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NOA localizer insists Xenoblade too risky, defends Wii U naming

Vena

Member
60 million dollars isn't enough to break even on a localization? What the hell.

Not perfectly accurate but...

Graph2.png
 

FStubbs

Member
On a platform as starved for content as the Wii, not releasing the OpRainfall games in America showed that NoA was no longer interested in supporting their platform. Why be a customer if you have nothing to sell?

A game company that won't try to sell me games is useless to me and can die off for all I care. And I say that as someone who only skipped the Gamecube gen (and went back to it when I bought a Wii).

Reading this article, NoA is fundamentally broken and needs an enema. They have no chance with NX if the above is their current mindset.
 

tebunker

Banned
I think you guys are looking at a lot of ancillary things with regards to the Xeno project.


Essentially what he is saying is that it would cost $X to localize Xenoblade, and even if they got $X+1 back on that investment, NOA sees and believes that it is better to bring over and localize several games for that cost of $X.

It is a short sighted form of management. Especially in the entertainment industry where building your brand is just as important and project to project ROI.

Like others have said in the thread, NoA all but abandoned JRPGs and other games that have intensive localization in favor of text based localization, and smaller games. It's been like this for years. However if they had a long view in this situation they would see that each release builds the base out a little more, builds the idea that Nintendo has a range of titles, it builds the brand. It can't be measured in normal ROI.

If companies like Atlus and Xseed and NIS and several others can bring out smaller, heavily voiced titles to America and do well then so can Nintendo. Honestly Nintendo would be better served by spinning off a side company in the vein of Atlus or Xseed with a different goal and budget that takes these on. It would have to have a lot of autonomy and operate outside of Nintendo SOP but it could work.


On a platform as starved for content as the Wii, not releasing the OpRainfall games in America showed that NoA was no longer interested in supporting their platform. Why be a customer if you have nothing to sell?

A game company that won't try to sell me games is useless to me and can die off for all I care. And I say that as someone who only skipped the Gamecube gen (and went back to it when I bought a Wii).

Reading this article, NoA is fundamentally broken and needs an enema. They have no chance with NX if the above is their current mindset.


This guys gets it. You can't be the games company that doesn't release games, even if they don't have the best return on investment. You can't run an Entertainment company like an investment bank. You can't profess to be all about games and not bring them all out, you can't be the company for Auteurs, and lets be honest Nintendo is a company for creators, and be all in. You have to tell the bean counters to sit down, and be willing to bite in to the ROI a little to get it back ten fold.

Honestly I think it may be too late.
 
This person talks about the risk of localizing a game...how about the MUCH HUGER EXTREME risk of buying an entire company (Monolith Soft) and not releasing its games in all regions where their games were hugely popular?

Now, Xenoblade didn't happen to pan out like Splatoon in terms of blowing up out of the gate and redefining the audience to some degree.
Of course not, have you seen how much marketing Nintendo put behind Splatoon? How about the marketing they *didn't* put behind Xenoblade? How about the fact that Splatoon was given a wide retail release, while Xenoblade was limited to two or three copies per store in a Gamestop exclusive, and only otherwise sold directly from Nintendo? Sure, they reprinted it later (and of course now we have the 3DS game), but in any game with multiple releases it's the first release that matters most.
 

Mory Dunz

Member
I think Sticker Star was all-in-all a mismanagement of the PMario brand in general. But it was also at a time when the 3DS was on "fire all cylinders" mode, to salvage it.

I doubt #FE is going to continue past its first title... unless it becomes Nintendo's Persona or something. It looks fantastically silly and fun, but I don't know if it will actually turn into anything in the long run.

Yeah, I think FE SMT is a one-off too.

Hm, The Last Story exists so it at least has some fans.
Nintendo owns the IP depsite Mistwalker making the game right?

Dunno, why not just make Xenoblade (with a real protagonist) and a Last Story sequel for the Wii U instead. Honestly, it will probably sell as well as FE SMT and XenoX the way things are looking unless there is a surprise.

