Mother 3 Fan Translation Team Offers All Assets To Nintendo

Brok3n Halo

New member
Jul 5, 2009
121
0
0
I don't think this is going to happen. A large company using a fan translation in a commercial product is risky from a legal perspective. Anyone who contributed to the translation project, event passingly, could claim their contribution was used without compensation or permission. Unless this project was entirely a one man show or he had documented agreement from all other translators and developers involved to do this, and even if he did, I don't see this having much of a chance.

Though if it did happen, I'd totally buy it.
 

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
9,354
0
0
Scribblesense said:
Using someone else's work strips them of creative control which doesn't mesh with Nintendo's philosophies.
No it doesn't. If Mandelin is willing to sell, or give away the rights to his work to Nintendo, it means Nintendo would get full creative control of it.
 

zidine100

New member
Mar 19, 2009
1,016
0
0
If they were going to translate this they would have done it already. Why would they take the risk to release a game only a niche amount of people still care about in this country, when a translation patch is already in the wild and any one who wanted to play it probably already has, when they could just rehash Mario and virtually print some money.

it just doesn't make a lick of sense.
 

ToastiestZombie

Don't worry. Be happy!
Mar 21, 2011
3,691
0
0
Davroth said:
Makes perfect sense to me, and I'd love to see this as an e shop release.

Apparently whatever legal troubles kept Nintendo from releasing Earthbound is over, so why the hell not?
They are releasing it on the eShop :D They announced that in the last Nintendo direct.
 

Kae

That which exists in the absence of space.
Legacy
Nov 27, 2009
5,792
712
118
Country
The Dreamlands
Gender
Lose 1d20 sanity points.
They should accept this offer, it's a really good translation and localization in general, I'd buy a Wii U or a 3DS because this is awesome and would give me a reason to have those things besides the next Zelda games, which I'm sure are coming eventually.
 

JSoup

New member
Jun 14, 2012
187
0
0
My god the Earthbound fandom is amazing. Never have I seen a fandom so connected by and fueled by love.
 

Arkley

New member
Mar 12, 2009
522
0
0
They should definitely consider accepting this offer. The fan translation of Final Fantasy V was drastically superior to the official FFV (PS1) translation, which was workmanlike at its best and faulty, incorrect and misleading the rest of the time.
 

TJC

New member
Aug 28, 2011
398
0
0
DVS BSTrD said:
They can't acknowledge this, otherwise they would have to admit how petty it is for Japanese developers to withholding releases from the West. If anything, Mandelin's work is above their standards, at least where it counts.
Dear lord, so much this. The writing in Mother 3 was incredible. Not once did it feel like a "fan project" but it was a high quality standard through and through. Then I take the time playing the Ace Attorney games again and notice all the typos and shit (and do not get me started on the German one... ugh)

Mother 3 needs to be released on the eshop, ffs, and I'll buy it and I'll donate the same amount of money to Mandelin for being too awesome for words.
 

Atmos Duality

New member
Mar 3, 2010
8,473
0
0
leet_x1337 said:
1337mokro said:
Somebody's feeling cynical today. I reckon it actually has a chance of working out. Earthbound is already coming to the Wii U virtual console, after all.
And they're right to be cynical, given Nintendo's history of stubbornness in porting such games.

cursedseishi said:
Would of been much smarter to release it as a 3DS title on top of the Wii-U.
In theory, that makes perfect sense, and personally, I'd love for that to happen.
In practice, the 3DS lacks a proper SNES emulator.

Take note of the types of retro games the 3DS actually plays:
Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, DS, and NES titles (and the NES games were ported to the GBA as "Classic NES Series" before, so the official emulation was already developed).

So the only SNES games they could port to the 3DS (like A Link to the Past for instance), would be those that were converted for the GBA first.

Now, I have no doubts that Nintendo could formulate a proper SNES emulator (people have got ZSNES to work on the original PSP, before Sony DRM'd that shit up) for the 3DS, but I get the feeling they aren't going to given their tunnel-vision attitude towards fan-input.
 

EstrogenicMuscle

New member
Sep 7, 2012
545
0
0
Go for it.

Do the right thing, Nintendo. This is how you breed consumer loyalty, by appreciating and rewarding good fans and talented fans at that. Not punishing them like Square did to Chrono Trigger fans. Or like Hasbro did to My Little Pony game fans.

This sort of thing builds a synergy between fans and content creators that is absolutely valuable and why indie developers are doing so well today.
 

Sonic Doctor

Time Lord / Whack-A-Newbie!
Jan 9, 2010
3,042
0
0
AC10 said:
I hope they do it and release it only as SNES carts to troll people.
Considering my old SNES works, plus I have a Retron 3, I wouldn't be mad, I'd say, "Sweet!"
 

