NeoGAF

Originally Posted by Maulik

Someone should tell Reggie that there is a fan campaign going on right now called "lets not buy the wii u". Seems to be working thus far.

Except that is a bullshit campaign.

Originally Posted by Maulik

Someone should tell Reggie that there is a fan campaign going on right now called "lets not buy the wii u". Seems to be working thus far.

Well, they don't seem affected by that either so at least Reggie is true to his word.

Originally Posted by Satchel

I don't like the way these companies approach their "business decisions" in gaming in relation to localisation and other similar issues.

While bringing Japanese games over to the West might not making SHORT TERM financial sense, it should be seen as a LONG TERM investment in your brand.

Right now, Nintendo is in a position where most "core" gamers outside hardcore Nintendo fans have abandoned them. Decisions like these are the ones that get those lost gamers back on board when they see the effort Nintendo is willing to go to to get as many quality(?) games on their platform as possible.

So while localising <Insert japanese game here> might not net them a game sale right now, it may net them many CONSOLE sales later down the line which in turn become sales of other games.

Very short sighted imo.

This complaint isn't exclusive to Nintendo by the way.

They're also not exactly ignoring it, either, given their push to have some kind of a character-based action game audience on the system, like publishing NG3:RE in the west for Tecmo-Koei, and funding and helping out Platinum Games on Wonderful 101 and working a deal out with Sega to resurrect Bayonetta 2 on top of that. It hasn't been working out so well thus far, but you certainly can't knock them for not trying.

JRPGs are tough because of the history of the genre once the Playstation took over, as it were, and the Japanese have overwhelmingly preferring those games on Playstation over other systems. It's not that Nintendo doesn't push the genre themselves with the Mother series, Fire Emblem, the various Mario RPG lines, and, of course, Pokemon, but they really haven't had a traditional JRPG that's connected in a big way, which makes it tough to convince other third parties to consider Nintendo systems for mainline entries of some of the bigger series, Dragon Quest excepted. It's easy to forget that for all the praise Xenoblade got from users on message boards in Japan, it actually sold worse than the 360's big JRPGs. And despite Nintendo's efforts to get Tales associated with their systems again, Namco had far greater successes with the mainline titles on the PS3. I just don't know what else Nintendo can really do for the genre on their consoles, other than hoping something that they put out themselves can connect with the traditional audience over there.

Originally Posted by Zaraki_Kenpachi

Why do you think install base is all that matters? You seriously think games don't sell differently depending on region? And I like how after that whole paragraph, all you could get was YEN doesn't matter but we don't know how much each company repatriates the money they earn so it could matter a lot or not at all. See, that's the biggest point you miss, you don't know. You have no info about either side but instead you decide that NoA is incompetent and all management needs to get axed. And you still haven't responded to anything else, so we now have yen and water bills, anything else?

Edit: Also, you make it sound like XSEED hasn't made bad decisions when localizing games. There's plenty of games that have been huge duds for XSEED which they thought it was worth taking a gamble on so I'm not sure why XSEED taking the gamble means that it was destined for success. As much as I loved Ivy the Kiwi, it was a dud and I'm sure XSEED lost money on it.

If you are one of the top console manufacturers in the world, your front-running console is facing unprecedented game droughts and yoy drops in sales, and you have NOTHING on the slate for most of 2011...how can you not justify this cost? If printing 150k-200k discs of the highest rated JRPG of the generation is an unfathomable expense, even if none of them sell and you have light the whole lot on fire, you have no business being a console manufacturer. NOA has been a joke for nearly 4 years running.

Originally Posted by Zaraki_Kenpachi

Edit: And the reason I brought up size and costs, since you can't grasp this, is that there are mutually exclusive projects in business. There are projects that will be profitable for a business but they will never carry out because it's not the most efficient use of their resources.

I think one can recognize this concept and simultaneously hold that Nintendo in general, and especially NoA in specific, is notably and persistently poor at making accurate judgments on the matter -- and furthermore, that they're poor at it specifically because their market strategy (work only in games, profit on hardware, focus on first-party, and only then skim off third parties) pushes them towards a myopic and overly short-term view of the marketplace.

