Gran Turismo 4 Delayed Until 2005 in Pal Regions

AndyDavies writes "Sony has announced that the highly anticipated Gran Turismo 4 will be delayed to a 2005 release in PAL regions due to the localization process. The game is still on schedule for a 2004 release in North American and Japan."

Comments

A localization delay?

[kagaku]

They must be having a hard time translating US English into British English.

Re:A localization delay?

[chrish]

All those extra 'u' characters in things like colour and flavour totally bloat the application.

And that's "American" and "English," thanks.

Re:A localization delay?

[superpulpsicle]

You know what the SADDEST part is. Of all the Gran Turismo games I have played, the cars always go by the Japanese market names!

WTF is a million versions good for, if it's internally all the same.

Editors...

[eviltypeguy]

Can you *PLEASE* check the spelling of your headlines? I mean geez....

And they wonder why more people don't subscribe to slashdot...

Re:Editors...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see any error, except possibly that "Pal" should be "PAL" instead. Did it already change, or is one of us daft?

Re:Editors...

[eviltypeguy]

It was Tursmo instead of Turismo.

Re:Editors...

[jerichohol]

I've seen worse

Sure to increase piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

This lame decision is sure to increase piracy, as those who really want the game in the PAL region will endeavor to get a free cracked version.

Strange

[PeeweeJD]

I would think that translating a language would be one of the hardest parts of localization (PAL -vs NTSC is just a mostly a hardware issue, right?). I guess translating from English to "Queen's English" is too bloody hard for them? Maybe its the whole metric to english and back to metric thing that is throwing them off? I mean in the Japanese version the steering wheels are already on the right, correct?

First they drop the online mode, now this? Crazy. Its like they are trying to piss people off.

Re:Strange

[wheany]

You forgot Poland. I mean France and Germany. And they might translate it to even more languages.

Re:Strange

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess translating from English to "Queen's English" is too bloody hard for them?
Chill dawg. They just gotta deal wit' da dialectizzle fo' schnizzle.

Multiple possible reasons for this:

[hibiki_r]

Localization could be a factor, but I don't think any modern game publisher will start the localization so late in the game as to cause this kind of delays. It's still possible, but doubtful.

In the SNES days, there was also the issue of truly terrible NTSC to PAL conversions. I've seen games slowed down over 20% on the PAL version. Huge black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Sony might just want to give europe a real release of the game, as opposed to a travesty like this.

IMO, the most likely scenario is that the game's testing is running a little late, maybe 1 or 2 weeks late. The resources that were supposed to be dedicated to the PAL conversion/testing are moved to getting the American and Japanese version of the game, and the PAL version has to wait until January or February.

Re:Multiple possible reasons for this:

[gl4ss]

probably it would have been too late from the 'holiday sweet spot'.

Re:Multiple possible reasons for this:

[linzeal]

Can't they order it online and just use it on a modded box? I did not see it at Amazon UK though.

Re:Multiple possible reasons for this:

[photon317]

Back in the old days of consoles the NTSC/PAL thing mattered, but it doesn't anymore. It's incredibly easy to solve in a Playstation2.

Re:Multiple possible reasons for this:

[Random832]

wouldn't it be slowed down exactly 16.67%, rather than "over 20%"? you know, because 25 fps is 16.67% less than 30 fps.

Re:Multiple possible reasons for this:

[Fred Or Alive]

Amaxon and other big companies won't ship games outside of the intended region. There are dedicated import shops where people will be able to get it though, or places like DVD Box Office that don't seem to care.

But it's only generally the hardcore that import.

Re:Multiple possible reasons for this:

[Hast]

For console games they often start localization this late in the process. The result being that the game is released a few months later in Eu and a large number of people pirate the game. I have gotten "advanced copies" from the net for this very reason. A few times I have imported the games instead, but when you have things like XBox Live I'd have to buy the game twice; very annoying.

Translating to 50 laguages in Eu is annoying though. I have just one thing to get off my chest regrding that:

"LEARN ENGLISH MOTHERFUCKERS!"

Sorry 'bout that, I feel better now.

question

[Anonymous Coward]

what part of North American are you from?

I live in Canadian.

Re:question

[TechniMyoko]

That's Canada. Not Canadian

Re:question

[Anonymous Coward]

What does a joke flying over your head sound like?

Licencing

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the licencing issues - some car manufacturers are run differently in the EU than in the US and Japan and require different licences. Even the names are different (Vauxhall/Opel, etc etc)

So how do GT4 and Forza compare?

[Xentax]

Aside from the obvious platform differences, does anyone have (legally share-able) insight into how these games will compare? Gran Turismo's got the track record (no pun intended), but Forza's apparently being designed to compete directly...

The extent of my knowledge of Forza is what I could find here.

Xentax

Re:So how do GT4 and Forza compare?

[PeeweeJD]

IGN has a lot of info on Forza. I would find you some good articles, but websense blocks the sites while I am at work :-( They really just have info on Forza, not head to head stuff.

Ortho-wossnames?

[EvilIdler]

With the game being 3D, why is it so hard to resize the screen?

