Divided Divisions

[CorgiShinobi]

Article

 

I'm sure a lot of you don't particularly care for IGN, but sometimes they have a good article or two which brings up some good points. This time, localization and how Nintendo of Europe has surpassed Nintendo of America.

 

It was something like a little over a decade ago that you could say with utmost accuracy: North America gets its games before European countries. However, from that point on to now, Europe is getting games either days or months before NA. Still, it's only a few days.

 

What I think is most notable (and the discussion of this topic) are the games North America is NOT receiving, and in fact, may NEVER be available! I say this because Nintendo of America has stated they have no plans to bring The Last Story, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Pandora's Tower. Europe on the other hand will receive these titles and will even get some cool special editions.

 

 

So talk about this, the changing trends, or really just how much NOA has lagged behind in recent years.

[WTF]

Two words: Exchange Rate

 

The Yen is strong, the dollar is weak. NCL dictates which games can come out in the other territories. We all know that Xenoblade, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower aren't going to sell a lot. I mean it's probably going to sell about a bit more than Sin and Punishment: Star Successor. We can talk about exclusivity and all that rubbish but honestly the main reason for this is, it's just not worth the effort for them financially.

NCL is most likely responsible for NOA and NOE funding (I have no proof since I haven't studied their corporate hierarchy, but it seems quite likely since the two are subsidiaries).

 

Now Nintendo localises games for every region even if the language spoken is in fact English. This can be witnessed in a lot of recent games. Here's a good example --> In Epic Yarn Kirby tells 'hey this feels like pants' in the US version and in the PAL Eng version he says 'This feels like trousers' .

If NoA were to bring these games, they would localise it once again for the US, this has to do with Nintendo Corporate Policy. It makes sense if it was applied on a case by case basis, however it's a sweeping way they approach localisation today.

 

A lot of Nintendo's core users are not heavy gaming enthusiasts, I mean Nintendo Brands that are existing would sell a lot better than 3 new ips which are mostly dedicated to a JRPG audience. But the biggest thing is the exchange rate, it's simply not profitable for a company who's losing revenue because of international sales thanks to the strong yen to keep investing in niche titles. The EUR and GBP have a sort of favourable rate when compared to the JPY and the games are sold at a higher price here anyway when compared to the US so the risk is less.

 

Oh and you know what, the from the Nintendo France's marketing side of NOE who tried to announce this game at E3 has quietly left the company after 12 years. Oh he quietly leaves after 12 years after bringing these 3 games to the west. It says something about corporate policy.

 

Now as a consumer I'm against these policies but as a businessperson I'd be fine with this and think it's actually smarter. Sure there's backlash and everything but you're unlikely to see Nintendo Published niche titles to come out in the US for a while now unless it's concurrent with a product launch. It's just one of things that happens in such financial structures. We may not like it but they're doing it to cut losses. And no under 100k sales would not be worth it for them because of their silly localisation policies.

 

Final Notes: I bet the sales of Pandora's Tower would be about the same as Fragile Dreams. Also on an unrelated note, Shenmue for Sega would be equally unprofitable which is why it's unlikely 3 will ever come out until there's a remake/re-release.

[Thursday Next]

@WTF If your business model is to limit your distribution then it makes sense (to me at least) to drop region locking. Nintendo would save themselves a lot of headaches if they just allowed people to import. It worked wonders for Demon's Souls on PS3.

[WTF]

@WTF If your business model is to limit your distribution then it makes sense (to me at least) to drop region locking. Nintendo would save themselves a lot of headaches if they just allowed people to import. It worked wonders for Demon's Souls on PS3.

 

Well they should but they don't. In fact I'd agree a 100% to drop region locking because it generates overall sales which technically does help a conglomerate that's on a pyramid model or something with a financial base.

 

The thing is I'm pretty sure that Nintendo knows that people can softmod their consoles and in fact they must be looking at fora to see what the general reaction is. If you look at them, you'd see majority says NoE is awesome and NoA sucks, I'm importing from NoE. At the end of the day, they are still getting the revenue. I've read a lot of responses on this matter and generally the responses range from

1) I'm importing this after softmodding my wii

2) I'm buying the game and playing on my Dolphin EMU

3) How much does it cost to buy a PAL Wii (which quickly gets corrected)

 

Even people in Op Rainfall are importing the game. All that means is that they'll think about making the Wii U region free. I believe they're doing some sort of experiment to see how it works. I'm sure Sony has seen some benefits to games being region free which is why they're continuing at that angle with the PSV (leaving it up the publishers to decide to region-lock).

 

In fact I'm pretty sure that if they see a significant increase in sales in the game for the EU region we might actually see them thinking about region-free. However the fact that they have localisation measures in place today means they probably would still enforce region locking. And yeah their model would be to limit distribution for the current situation. I think we might see a change in localisation policies based on whatever happens with these 3 games. it is quite possible though that does mean some people are going to lose jobs.