Originally Posted by Zaraki_Kenpachi

Edit: Also, you make it sound like XSEED hasn't made bad decisions when localizing games.

It's kind of pretty damning to NoA to even be comparing their localization decision-making to XSEED's. :P

Originally Posted by Ridley327

As the full pocket of S&P2 out in our gaming department can attest to, you can absolutely lose big on localizing a game. We haven't been able to get rid of it during its various fire sales.

That really argues in favor of my argument, at least in the case of Nintendo. Nintendo doesn't take back stock or give credit for markdowns. So a retailer losing money actually means Nintendo made MORE than they should have on that particular game. They got paid when they sold it to you.

Originally Posted by Maulik

Someone should tell Reggie that there is a fan campaign going on right now called "lets not buy the wii u". Seems to be working thus far.

well at least you can call them consistent

What localization effort? NoE did all the work for you.

Doesn't inspire much faith in me as a fan. I mean obviously it's a business and these decisions have to be beneficial for them, but throwing the fans a bone once in awhile does wonders for long term support both ways.

Originally Posted by Leondexter

That really argues in favor of my argument, at least in the case of Nintendo. Nintendo doesn't take back stock or give credit for markdowns. So a retailer losing money actually means Nintendo made MORE than they should have on that particular game. They got paid when they sold it to you.

They have in the past, but mainly for bigger games. Oddly enough, we've sent back the likes of Nintendo Land and NG3:RE to them and got credit for them, to say nothing of the Wii U Basic sendback.

It's really the heinously overshipped niche titles, like S&P2, Metroid: Other M, and Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, where they tell us "SOL, losers!"

Operation Rainfall would never have even happened if you were sensible and made the games region-free. Seriously guys, if you're going to shut off the avenue you can get people paying money to show interest in games you haven't released then you can't complain about how hard it is to gauge interest.

Originally Posted by Dryk

Operation Rainfall would never have even happened if you were sensible and made the games region-free. Seriously guys, if you're going to shut off the avenue you can get people paying money to show interest in games you haven't released then you can't complain about how hard it is to gauge interest.

Is this really an issue in the Wii's case, though? The system is so easy to softmod into a region-free system, and I have no doubt that a lot of people did so in preparation for Xenoblade's European release.

The 3DS and Wii U are definitely very different situations, but at least in the latter's case, they are quite literally localizing every game imaginable for the system.

Originally Posted by Zaraki_Kenpachi

:lol I'm done with you. You again keep making claims of me "spinning" instead of actually making a point or substantiating anything. You said: "they delivered small "niche" games to markets that didn't have the number of Wiis sold that the U.S. did". This what YOU said, and pretty much the only point you made in that whole post was how could it not be profitable when regions with smaller install bases of wiis got it so obviously you think the install base is a huge factor in bringing a game over or you wouldn't have used as pretty much your only point of why they were stupid not to localize. You can't even remember the things you say in your own posts and all this has been is you making baseless accusations and trying your hardest to divert the conversation to anything but the issue at hand. I'm done.

Sure, I'm not saying NoA is the best run company ever or even hinted at that but I'm not sure how you can make the logical leap of the people I'm been responding too that because a single game (Xenoblade) wasn't localized that they are completely incompetent, have no business making consoles, and management should be completely removed from the company. That seems like a pretty strong opinion to get out of the 2 sentences or so Reggie said in this interview.

And I don't follow what you mean that it's damning to even be comparing XSEED to NoA for localization. I wasn't the one who made the initial comparison.

As a side note, what was Xenoblade's sales in the US and what was the profit to XSEED? People act like this was the next CoD or something, and Nintendo left millions of dollars on the table by not localizing THE GAME OF GENERATION OMG OMG. Did it even sell 500k in the US? What do you think sales would be if there was "adequate" inventory in the market?

I didn't call the game(s) niche, you did:
"They're not "incompetent" just because they didn't bring over an incredibly niche game that they weren't even sure wouldn't result in a loss for them let alone actually make them money."

I was using your own description in my response to you. Using your own words, that I thought you understood...