If Mistwalker couldn't do it...use Int Sys? Well it's a ARPG....
 
J

Jotamide

Unconfirmed Member
God forbid NoA does something for its fans. Fuck them. Worst Nintendo branch by far.
 

Sandfox

Member
This person talks about the risk of localizing a game...how about the MUCH HUGER EXTREME risk of buying an entire company (Monolith) and not releasing its games in all regions where their games were hugely popular?


Of course not, have you seen how much marketing Nintendo put behind Splatoon? How about the marketing they *didn't* put behind Xenoblade? How about the fact that Splatoon was given a wide retail release, while Xenoblade was limited to two or three copies per store in a Gamestop exclusive, and only otherwise sold directly from Nintendo?

No matter how hard Xenoblade was pushed it wouldn't have preformed like Splatoon.
 

evanmisha

Member
Xenoblade made a profit. What he's saying is that they have limited human resources and the money spent localizing Xenoblade could be spent elsewhere for a greater return.

Localizations certainly aren't cheap, but it takes a pretty disastrous launch to actually lose money.
 

xaszatm

Banned
...I'm failing to see what the problem is here. The guest was someone from 2012 and couldn't have possibly been involved with Xenoblade's localization. His opinions can not represent Nintendo as a whole and oh dear god why am I even bothering? The best part? This thread existed already but wasn't commented on until someone re-did it to make it so NoA looks incompetent because there are so many here hungry to hate on NoA.

To all those who are just quick-zinging NoA based on the OP stuff, listen to the damn podcast. Maybe you'll realize that he's isn't this evil man you seem to think he is.
 

Vena

Member
Yeah, I think FE SMT is a one-off too.

Hm, The Last Story exists so it at least has some fans.
Nintendo owns the IP depsite Mistwalker making the game right?

Dunno, why not just make Xenoblade (with a real protagonist) and a Last Story sequel for the Wii U instead. Honestly, it will probably sell as well as FE SMT and XenoX the way things are looking unless there is a surprise.

If Mistwalker couldn't do it...use Int Sys? Well it's a ARPG....

Last Story got its sequel on mobile with Nintendo's permission/deal with Mistwalker. And Mistwalker is way to small for an actual development of that scale nowadays.
 

Sterok

Member
While we don't know Xenoblade's development cost (I think), it probably wasn't that huge all things considered since it wasn't an HD game (thank you Wii for keeping dev costs down). That brings down how much it needs to be sold in order to be profitable by a large amount. Do we know what Skyward Sword's cost was? At the time it was Nintendo's most expensive game, so we may be able to estimate how much Xenoblade cost to make if we know SS's budget.

Basically, while I can see an argument for the game not being made in the first place (it never sold that much in the end), once it was made the people in charge of bringing it over should've realized that with proper budget management it could easily make some money in the west. Which NOE correctly realized, so good for them. And good for NOA for not spending the effort on making a new dub when NOE made one that would work perfectly fine in America.

As for Wii U's name, it was only one of several factors for why it tanked. I'd lump it in with the general marketing failure surrounding the system.
 
If you don't release games in those genres you're not going to cultivate an audience at all. It's niche on Nintendo consoles by their own doing.
 

Nanashrew

Banned
I think you guys are looking at a lot of ancillary things with regards to the Xeno project.


Essentially what he is saying is that it would cost $X to localize Xenoblade, and even if they got $X+1 back on that investment, NOA sees and believes that it is better to bring over and localize several games for that cost of $X.

It is a short sighted form of management. Especially in the entertainment industry where building your brand is just as important and project to project ROI.

Like others have said in the thread, NoA all but abandoned JRPGs and other games that have intensive localization in favor of text based localization, and smaller games. It's been like this for years. However if they had a long view in this situation they would see that each release builds the base out a little more, builds the idea that Nintendo has a range of titles, it builds the brand. It can't be measured in normal ROI.