 

On a positive note, markets change, attitudes change and this is just something for today. It is in no way permanent.

 

The advantage to this system is that when we hit 2 generations from now when these games will get re-released there wouldn't be a lot of publisher issues in getting the game rereleased provided the current version can be made future compatible (I think the reason why PAL hasn't got Parasite Eve 1 is probably to do with technical issues of converting an NTSC PS1 game for PAL compatibility, issues like that should be next to non-existant today I mean a PS3 game in one region should be playable across multple regions of PS5s [side note: At least the modding community makes it easier when it comes to older PC games])

[Thursday Next]

The issues with Parasite Eve are more likely that the game is not licensed for EU release. When companies merge, get acquired, etc it can be difficult to find out who has the rights to a game. For example, Parasite Eve was published by Square in Japan, they are now Square Enix. It's possible that the company that owned the license to PE was dissolved, so now it's a pain in the butt to sort out who owns the license.

 

Worse yet, PE was published in NA by EA, who may have had some exclusivity either by region or time limited, etc.

 

So yeah, re-releases are a ball ache for publishers, especially when the original launch was not worldwide under one publisher.

 

On topic, the only justification I can see for splitting regions is to maintain good online multiplayer experience, something that Nintendo have never been big on. Since WiiU is more single player focussed, I'm not sure how keen Ninty will be to drop region locking.

Edited July 8, 2011 by Thursday Next

[WTF]

The issues with Parasite Eve are more likely that the game is not licensed for EU release. When companies merge, get acquired, etc it can be difficult to find out who has the rights to a game. For example, Parasite Eve was published by Square in Japan, they are now Square Enix. It's possible that the company that owned the license to PE was dissolved, so now it's a pain in the butt to sort out who owns the license.

 

Worse yet, PE was published in NA by EA, who may have had some exclusivity either by region or time limited, etc.

 

So yeah, re-releases are a ball ache for publishers, especially when the original launch was not worldwide under one publisher.

 

On topic, the only justification I can see for splitting regions is to maintain good online multiplayer experience, something that Nintendo have never been big on. Since WiiU is more single player focussed, I'm not sure how keen Ninty will be to drop region locking.

 

I'm not entirely certain about PE, it seems like apart from license issues there's also compatibility issues. I mean the whole process of bring PS1 games is pretty much creating a workable ISO which is then emulated by the PSP and PS3 and some games do have some critical errors. I agree with you on the license thing. I mean that's pretty much the reason titles like Silent Hill find it harder to get published and why SE finds it hard to release FF7 and 8 on the PC despite it being ready for steam. Lapsed licenses are a headache and something I'm all to familiar with thanks to people who inherit rights and are pretty much squatters on them. I still think people who inherit rights are the worst bunch when it comes to any media release because all they want is a lot of money which hampers budget rereleases.

 

As for region locking you're right it is the MP component that benefits the most from that venture, but it's their company and they work they want themselves to work. I'm not even going to comment on Multiplayer and the WiiU since it sounds like a clusterfuck waiting to happen but it's still vague right now. So they can have the benefit of the doubt.

[RockyRan]

Now as a consumer I'm against these policies but as a businessperson I'd be fine with this and think it's actually smarter. Sure there's backlash and everything but you're unlikely to see Nintendo Published niche titles to come out in the US for a while now unless it's concurrent with a product launch. It's just one of things that happens in such financial structures. We may not like it but they're doing it to cut losses. And no under 100k sales would not be worth it for them because of their silly localisation policies.

 

While I definitely agree with the business reasons I have to say the consumer reasons simply win out.

 

As a consumer, seeing Nintendo feed us with the "WE CARE ABOUT THE HARDCORE GAMER NOW" malarkey throughout the entirety of their E3 press conference only to turn around and say "we're not doing niche titles because they're not profitable enough" reeks of hypocrisy. They do realize catering to the hardcore doesn't necessarily mean unicorns made of money that shit $100 bills, right? It requires ample room for experimentation and pandering to niche audiences in addition to their portfolio of tried-and-true heavy hitter titles that will sell millions regardless of the content on the actual game.

 

Look at Sony and see just how many things they've put their name on, whether they're games they've published or games they invested in. Things like Demon's Souls, Fat Princess, Wipeout HD, ModNation Racers, Folklore, them HD collections like the Sly Cooper/Team ICO/God of War. This stuff isn't guaranteed to sell millions. In fact, a few of these didn't sell past one million. But the truth of the matter is that they expand their portfolio to complement their heavy-hitter titles like Uncharted and LBP. Not everything is guaranteed to sell, but there's a healthy amount of experimentation going on.