Re:Ortho-wossnames?

[musicman2059]

Because most games only allow you to move a screen around. A console might be a computer, but it ain't a PC.

Re:Ortho-wossnames?

[cluke]

Because console programmers seem to be so locked into the idea of "one common hardware platform" that they hard code everything to 400 vertical lines, 60 times a second. By the time it comes to do the PAL conversion they look at it and think, "well, we could go back redo the code.. or just slap a big black border top and bottom".
Guess which one often wins out.
Of course, the problem is, you've taken care of the extra screen real estate, but now you're only getting 50 fps. They look at it and think "well, we could go back and redo the logic... or just have it run 16.67% slower."
And that, my friend, is the ingredients of a truly shitty PAL conversion, made all the more annoying by the fact it could have been avoided with a bit of forward planning in the design stages.

Re:Ortho-wossnames?

[mh101]

What's resizing the screen have to do with the article? The article is about localization delaying GT4 localization meaning translating it into different languages of course.

Re:Ortho-wossnames?

[TiggsPanther]

Easy. I think it's a case of "Why if they take to long to get the languages translated can't they use some of that time to stretch the screen so we don't get that stupid letterboxing?"

Especially seeing that if you factor in both the extra wait and the possibility of a non-fullscreen display then they're going to have a hard time expecting people not to import/bootleg the NTSC version.

I'd personally expect localization to include optimising the game for the local hardware. Especially for those of us who speak English and therefore don't actually see any of the lingual localization - except for the occasional respelling of words we're used to seeing in the American spalling anyway.

Re:Ortho-wossnames?

[servognome]

Of course, the problem is, you've taken care of the extra screen real estate, but now you're only getting 50 fps
Maybe that's because the TV refresh rate for PAL is 50hz (25fps) and NTSC is 60Hz (30fps). The frame rate difference is because of the TVs not the developers.

Re:Ortho-wossnames?

[cluke]

Well, blow me down! And here I thought they were running games at 50Hz in Europe just for the hell of it!

Re:Ortho-wossnames?

[servognome]

That's pretty much what you implied with the statement "They look at it and think "well, we could go back and redo the logic... or just have it run 16.67% slower.""

Bah

[Yer Mom]

Why not split the European region into two? That way, the English-speaking parts (like, you know, ENGLAND) could get games first without having to wait for the translators to do their stuff.

Might cut down on people here downloading the US releases just to be able to play the damn game...

Re:Bah

[TiggsPanther]

It's probably a drawback that the many of the distributors are probably Europe-wide. And I also think some of them originate outside of the UK, so expecting them to release to the UK first might well not go down well.

It would make sense, though. To those of us in the UK a non-English translation is not exactly very high on our list of priorities. Waiting for a game to be translated out of English before we can legitimately get the English version isn't going to go down well. And as the parent pointed out many people will probably just download the US release to get it ASAP.

Plus there is the fact that a bought/downloaded import version will probably play full-screen on a chipped console. But the PAL release runs a high chance of getting letterboxed. So not exactly a great incentive for waiting a few more months. 'Cos even the non-downloaders won't have any ethical problems buying an import copy.

I do understand why they need to translate for the other European languages, but delaying the English-language PAL release when an English-language release is out is just asking for lost sales.
Sometimes even due to simple lack-of-interest. More than one game I ended up not buying 'cos I couldn't afford to import, didn't want to bootleg, and didn't give a damn by the time the release date finally stopped being pushed back.

I call bullshit

[slot32]

Comon, I've already GOT a PAL version of GT4 (Prologue?). They've already figured out whatever supposed PAL problems they claim to have unwhittingly stumbled on when thet released prologue.
What utter rubbish... What's the 'real' reason here?

Besides, my TV (Like a growing number of UK ones) can accept NTSC and PAL... So relase the damn game already!

Grrrrrrr.....

RTFA?

[llevity]

Maybe you did and you just wanted to be funny, but the PAL region includes more than just the UK. The article mentioned translating to 13 different languages.

Re:RTFA?

[TiggsPanther]

Maybe you did and you just wanted to be funny, but the PAL region includes more than just the UK. The article mentioned translating to 13 different languages.

This is the problem, though. UK Gamers end up having to wait for a release until the translation out of our language is complete. And this does cause problems.
Pre-broadband people would import from America, ro occasionally bootleg, for just that reason. These days more people just jump straight onto the latest warez site.

It is one of the problems when rights to things like games and films are done geographically rather than by language. Relatively small matters (BBFC certification and NTSC-PAL conversion) notwisthstanding there is no real different theoretically between a US and a UK release fo a game or film or whatever. And as a result people do get annoyed at waiting for reason that, for an English-speaker, carry no added value whatsoever.

No wonder people then choose to import. And seeing that the companies complain almost as much at non-bootlegged imports as they do about illegal copies then it's also no wonder people just give up and download instead.
Personally I don't download games and don't really agree with those who do, however I can fully understand why people will download a game when it's on the servers several months before it's on the shelves.

translations

[Taulin]

Well, they also have other translations like color to colour, gray to grey, great to jolly good, etc. etc.