posted by simoniker on from the continent-and-big-n-the-new-odd-couple dept.

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?

2 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. AC Based on Culture by Zandia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. Nintendo Hates Europe by Lewisham · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.