I guess you don't even comprehend what you type yourself?

"...but I'm not sure how you can make the logical leap of the people I'm been responding too that because a single game (Xenoblade) wasn't localized that they are completely incompetent, have no business making consoles, and management should be completely removed from the company."

Are you drunk? Seriously? Do you not understand that Xenoblade was localized by Nintendo of America? Do you not understand that it was Pandora's Tower and The Last Story (both originally part of Operation Rainfall), as well as Disaster: Day of Crisis that were not localized by Nintendo of America? Three games. Not one.

Three Wii games that were 100% developed for the Wii console, and translated for publishing outside of Japan.

Originally Posted by Lumyst

The relationship with the retailers comes into play too, sometimes I forget about that, thanks for the reminder. I really wonder how retailers are going to proceed with Yarn Yoshi, I got Kirby's Epic Yarn and Sin and Punishment Star Successor for $12 each at WalMart. I mean, good on Nintendo for wanting to do their thing and make another Yarn... game, but will the retailers like it :-P

It is definitely a factor, but with how hot the 3DS is right now (well, comparatively speaking), I can't imagine that there's a lot of retailers wishing to piss them off by saying no to certain titles. It also helps that Nintendo themselves have been a lot more conservative with shipments of games than they have been in the past, so it never really feels like there's way too much of something.

Originally Posted by CoffeeGames

I didn't call the game(s) niche, you did:
"They're not "incompetent" just because they didn't bring over an incredibly niche game that they weren't even sure wouldn't result in a loss for them let alone actually make them money."

I was using your own description in my response to you. Using your own words, that I thought you understood...

I guess you don't even comprehend what you type yourself?

"...but I'm not sure how you can make the logical leap of the people I'm been responding too that because a single game (Xenoblade) wasn't localized that they are completely incompetent, have no business making consoles, and management should be completely removed from the company."

Are you drunk? Seriously? Do you not understand that Xenoblade was localized by Nintendo of America? Do you not understand that it was Pandora's Tower and The Last Story (both originally part of Operation Rainfall), as well as Disaster: Day of Crisis that were not localized by Nintendo of America? Three games. Not one.

Three Wii games that were 100% developed for the Wii console, and translated for publishing outside of Japan.

If you think I'm drunk then you should learn to read my posts. I never mentioned the other games and I think at this point in this thread it's painfully clear that Xenoblade was localized since I own a copy. If you're this flabbergasted then I think our conversation really is over.

Originally Posted by Zaraki_Kenpachi

If you think I'm drunk then you should learn to read my posts. I never mentioned the other games and I think at this point in this thread it's painfully clear that Xenoblade was localized since I own a copy. If you're this flabbergasted then I think our conversation really is over.

Well, I was quoting you when you said:
"As a side note, what was Xenoblade's sales in the US and what was the profit to XSEED?"

You think XSEED localized and published Xenoblade in the U.S.? It wasn't XSEED, so they didn't make any profit on it.

Originally Posted by CoffeeGames

Well, I was quoting you when you said:
"As a side note, what was Xenoblade's sales in the US and what was the profit to XSEED?"

You think XSEED localized and published Xenoblade in the U.S.? It wasn't XSEED, so they didn't make any profit on it.

I misspoke, that was completely my fuck up. My point still stands of what were sales and profit for those games. You can even include Last Story that XSEED did localize. I know it was their best selling game but considering they wouldn't reveal numbers it probably wasn't anything insane.

Welp, things aren't looking so hot for the Wii U. So, maybe Reggie should look at a new direction for pushing his business forward. Maybe, listening to their fans instead of ignoring them? Because, well, it can't get any worse. The console is dead in the water.

Originally Posted by Leondexter

Considering what it costs to develop a game, and the small fraction of that cost that it takes to localize a game, I always find it very hard to believe that bringing a game to the US could ever not be cost effective. All the hard work is done. All the large costs are sunk.

Well, it is possible in general. The worst cases are things that have significant extra costs attached that aren't relative to the game's appeal (like Retro Game Challenge's licensing costs) or which have wildly different appeal in Japan vs. the US (like Yakuza and its excessive voice acting) but other games can still fail to add up if the market just isn't interested -- we see niche Japanese games with lots of text do 5k in NPD sometimes and that's very hard to make up for.