 

I don't see that kind of commitment from Nintendo, at least not NOA. NOA seems to be fixated only on what's guaranteed to sell millions, not even looking at experiments that may or may not sell, or may just break even. But it's not only about the short-term goals of that specific game being released. It's the long-term effect that these titles has, where Nintendo can gain an expanded range of titles that they have a hand in, whether they're funded by them or simply published.

 

If Nintendo isn't willing to take a risk with three JRPGs whose release would certainly clear a bit the drought of their dying console, I really don't see how they're going to devote an entire console catering to the hardcore. Because the "hardcore" aren't just looking for Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. They're also looking for the obscure, more experimental games on niche genres. It's not like Nintendo's exactly strapped for cash either. I look at this poor decision and use this to look into the future. They're not willing to take such a small risk now, why would I expect them to take a large risk later?

Edited July 9, 2011 by RockyRan

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

It's not hypocrisy. Nintendo is going to appeal to the MW "hardcore" crowd and not the niche crowd. Two different things.

[WTF]

Sorry but there is no 'hardcore' gamer that's so into jrpgs (well by their definition of hardcore anyway). It's the truth. I mean the best selling RPG from Japan this generation was FF13. Outside of that most RPGs have failed to hit a million. Most of them have petered at 300-500k and these are games that are popular in the niche groups. The hardcore gaming enthusiast they're catering to is the FPS group.

Nintendo's also making it clear that their first priority are the companies who are making these games.

 

FDS has got it right that they are trying to appeal to the MW group. I mean take a look at Microsoft, they invested a lot in RPGs at the start of the generation with Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Infinite Undiscovery, ToV so on and so forth but that's not what's bringing the audience to them. What brings people to them is well CoD, FPS, Gears, Halo and now Kinect. They know that shooters will bring them the hardcore audience and kinect will bring the casuals. Nintendo already know that a gimmick will bring them the casuals and if they want the gamers that bring more money they need a bigger slice of the CoD pie and the BF pie. Niche titles aren't going to do anything for them. We have plenty of niche titles as is on the Nintendo platform that don't sell a lot. They sell about enough for 3rd party games on small budgets. I doubt that games like the last story or pandora's tower were really profitable. Xenoblade was because it was supposed to be good and is highly rated. But the others just about managed 100-110k in Japan and will do another 200k at very best in Europe.

 

If you look at figures you'll see that RPGs sell slightly more in Europe as well. It's nothing to do with hardcore or not, these are just niche and they just don't make business sense unless your whole company is based off of making low budget niche titles like Atlus (who're moving on from that these days).

 

Also as a side note, the company that's not in the lead will try to improve its marketshare one way or the other. During the Gamecube days, Nintendo did try to bring lesser known titles because they wanted people to buy their console and then they just gave up and realised they needed to focus on the new one. At that time the PS2 was seriously selling like a monster and they didn't bring a lot of titles out to many regions because honestly it didn't matter to them as they had far too many games. I guess one thing Sony learnt from that was to make a system region-free so they didn't have to think about it, which also explains why they don't mind if other companies publish Sony Japan published games in the EU or US especially if it's something they don't have too much faith in. If Nintendo decides to make a system region-free then hey that might change things but as of now it's up in the air though it's leaning towards region-locking.

 

We're looking at a generation that's quite Xenophobic(not discussing that here since it's OT) and that has a lot to do with perceptions and in such a generation these sort of titles will be niche unless they were previously accepted.

Edited July 9, 2011 by WTF

[Mr W Phallus]

I'm going to put words into RockyRan's mouth hear but basically whether Nintendo is being hypocritical depends on your definition of a hardcore gamer.

 

The way I see it there are 3 vague groups of gamers and 2 of these groups could be labelled as 'hardcore'.

 

The first group is the most obvious and also the newest and these are the casual gamers. People who dip into games, are probably most familiar with the current generation of Nintendo consoles, quite possibly express their enjoyment of a game by prefacing their sentence with the word actually. They probably have little interest in 'traditional' gaming genres like FPS, RPGs and so on.

 

The second group, and the first of the 'hardcore' groups is the Halo/CoD generation. Probably containing the highest proportion of male teenagers, these are the people who play videogames on a regular basis but only have (or at least play) a handful of games in their collection. They will follow gaming news enough to know when the next CoD/Halo/Fifa/Madden is coming out, but other than that they will probably only pick up titles which attract a lot of attention or top the gaming charts. They will probably write off 'casual' games for being cutesy, childish or aimed at mums.