If companies like Atlus and Xseed and NIS and several others can bring out smaller, heavily voiced titles to America and do well then so can Nintendo. Honestly Nintendo would be better served by spinning off a side company in the vein of Atlus or Xseed with a different goal and budget that takes these on. It would have to have a lot of autonomy and operate outside of Nintendo SOP but it could work.

The keywords here are smaller but fully voiced games in your last paragraph and why Atlus and those other companies can do it and get a better return. Xenoblade X is a AAA console JRPG with 400 square kilometers of land to explore with 11,000 lines of spoken dialogue for just the battles alone with much more to be translated and voiced.
 

Mory Dunz

Member
No matter how hard Xenoblade was pushed it wouldn't have preformed like Splatoon.

yeah, "advertise it" isn't as easy as people make it seem at times.

How would you advertise Xeno in any way like Splatoon had.

Splatoon had outside events with paint and stuff. Very visible and attractive. What would you do for a conterparty for Xeno...?

Splatoon had testfires and demos at Best Buy believe. For Xeno, playing a RPG for less than 1 hour doesn't really sell it.

I guess they could've done TV ads/Internet ads, but companies want to be sure it'll work. Did Evolve post a profit? I don't know, but I just remember how it got a huuuge marketing push so I wonder. It's not always that easy.
 

RDreamer

Member
In a certain light I sympathize with Nintendo. Sometimes fans really don't understand how businesses operate and just want more than they can or should give.

That said, there's something really weird going on with this and Nintendo specifically. Someone stated here that Xenoblade sold 200k copies in Japan. I'll just assume this is correct, as it doesn't really seem out of the realm of reason, but even a good amount more won't make the following wrong. Anyway, they justified creating the entire game from the ground up for 200k copies sold...unless they were extremely fucking disappointed in that, but I kind of doubt that since they made another one.

Anyway, so 200k obviously pays for the entire game being made. Now I realize localization is costly, but I would be rather confused if it cost more than it did to make the entire game in the first place, voice acting and all. So now I'm wondering why NOA and NOE couldn't finance it together for the english speaking market. Did they really think it would sell less than 200k combined there? 100k combined? Really?

And that's just the initial sales run. Having it in english really gives them a lot of options going forward. They can sell it on future virtual console sort of things and get some digital sales from it. Sure maybe that doesn't add a ton, but once it's done it's done and they have a good amount of other options.

On top of that, let's pretend it would only pretty much break even. That's still a win because it's a game people are buying from you instead of a competitor and it's another bullet point. I could see if you weren't a console manufacturer being very turned off by break even status, but when your primary goal is to sell consoles... well... get some more fucking bullet points.

So I guess my biggest question in all this is: Why aren't NoA and NoE talking to each other a bit more? Why did NoE have to seemingly independently decide to bite the bullet? Why didn't they pool their damned resources and get it printed and run in both regions from the get go.


And last but not least: There is no one that will ever convince me Wii U was a good name in any way shape or form. Whatever marketing person signed off on that is an idiot.
 
Essentially what he is saying is that it would cost $X to localize Xenoblade, and even if they got $X+1 back on that investment, NOA sees and believes that it is better to bring over and localize several games for that cost of $X.

The problem with this though, is that at the time Xenoblade came out, they weren't localizing anything other than throw away first party titles that were only meant to last until WiiU came out. It would have been one thing if they had other titles that they were talking about bringing out, but even the biggest 2 titles at the time (Xenoblade/Last Story) they wouldn't budge on. Hell they wouldn't even bring over far more niche titles that had far less of a risk.
 
I think Sticker Star was all-in-all a mismanagement of the PMario brand in general. But it was also at a time when the 3DS was on "fire all cylinders" mode, to salvage it.

I doubt #FE is going to continue past its first title... unless it becomes Nintendo's Persona or something. It looks fantastically silly and fun, but I don't know if it will actually turn into anything in the long run.