Quantum Star

New member
Jul 17, 2010
401
0
0
kiri2tsubasa said:
I have to ask. How many people honestly care about this game any more it has been what, 15-20 years since it was released? The people hat want this already played this, and even then how many of them will pay for it. I'm sorry buy that may be a loss-leader if they do release the game.
If you've actually seen the video of fans expressing their gratitude on Miiverse, you would know the answer to that. There are people in this thread right now who have said they would gladly buy it so they can play the game properly instead of on an emulator, and to show Nintendo that there is a market for these types of lower profile, niche games. Given the number of people that have been waiting for so long for Nintendo to make this announcement, I think it's very likely they will make a profit. And the game was released seven (five for the translation,) years ago, so please don't throw out random numbers.
 

Quantum Star

New member
Jul 17, 2010
401
0
0
kiri2tsubasa said:
Quantum Star said:
kiri2tsubasa said:
I have to ask. How many people honestly care about this game any more it has been what, 15-20 years since it was released? The people hat want this already played this, and even then how many of them will pay for it. I'm sorry buy that may be a loss-leader if they do release the game.
If you've actually seen the video of fans expressing their gratitude on Miiverse, you would know the answer to that. There are people in this thread right now who have said they would gladly buy it so they can play the game properly instead of on an emulator, and to show Nintendo that there is a market for these types of lower profile, niche games. Given the number of people that have been waiting for so long for Nintendo to make this announcement, I think it's very likely they will make a profit. And the game was released seven (five for the translation,) years ago, so please don't throw out random numbers.
Considering that it was a squeal to a SNES game, you can not fault someone for thinking it was on the SNES, or the N64 at latest.
That would be true, if the article didn't tell you what the release date was, which it did.
 

NerfedFalcon

Level i Flare!
Mar 23, 2011
7,065
779
118
Gender
Male
Atmos Duality said:
And they're right to be cynical, given Nintendo's history of stubbornness in porting such games.
Which is why Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower never got a US release.
 

Atmos Duality

New member
Mar 3, 2010
8,473
0
0
leet_x1337 said:
Which is why Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower never got a US release.
Nintendo completely dragged their feet on the matter and the fans had to petition them to get those games localized outside of Japan. Almost as if Nintendo was being...stubborn about releasing those games.

But that would be silly.
 

EstrogenicMuscle

New member
Sep 7, 2012
545
0
0
Atmos Duality said:
Nintendo completely dragged their feet on the matter and the fans had to petition them to get those games localized outside of Japan. Almost as if Nintendo was being...stubborn about releasing those games.
It is almost as if some people in the Western game industry like Yahtzee have done so much shaming to the jRPG genre than many Japanese companies don't want to localize them because it is a "loss of face" for them that the games even exist.

As if they want to sweep the genre quietly under the rug.

It is the only explanation I can form for this ridiculous behavior.
 

Atmos Duality

New member
Mar 3, 2010
8,473
0
0
EstrogenicMuscle said:
It is almost as if some people in the Western game industry like Yahtzee have done so much shaming to the jRPG genre than many Japanese companies don't want to localize them because it is a "loss of face" for them that the games even exist.

As if they want to sweep the genre quietly under the rug.

It is the only explanation I can form for this ridiculous behavior.
I won't pretend to understand their aversion; honestly, I only have guesses.
Which becomes even more baffling when one considers that a decade ago, the Japanese publishers practically OWNED the mainstream gaming market.

While I've seen a lot of overt dismissal of jrpgs on the net in recent years, I am unsure if this is a sign of mass-rejection or loud minority dissent. Could be either, at different times.

Maybe when western games exploded in popularity, they showed up more traditional Japanese games and shaped the new gamers entering the market (and from 2006 - 2010, we saw a huge surge in the overall size of the gaming market). Eastern culture (especially Japanese) was something of a fad in the late 90s and early 2000s, which may have been driving demand. Now, it's...not.

But even amidst all that, I don't understand why Japan just sort of started retreating back into their own market starting around 2008 (my very rough estimate). Most of these games, while niche, are just waiting on localization which didn't stop publishing efforts in the previous generation.

Outside of inflation, why would localization costs rise to the point where it becomes unsustainable in such a short time?
It can't cost that much to translate: freaking FANS are translating these games for free.

With the advent of digital download, the cost of distribution is lower than ever (no used market, no threat of overproduction since demand will self-regulate distribution). I imagine Fire Emblem: Awakening surprised Nintendo earlier this year with its sales.