Nintendo Crushes Fans' Hopes for Notable Wii Localizations

[Tom Goldman]

Nintendo Crushes Fans' Hopes for Notable Wii Localizations

Fans had hoped to help bring a few significant Japanese Wii games stateside, but Nintendo just says "no."

While the Wii suffers from a lack of interesting releases in North America, Japan has been getting titles like The Last Story, Xenoblade, and Pandora's Tower. Each is a respectably to highly-rated game and published by Nintendo, making you think the company would be jumping to release them in North America, but it isn't. Unfortunately, even a focused fan campaign hasn't been enough to convince Nintendo that the west wants these games.

The campaign, dubbed "Operation Rainfall," was started to help push Nintendo in the right direction. The first phase focused on Xenoblade, asking participants to call, email, Facebook, Twitterize, and generally pester Nintendo of America about localizing the Wii RPG from the developer of the PS2's Monado: Beginning of the World [http://www.amazon.com/Xenosaga-Playstation-2/dp/B00005BW7Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309451697&sr=8-1], making it top the best-selling videogame list on the site, and it still remains on the list as of this writing.

Nintendo responded to Operation Rainfall, but not quite in the way that fans had hoped. On its Facebook page, Nintendo wrote: "Thank you for your enthusiasm. We promised an update, so here it is. We never say 'never,' but we can confirm that there are no plans to bring these three games to the Americas at this time. Thanks so much for your passion, and for being such great fans!"

Nintendo is somewhat notorious for its staunch anti-localization stances on certain Japanese titles with cult followings (*ahem* Mother 3). A western domain for The Last Story, a Wii RPG designed by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, was registered [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/109035-Western-Domain-Registered-for-Final-Fantasy-Creators-Last-Story], but that's happened before with other games that nothing ever happened with. The most maddening part is that The Last Story and Xenoblade have both been announced for Europe, though with region-locked consoles they still won't make for an easy import. I'm holding out hope that at least one of these titles will make it to North America in the near future, but if they don't it'd be a major shame.

Thanks for the tip CursedSeishi [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/profiles/view/cursedseishi]!

Permalink

 

[Yoshisummons]

It's almost as if the gods ordained Nintendo to have my Wii collect dust.

Haha yoshisummons is a polytheist

 

[NaramSuen]

Well it is good to see that another group of fans gets to experience disappointment at the hands of Nintendo of America.

 

[Shameless]

Are you guys surprised ? don't you know how many gamers demanded Mother 3 ? and for how long they were demanding ? and it's still a Japan only game.

 

[DrakeLake]

Not surprised, but that's a pretty messed up response, promising an update like that just to say no. Why not say no then and there instead of doing this false hope announcement crap?

Rude!

 

[Atmos Duality]

And some people wonder when I say the Wii is a useless piece of shit; Nintendo keeps all the good stuff to themselves unless it has Mario, Samus or Link in it...

 

[Azex]

They are keeping these titles so they can sell them to you on the WiiU. They need a good lineup and they know fans want this so its easy for them to screw over people.

 

[Dorkmaster Flek]

The most maddening part is that The Last Story and Xenoblade have both been announced for Europe.

Wait, what? I understand not localizing them at all due to a limited audience, but if you're already localizing them in several languages across Europe, why wouldn't you bring the English version to North America? This is why digital distribution needs to grow. If there's an English version for Europe, it would be trivial to make it available in North America as a digital download.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Good ole' xenophobia. Scared that their precious gems will be tarnished by dirty foreign hands?

 

[Delusibeta]

Xenophobia? More like Nintendo of America being lazy. It's stupid, since Nintendo of Europe is doing all the heavy lifting (i.e. translating from Japanese into five different languages). It's easy money for Nintendo of America.

But why do I care? I'm British. We're getting both.

 

[WorldCritic]

I hate you Nintendo. I have nothing else to say. I wanted to see The Last Story and then you guys give me a giant middle finger.

 

[CrankyStorming]

I wish they'd just bring them to America just so you'd all shut up about them.

Seriously, what is it with Americans and un-localised games? If ever anything doesn't release in your country, you start a hundred protests, while anyone in another country would just make do without. Heck, us British didn't really care about japanese console games at all until they started bringing them over in the late '90s.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

uh, shouldn't the headline read "Nintendo Responds?". Fuckin' hyperbole, one of the main banes of the gaming community

 

[RA92]

We never say 'never'...

Ninty has Bieber fever hurr hurr.

Sorry.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

Well, It's all up to third party publishers now.

Ignition! Marvelous! XSEED! We need your help!

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Pretty dumb move. If these games have a big enough fanbase eventually a hacker will release a localized version and nintendo will make 0 on it.

Companies are stupid if they think they can segregate the world into marketing zones. That shit don't fly anymore, just release it everywhere. The data will move whether the "ip owner" wants it to or not.

Just go to gaia online or even 4chan. There are a ton of weeaboos who would be willing to do all the translation for free.

 

[Mr. Omega]

They're already translating it to English! What's stopping them from bringing them here? I get it. Nintendo thinks Americans hate JRPGs. And they're right. But as stated before, enough people have interest, and they're translating it to English, so what is there really to lose by bringing it to the States? Yes, they'll be niche titles. Yes, people will still mock the Wii. Yes, Americans will still mostly hate JRPGs. But these are thousands of sales that are being rejected here. If they at least allowed imports, I wouldn't mind so much. But it's being translated in English, but unable to play on American Wiis. Just get the British version and distribute it in American stores. Simple enough. NOA barely has to do aynthing. This just boggles the mind.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

If these are 3rd party games, it might not be Nintendo's call.