It would be nice if #FE did become its own series, at least Nintendo could then capitalize on the Persona crowd and get their sales there.
 

Neff

Member
After releasing Wii Motion Plus, Wii Balance Board, Wii Zapper, Wii Wheel, Wii Lan Adapter, and a host of other accessories and games for the Wii with the 'Wii' prefix, calling its successor 'Wii U' instead of Wii 2 or anything else was a bad, bad idea.

The fact that the Wii U's base unit itself was almost indistinguishable from the Wii's, and that Nintendo insisted on keeping it out of the spotlight in favour of the Gamepad certainly contributed to the confusion, but to suggest that the name is blameless is ignorant.
 
I definitely don't agree with him on the Wii U name, but it's just a part of Wii U's overall problems in selling. They didn't really clarify what the system exactly was for people that are absolutely in the know and tried to get them when it was too late.
 

tebunker

Banned
The keywords here are smaller but fully voiced games in your last paragraph and why Atlus and those other companies can do it and get a better return. Xenoblade X is a AAA console JRPG with 400 square kilometers of land to explore with 11,000 lines of spoken dialogue for just the battles alone with much more to be translated and voiced.

You're focusing on one small part of my point, it is doable, and yeah it may cost a bit, but most of the costs are sunk, the development was done. What's the cost of splitting localization between NoE and NoA, what could they have expected for sales with a proper marketing budget on a system that sold 100 million units.

My main point is that it shows Nintendo isn't capable or willing to build that base for long term success. Sure one JRPG isn't going to make or break that, but it's the attitude and willingness to make a wide variety of software, to cast a wide net and bring people in. It's how you convert your casual customers in to long term loyal ones.
 
On a platform as starved for content as the Wii, not releasing the OpRainfall games in America showed that NoA was no longer interested in supporting their platform. Why be a customer if you have nothing to sell?

A game company that won't try to sell me games is useless to me and can die off for all I care. And I say that as someone who only skipped the Gamecube gen (and went back to it when I bought a Wii).

Reading this article, NoA is fundamentally broken and needs an enema. They have no chance with NX if the above is their current mindset.
NoA/Nintendo has localized basically every major title thus far this generation.
NoA was hesitant about Devil's third, but quickly changed their minds after fan outrage (even if they shouldn't have)
The article is one person's opinion about a much bigger than average JRPG on a dying system not known for JRPGs which was rife with piracy with over a million pirated copies of the game already downloaded
 

Mak

Member
Xenoblade Chronicles was a risky game that could only be distrusted by disc for Wii through retail or online. NOE took the cost of localizing it, and NOA was smart about its distrubution in the U.S. through GameStop and Nintendo's online store to minmize risk.

If Nintendo of America used their budget to localize Xenoblade, and if it didn't sell well enough after distributing the packaged discs to retailers all over the U.S., there could have been multiple copies sitting on shelves that then get discounted to sell just like Sin & Punishment 2, Metroid: Other M, The Glory of Heracles, Wario Ware:D.I.Y., Kirby's Epic Yarn, and even Metroid Prime Trilogy until popularity increased after it went out of print.

Nintendo has been more conservative lately with the amount of printed retail copies since they have digital downloads as an alternate form of distribution where that wasn't possible for Wii where shelves could be flooded with unsold copies.

Not saying it shouldn't be localized, but I can see why they're minimizing risks.
 
Classic case of smelling their own farts, NOA needs a management shake-up. Hopefully the new CEO will set things right, one can dream.
 
yeah, "advertise it" isn't as easy as people make it seem at times.

How would you advertise Xeno in any way like Splatoon had.
So you are saying it's impossible to market an RPG? Has Square not ever marketed any games? I seem to remember Final Fantasy XV getting a demo, I've played RPG demos in the past as well - the demo convinced me to buy Eternal Sonata, one of the most beautiful games on Xbox 360. A big part of Xenoblade Chronicles was its graphics and art style, a demo would have shown that off great.
 

