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Release Dates: Does Nintendo Ever Learn?

Thursday, 21 Jan 2010 - 21:44PM

Written by Paul Counter

An Englishman, an American and a Japanese man walk into a game store...

The Japanese man leaves with Fatal Frame, the American with No More Heroes 2, and the Englishman with Disaster Da... empty handed.

With Nintendo having just released their release schedule for the UK in the first quarter, once again it is tinged with disappointment. With the exception of Tatsunoko vs Capcom , the list is a little thin on the ground. Granted Red Steel 2 and Silent Hill are coming in March, but if you’re an American you’ve probably enjoyed Shattered Memories over the
Yuletide period and are eagerly awaiting the aforementioned No More Heroes sequel next Friday. Whilst the Japanese are likely to be already bored of Sin and Punishment 2 and using Captain Rainbow discs as coasters.

It seems to have always been this way with Nintendo. They never seem to be able to get the hang of global release dates and bar some games from being released at all. Citing cultural differences and poor expectant sales of certain games in different countries is a tiresome excuse. Not every Wii game is going to be a million seller, but at least give the consumer the chance to decide; who knows what unexpected hit could be unearthed.

The US get No More Heroes 2 very soon. We don't.

Admittedly, I’m an impatient gamer. I want to play the likes of Monster Hunter and Desperate Struggle as soon as the game is available. I realise there are translation issues and various marketing strategies behind the release of certain games, but with the money and teams some of the developers have, you’d think this should not be a problem. Or at least that release dates would be closer together rather then months apart in some cases.

As I write this my import copy of Fatal Frame for the Wii arrived. Having picked up the license for the game and then deciding not to distribute it, Nintendo, in my opinion, once again make an ill judged and rash decision. Thankfully there has been an extremely dedicated team of people who wanted to enjoy the game and thus created a patch so it can be understood in English. Whilst being extremely grateful for the hard work by the creators of said patch, it is kind of sad to see that Nintendo have learnt nothing from the days of the SNES and N64 in terms of game distribution (Mario RPG, S&P) and it is left to people who aren’t on the payroll to provide fans with what they really want.

 

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