Nintendo Wii Fanboy

bleh *shrug*

glad i live in the states :)

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This is very true for us in the UK. I even find it hard to want to buy a game that has come out 4 months ago in the USA because the hype around the game has died down in my eyes because the internet community all work on in the same time frame. For example FF3 for the DS.

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Translation and slang issues my arse. We still get the 90% US versions of games (even down to the spelling of words).

We have always gotten games late, save the odd one or two. We've still not seen Trauma Centre for Wii here in Australia, for one thing.

It's kind of understandable when you consider that Nintendo of Australia is mainly a warehousing company consisting of probably about 20 staff total. But that's still a really poor excuse.

And here was I thinking that with Nintendo now apparently treating Australia as a separate region that we might stop being treated as the European regions poor, retarded cousin and actually see an improvement in release dates and range. Perhaps that's too much to expect. :(

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#2 has it. super paper mario is another example

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blah blah blah

Oh poor little babies. My god is it me or does the people in the South Pacific cry a great deal. I have seen them get games before the USA and I have seen America get games before them. Have these people not realized that stuff like this is all about the demographics. It has nothing to do with the fact that a company likes a region more than another. Companies tend to release a product in an area that the product will sell the most in first.

Take Mario Strikers Charged for instance it was release in Europe on 05/25/07 were the biggest soccer fans are then in AU on 06/07/07. The US didn't get this game till 07/30/07.

I personally think that this tactic is smart on the part of Nintendo. Release a game in its biggest potential market if it does great then give it a release world wide if the game flops then limit its release around the world. Number 3 mentions Trauma Centre not being released in AU that may be because the game did flop in the US.

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It's a cycle. The delays prompt importing and cuts the sales of games when they hit. This perceived decrease in sales doesn't raise the priority to localize quicker. The delay in localizing prompts importing etc.

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Did you read the report Jeremy? We're not crying over nothing.
Yes we may have got strikers early but that's a very rare case. We're not even seeing Smash Bros Brawl this year and there's doubt on seeing Galaxy this year as well.

To be fair, it's not just Australia and NZ, it's the whole PAL region. It sucks that the english speaking UK, Australia and NZ get delays because we have to wait for the version with all the European localis(z)ation. There should be separate PAL English and a PAL European versions I reckon.

Then again, it's only really a Nintendo problem, 3rd parties have no problems giving us games the same time as the rest of the world. Which leads me to call bullshit on your 'smart business tactic' Jeremy. If it really was smart, all publishers would do it.

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@7
But this sales tactic is not just a Nintendo thing. Yes a lot of companies does release their products worldwide at the same time or close to the same time but some companies do not. Some companies do release a product in a specific region based on sales demographics as to were the product has the most impact.

Take a look at products other than video games. Look at cell phones. The USA is in most cases last at new mobile technology. Even parts of the South Pacific region gets mobile technology before the rest of the world. A product goes through a stage in which it is tested to the point to see if it will sell or not. Call it testing the market just to see if you are going to make money or not. Nintendo does this with their 1st party games.

Look at it in two prospectives. One Nintendo can tell if the game will be a big hit or not if they do a first release in a bigger market. They then can watch the internet to see if they have a hit on their hands or if the game is not worth putting the money into it for other markets. Second if they release a game in a big market first; then if the game is big like Metroid then news on the internet about the game will be buzzing which gives them free advertising for the game in later released markets. This is why I say that Nintendo does this as a marketing tactic.

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well frankly in aus it's all over the bloody place,

case in point:

super paper mario releases in US in april, aus in September - one week! :) I will be very suprised if the text is in any way substantially different to the us version.

trauma centre wii - was never scheduled for aus release, regardless of us sales. :( think pheonix wright, which eventually made it to our shores nearly 2 years after original launch.

metroid prime corruption - getting this one in november! relatively quickly :)

LoZ-Phantom Hourglass - this one also in november i think?


so we have the appearances of things getting better. the really annoying part is that nintendo.com.au don't update their site very often, the entry for corruption hasn't been updated since may and the release date (also for phantom hourglass) is still "To be confirmed." -- the dates we have are all supplied by retailers.

I think what we would all like is a little more transparency from nintendo about when where and why. a few updates to confirm release dates that really are only six weeks away would be nice.

yeah we got strikers early, bit of a consolation prize really.. i would've much rather had Super Paper Mario. As it is i haven't bought a wii game since Eledees. hopefully this will all change in a few weeks... excepting that i just moved house and am strapped for wii-funds.

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Whilst we're in a general moan about how good the US has it compared to rest of the world, but their prices are significantly better than the UK.
For a start the console is the equivalent of $360 (still better than the PS3 which is the equivalent of $850)
And then there's the price of the games. A new game will cost $80 (unless you find a good internet deal) and a budget game (like RE4) you might be able to pick up for $60 if you're lucky...