Sandfox

Member
After releasing Wii Motion Plus, Wii Balance Board, Wii Zapper, Wii Wheel, Wii Lan Adapter, and a host of other accessories and games for the Wii with the 'Wii' prefix, calling its successor 'Wii U' instead of Wii 2 or anything else was a bad, bad idea.

The fact that the Wii U's base unit itself was almost indistinguishable from the Wii's, and that Nintendo insisted on keeping it out of the spotlight in favour of the Gamepad certainly contributed to the confusion, but to suggest that the name is blameless is ignorant.

I agree with the naming issues, but the consoles really don't look alike.

So you are saying it's impossible to market an RPG? Has Square not ever marketed any games? I seem to remember Final Fantasy XV getting a demo, I've played RPG demos in the past as well - the demo convinced me to buy Eternal Sonata.

You can advertise it, but you're kinda limited in what you can do and unless you series is named Pokemon or Final Fantasy you're not going to reach what series like Splatoon are doing.
 

True Fire

Member
No wonder NOA's localizations have gone down the shitter. The fact that we needed Operation Rainfall in the first place for three Nintendo-published games was pathetic. And Xenoblade's Gamestop release was absolutely abhorrent. They're still jacking up prices to this day.

Xenoblade Chronicles was a risky game that could only be distrusted by disc for Wii through retail or online. NOE took the cost of localizing it, and NOA was smart about its distrubution in the U.S. through GameStop and Nintendo's online store to minmize risk.

All it takes is good marketing. Tomodachi Life and Dragon Quest IX proved that. The problem is that Nintendo's marketing team wasn't up to snuff last gen (they've improved significantly with Splatoon). That's why Dragon Quest is now dead in the west.
 

Ridley327

Member
Bu bu but Baten Kaitos sold like shit

While I can appreciate Nintendo's efforts to trying to lead the charge for JRPGs on their home consoles, what they really need to do in order to see an actual chunk of that pie is to treat their output more like their handheld strategy, in which they're making those games themselves AND securing big mainline entries for release on that system. To make it a bit more simple, trying to attract fans of Final Fantasy to Xenoblade is really hard to do when there's no damn Final Fantasy on the system.
 

Shpeshal Nick

aka Collingwood
He's wrong about the name

He's right about the localisation. Forum posters believe they represent a large group of people. They don't. Nintendo isn't going to localise a game that may at best sell 50K copies or so. I'm not talking about Xenoblade specifically, but just those niche Japanese titles in general.
 

tebunker

Banned
The problem with this though, is that at the time Xenoblade came out, they weren't localizing anything other than throw away first party titles that were only meant to last until WiiU came out. It would have been one thing if they had other titles that they were talking about bringing out, but even the biggest 2 titles at the time (Xenoblade/Last Story) they wouldn't budge on. Hell they wouldn't even bring over far more niche titles that had far less of a risk.

Which, if you read my whole post or saw anything else I posted in the thread, I am essentially pointing out the failings in their belief system. They didn't want to localize it because they "could" localize a lot more for the $$$. Not that they did.

They see the cost of doing nothing as cheaper than acting without seeing any of the benefits
 
This person talks about the risk of localizing a game...how about the MUCH HUGER EXTREME risk of buying an entire company (Monolith Soft) and not releasing its games in all regions where their games were hugely popular?

Well uhh...."hugely popular" and "Monolith Soft" don't exactly go hand in hand. I mean ya, I enjoyed the hell out of Xenosaga and thought Baten Kaitos was alright, but I won't sit here and lie to myself when it comes to how they sold. Just think it's a little funny that they bought out the company and yet didn't think the West could at the very least match the Japanese sales, when consoles and game sales were already well on their way towards dying in Japan by the time they got Xenoblade.
 