However.

As a first-party Nintendo has dramatically more resources with which to promote titles than any third-party does. As Nintendo in particular they tend to have titles that require less extensive localization costs than many others (they're ahead of many random Japanese devs in terms of programming with localization in mind, and they have fewer games with extensive voice, licensed content, etc.) And now that they have a solid digital platform, it's much easier to avoid the marginal physical-production costs associated with a localization and focus solely on sales, if a title is niche enough.

So yes, I would agree that it would very, very rarely make sense for Nintendo to skip a first-party title (or even a special-relationship third-party title like Bravely Default or DQ7) on a pure profitability basis, and almost never on a long-term-view health-of-the-platform basis. I certainly don't think any of the Project Rainfall titles were a reasonable choice to skip, and I'm confident that neither Mother 3 or Rhythm Heaven would be justified at all if you don't agree with NoA's decision to starve off the GBA.

Originally Posted by Zaraki_Kenpachi

The key word is "can". You're really overestimating the "backlash" if they had never released xenoblade, you're trying to make too big of an outcome for such a small percentage of consumers.

This attitude is very short-sightedly foolish, though. Library is far and away the most important factor in a console's performance over time. AAA top-shelf blockbusters (or Nintendo's mass-market equivalents) only get you so far; after that you have to rely on the breadth of your more niche offerings. Nintendo has to rely on first-party titles more than anyone else to fill out their library, so to keep fans invested in their platforms they actually have a far greater incentive than anyone else to release small-scale titles (and thereby drive ongoing and future hardware sales) even if the direct, immediate profitability of some of those titles isn't as much as they'd like.

Like, basically, your position relies on demand for consoles and games being entirely inelastic relative to the behavior of the company, the software released for the system, and the perception of the platform and platform-holder by conventional wisdom, which I think evidence is pretty well stacked against.

(Also, I need you to be a lot more polite and patient in this thread than you're being right now.)

Originally Posted by thepotatoman

From the 360/PS3/Wii generation? No I honestly do not know of a single one. Do you?

There are pretty close to zero PS3 and 360 titles that were underprinted, in part because of higher minimum orders from both console manufacturers.

Originally Posted by Raist

What happened to the region free thing btw? There was a huge thread on GAF with multiple sites reporting on it, but then I kinda stopped following it.

Nintendo came out saying "We don't give a fuck what you want" in the most polite PR-friendly way.

I'd like to see NOA take on a bigger localization job a la Xenoblade.

I'm completely fine with TLS localization. XSEED did a great job with the LE and pricing, too.

Originally Posted by shouamabane

I'd like to see NOA take on a bigger localization job a la Xenoblade.

I'm completely fine with TLS localization. XSEED did a great job with the LE and pricing, too.

so, more piggybacking off of NoE?

anyway, I find it hilarious that the assumption that localizing these games are meaningless essentially run on the assumption that Nintendo will always have Wii-level sales and will never fall OR take general mindshare into account

Give me Dragon Quest 7 3DS already.

We should start a petition for Nintendo to start listening to petitions.

Originally Posted by Nyoro SF

Like that 100,000 line. It has to be worth the investment.

Yeah, but that's just the thing. It was worth the investment - even the tiny one that Nintendo begrudgingly offered after the fans begged and pleaded.

It's moved about 400,000 copies in North America - more than any other region - despite only a limited run, and only being sold at Gamestop, and for frequently-ridiculous prices. It probably would have sold a lot more had Nintendo not been so bizarrely ignorant about whether or not a game like this would sell well.

But still: yes, the investment was worth it. It was a far-too-small investment, made nearly too late, and it revealed just how little they know about what some of their consumers really want, but it was worth it.

Originally Posted by Neon_Icarus

Of course he would say that. They don't want NoA's mailbox to be swamped by
fan petitions any more than it already is.

It would be pretty idiotic for them not to take fan feedback into account
in their decision making.

finally someone said it and it only took till page 5!