It really annoys me when ANYONE from the US complains about the cost of Nintendo products, and electronics in general.

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Anything in the UK is going to be significantly more expensive, given the exchange rate. As well I think its worth the wait when we consider the development and beta testing that goes into an entirely new platform. I would rather have a reliable platform that to say I got it sooner. As far as the countries that are set behind, Is it really such a big deal to wait. Its not like there isnt a massive amount of choice out there. The Oject Report - Headline News updated 24 hours - UFO, Paranormal, Sightings, Alien, Gray, Crop Circles, Unidentified.

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The exchange rate would have to be about $1.4 to £1 to give equivalence of cost for the system as it is currently.
When was the last time that happened? Not in the last 5 years (I can't search further back on the site I use)

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Ok I have been reading about the differences of PAL and NTSC and I have discovered something very interesting that you all my enjoy.

In brief most games that are developed in an NTSC region will get a release in that region first while games that developed in a PAL region can have a release that is closer in both regions. I will explain why but only in brief.

First PAL has a higher resolution meaning more pixels on the screen and a slower frame rate. NTSC has a lower resolution and supports a higher frame rate. So in short when changing from PAL to NTSC it would be easier and cheaper to downgrade the resolution and up the frame rate. At the same time going from NTSC to PAL takes longer and costs more because you have to increase the resolution by 96 horizontal lines and slow down the frame rate. I will add a link that explains it all if you want to take the time to read.

So that would explain why the PAL regions gets more releases behind the NTSC regions. So when people make the argument that games like Halo 3 is going to have a world wide release at the same time then the developer has finished the game and before they make the release in one region they will make sure it is ready for all regions.

So in closing this report does point out some good things but it needs to be asking the game developers not Nintendo to have their product ready for all regions before they make a release.

Here is the link I promised. It covers DVDs but you will get the picture.

http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/PALvsNTSC/PALvsNTSC.asp

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@Jeremy

Don't be such an idiot. Obviously you know very little about game design, because the difference between PAL and NTSC is negligible.

Sure, they might be a big deal for DVDs, because those things are made up entirely of encoded video material. They're pre-set at a certain encoding quality.

Video Games are entirely different, the 3D images are generated by the rendering engine. Both PAL and NTSC games use the same gameplay, physics, textures, geometry, etc underneath, and their only major differences is the settings on the rendering engine. It's still the same game, just with different displays. Haven't you ever changed video resolutions on a PC game?

And more importantly, my old dime store TV can accept both PAL and NTSC, and only the most worthless of TV components these days can't do the same. MP2 Echoes required 60hz because it reduced flicker, which proves that many people have 60hz-capable TVs.

The crux of the matter here is, PAL vs NTSC is a joke. Here in Australia we're sick of being considered an extra leg of Europe. The majority of us speak English. We have NTSC capable TVs. The hardware in the Wii is capable of either format. The only thing that's stopping us from spending real money on importing US Wii games is the region locks. And why do we want to import? Because we have to wait for months just to get a chance at playing a nearly identical version of what America has already gotten bored with weeks ago.

This only really happens with first-party titles, so you can't blame it on production. You also can't blame it on marketing either, because there's more than enough people here willing to pay good money to be able to play the US versions of games. Heck, people are already wasting money on importing NTSC Wiis just to get around the region locks!

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I'm extremely frustrated with Nintendo's haphazard Australian release schedule.

We know Nintendo sometimes likes to time their PAL releases seasonally (notable example, the Aussie release of 1080 Snowboarding was held off for 6 months until the Aussie winter) but for crying out loud, there's ABSOLUTELY no reason for Super Paper Mario to be so damn delayed.

Translation issues, you say? Nintendo, your system is printing money for you. Throw extra money at your translation teams (you HAVE teams - plural - right?). Get the damn title out the door in a reasonable timeframe.

Then, look at the flipside. We've actually had some titles launch here in *advance* of the US. Nothing that actually mattered, but still.

Do the early releases counter Nintendo's sloppiness? Hell no.

So now as a Wii owner with a disposable income, I'm faced with an interesting conundrum - do I import a US Wii and go for US games (dollar for dollar a little cheaper than the local releases if bought from dvdboxoffice.com, shipping included), or do I just mod my Wii so I can play games from any region?

Yes, every Aussie who goes for a US Wii kills off the local market bit by bit, but when Nintendo shows such contempt for the local market, who really deserves the blame?

While we're on the subject, Sony and Microsoft abandoned region coding for games this generation. Nintendo promised to follow suit, then did a backflip. What the hell is up with that?!

I wonder if Nintendo's held Super Paper Mario off for so long because there won't be a PAL Smash Bros Brawl in time for Christmas? (not saying thats the case, but cmon, would you doubt it?)

*sigh*

Damned if we do ...

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