Mory Dunz

Member
So you are saying it's impossible to market an RPG? Has Square not ever marketed any games? I seem to remember Final Fantasy XV getting a demo, I've played RPG demos in the past as well - the demo convinced me to buy Eternal Sonata, one of the most beautiful games on Xbox 360. A big part of Xenoblade Chronicles was its graphics and art style, a demo would have shown that off great.

I don't think Nintendo wants to spend nearly as much money as Square though. They seem to want to do it for more sure things. They seem picky.

In fact, I think the only first party games that get anywhere near a AAA marketing budget are Pokemon, Smash, and Kart. (And maybe Animal Crossing in Japan. I don't live there so I don't know).
 

GuardianE

Santa May Claus
He's right about the localisation. Forum posters believe they represent a large group of people. They don't. Nintendo isn't going to localise a game that may at best sell 50K copies or so. I'm not talking about Xenoblade specifically, but just those niche Japanese titles in general.

It's not just about the initial sales of the game, but also title diversity and branding. The larger and more diverse your library, the more appealing your console is. The more you lock away, the less desirable of a product your entire console becomes.

Once someone buys the WiiU, they'll start purchasing other games, but you have to convince them there's enough there to keep them around first.
 

xaszatm

Banned
Pranger makes NoA sound like a bunch of shits.

God forbid NoA does something for its fans. Fuck them. Worst Nintendo branch by far.

Fucking idiot.

Did you even bother to listen to the podcast? At all? Or was the flip off Nintendo too great for you that you took a single sentence in an hour and a half podcast from a guy who probably wasn't even involved with NoA during the localization process of Xenoblade Chronicles.
 

Azuran

Banned
I love Xenoblade as much as anyone but the game defines niche even on a best selling system like the Wii. Some games are just never going to be millior sellers no matter what since the audience just isn't there. Just look at Fire Emblem RD and how it's now one of the lowest selling games in the series.
 

FStubbs

Member
As for Wii U's name, it was only one of several factors for why it tanked. I'd lump it in with the general marketing failure surrounding the system.

I don't think any amount of marketing would've helped the Wii U. The tablet was just a really, really dumb idea. There's a rumor that it was a rejected idea back when they were deciding what the Wii's "revolution" would be. Using it on the Wii U meant that their motion control direction was stunted (though that happened during the middle of the Wii generation inexplicably, which was IMO their biggest fumble), and on top of that, now you're saddled with a cheapo* tablet that raises the price of your console and prevents price drops. The tablet is unsellable as a gimmick because Joe Average says "huh, a tablet with my Wii, why, I've already got an iPad."

Even Pachter's old joked-about Wii HD would've been a better idea.

* - the tablet is not cheap, but in the eyes of the consumer, it's "cheapo".
 

Game Guru

Member
Gamecube was more than a generation ago. That system was still able to get some of the kids who grew up on NES and SNES and were now adults with disposable income. Nintendo has lost a large part of an entire generation of kids with the advent of mobile games and the growth of MS and Sony in the market. Their fanbase in the console market is shrinking. You have entire generations of kids who no longer grow up with Nintendo as their first exposure to video games.

This is a lie... Tons of kids played a Nintendo console... It's called the Wii. Nintendo also has a very successful handheld line. The major issue is that the kids who grew up with the DS and Wii and stuck with gaming moved on to PlayStation & Xbox like we who grew up with the NES & SNES and stuck with gaming moved on to PlayStation and that new kids are being introduced to gaming via mobile instead of either Nintendo's console or their handheld because mobile devices have cheap and free games, are plentiful and are required for modern society.
 

Sir TapTap

Member
Nah, gotta call bullshit on the Xenoblade thing. You got people paying $80-90 for USED-ass copies of the game because you failed to release enough, and they're still saying it was too risky? And hundreds of hours of voice--fucking hell, if THAT was the hang up, just don't voice it. It would hardly be the first game with Japanese voice acting and English text. Meanwhile small shops are localizing other voice-heavy games with zero marketing budget and making it all right, but Nintendo can't do that in their most successful period on their most successful console?

And Xenosaga (especially 1) had already sold pretty well and it's practically a meme how impenetrable those games are. Xenoblade was also a critical success well beyond most anything that makes people scream "niche" that isn't called Bayonetta.

And the Wii U thing. The fuck outta here. It was a mistake. Admit it.
 
There really was no excuse with Xenoblade. Here you have a big AAA RPG that had similarities with some of the best-selling RPGs in NA, and that fills a huge void in the non-portable console market, and you drag your feet about releasing it EVEN after the localization is done and the game has been released to critically acclaim in a different region. The opportunity cost argument doesn't work because you could always license it to a smaller localization company who would make it work (which is what they did for the other 2 Rainfall games).

Xenoblade isn't I Can't Believe My 1000 Year Old Dragon Girlfriend is This Cute super-niche otaku fare! Throw in some chocobos, rename some spells, and slap a Square-Enix logo on the front and it could easily pass as a numbered Final Fantasy game (and in fact, it's similar to FF12 in many ways). It had blockbuster RPG potential. Had they released it earlier when the Wii was still popular (instead of waiting nearly 2 years) and given it a marketing campaign, I have no doubt it would have been a huge success for a new IP instead of merely a really good success.
 

GuardianE

Santa May Claus
Did you even bother to listen to the podcast? At all? Or was the flip off Nintendo too great for you that you took a single sentence in an hour and a half podcast from a guy who probably wasn't even involved with NoA during the localization process of Xenoblade Chronicles.

Nope. I read the quotes in the OP and am replying to that quote. Did he or did he not say those words? I don't relish the opportunity to dig a hole for Nintendo of America. They do that enough on their own.
 

FStubbs

Member
NoA/Nintendo has localized basically every major title thus far this generation.
NoA was hesitant about Devil's third, but quickly changed their minds after fan outrage (even if they shouldn't have)
The article is one person's opinion about a much bigger than average JRPG on a dying system not known for JRPGs which was rife with piracy with over a million pirated copies of the game already downloaded

This is totally anecdotal/Tales from my @ss/whatever, but IIRC a huge part of that piracy happened after NoA denied it for America.
 

otakukidd

Member
i would say the only mistake nintendo did was vastly undership Xenoblade in the US. 6 months after launch the game was 90 dollars, USED . Thats a 40 dollar markup in 6 months. People were even accusing gamestop of opening the games so they could sell them used. Even now years later and reprints its 65 dollars used. If they didnt make any money to cover the localization then its their fault for how badly they read the market and undershipping.
 

Colombo

Member
While I agree to some extent, console manufacturers need to take risks on games (especially when they are as highly regarded as XB), because you never know where the next hit may come from! Nintendo Europe localised Xenoblade, North American Nintendo fans really wanted the game and were vocal enough that ultimately NoA released the game. Clearly Xenoblade Chronicles ended up being successful enough worldwide that NCL commissioned a sequel.

Now in 2015, NoA are releasing this sequel without blinking an eye lid, the original game gets a N3DS port, Smash Bros 4 includes Shulk as a playable character, the Shulk Amiibo is highly sought-after and Nintendo can look back at their acquisition of Monilith Software as a good decision. Finally they can also be content that they pleased their fans which should sometimes be considered just as important as turning a profit! Everyone wins!

Fake Edit - I once remember reading an article about how NoA weren't interested in releasing Pikemon In North America, but NCL and Yamauchi insisted on it and convinced/forced them to do it! If that story is indeed true, can you just imagine how much money Nintendo would have missed out on? In fact, the Pokemon phenomenon most likely wouldn't have happened and at the very best, may have just become a Japan only phenomenon like Dragon Quest!
 

Jigorath

Banned
The name didn't cut the sales in half. The name is dumb but it's not going to kill the console. The Gamepad albatross, nonexistant 3rd party support, underpowered hardware, and resultant game droughts accomplished that.
 
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