 

The final group is the one that probably everyone on the forum will fit in. They are, for want of a better word, the gaming nerds (I don't mean that in a pejorative sense). They follow gaming news closely, will probably be heavy internet users, they will be most likely to own multiple gaming platforms or have a gaming PC, their (extensive) gaming library will contain games played by both of the other groups, as well as niche titles that neither group has even heard of. They probably realise that the term 'hardcore' is inadequate in categorising types of gamers although out of the 2 groups really they are the ones most deserving of that title.

 

Personally I didn't catch Nintendo's press conference, so I couldn't say which of the two 'hardcore' groups they were aiming for, although if the sales figures for games like CoD and Halo etc are anything to go by then the second group is the most likely. If, however, Rockyran interpreted the Nintendo press conference to mean that they were targeting the third group, or us in other words, who are after all probably the ones who buy the most games individually (although not necessarily as a group), then I can see why it would sound like hypocrisy.

[RockyRan]

Personally I didn't catch Nintendo's press conference, so I couldn't say which of the two 'hardcore' groups they were aiming for, although if the sales figures for games like CoD and Halo etc are anything to go by then the second group is the most likely. If, however, Rockyran interpreted the Nintendo press conference to mean that they were targeting the third group, or us in other words, who are after all probably the ones who buy the most games individually (although not necessarily as a group), then I can see why it would sound like hypocrisy.

 

Bingo. I'm not talking about CoD/Halo/MW type of "hardcore", I'm talking about the actual gaming enthusiast. If I misinterpreted it and took their E3 presser to mean "we're appealing to the dudebro gamer", then so be it. If they were actually trying to appeal to the enthusiast I don't see how these recent decisions are helping.

[jayc4life]

I'm not entirely certain about PE, it seems like apart from license issues there's also compatibility issues. I mean the whole process of bring PS1 games is pretty much creating a workable ISO which is then emulated by the PSP and PS3 and some games do have some critical errors. I agree with you on the license thing. I mean that's pretty much the reason titles like Silent Hill find it harder to get published and why SE finds it hard to release FF7 and 8 on the PC despite it being ready for steam. Lapsed licenses are a headache and something I'm all to familiar with thanks to people who inherit rights and are pretty much squatters on them. I still think people who inherit rights are the worst bunch when it comes to any media release because all they want is a lot of money which hampers budget rereleases.

 

I'm possibly going off-topic here a bit, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it was Eidos that published the Final Fantasy 7/8 PC ports, right? With them now being merged into and becoming Square Enix Europe, surely that should make a PC re-release easier to green-light, not harder? Unless they had an external studio working on it too and they got merged into some rival company and still have a contract that says they get x% of sales revenue?

[Battra92]

I'm thinking of softmodding my Wii to play UK imports. The lack of NPC Pikmin 2 in the west is disturbing ...

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Personally I didn't catch Nintendo's press conference, so I couldn't say which of the two 'hardcore' groups they were aiming for, although if the sales figures for games like CoD and Halo etc are anything to go by then the second group is the most likely. If, however, Rockyran interpreted the Nintendo press conference to mean that they were targeting the third group, or us in other words, who are after all probably the ones who buy the most games individually (although not necessarily as a group), then I can see why it would sound like hypocrisy.

 

Bingo. I'm not talking about CoD/Halo/MW type of "hardcore", I'm talking about the actual gaming enthusiast. If I misinterpreted it and took their E3 presser to mean "we're appealing to the dudebro gamer", then so be it. If they were actually trying to appeal to the enthusiast I don't see how these recent decisions are helping.

 

There's no money in appealing to the enthusiast so there's no way Nintendo would do it. I always interpreted Nintendo's E3 efforts as "hey, did you see all of those AAA multi-plats that came out on everything but the Wii? Well, now we're getting those too for you 'hardcore ' players!"

[excel_excel]

Last Story coming next year to Europe too! weee!

[RockyRan]

Personally I didn't catch Nintendo's press conference, so I couldn't say which of the two 'hardcore' groups they were aiming for, although if the sales figures for games like CoD and Halo etc are anything to go by then the second group is the most likely. If, however, Rockyran interpreted the Nintendo press conference to mean that they were targeting the third group, or us in other words, who are after all probably the ones who buy the most games individually (although not necessarily as a group), then I can see why it would sound like hypocrisy.

 

Bingo. I'm not talking about CoD/Halo/MW type of "hardcore", I'm talking about the actual gaming enthusiast. If I misinterpreted it and took their E3 presser to mean "we're appealing to the dudebro gamer", then so be it. If they were actually trying to appeal to the enthusiast I don't see how these recent decisions are helping.

 

There's no money in appealing to the enthusiast so there's no way Nintendo would do it. I always interpreted Nintendo's E3 efforts as "hey, did you see all of those AAA multi-plats that came out on everything but the Wii? Well, now we're getting those too for you 'hardcore ' players!"

 

If there was "no money in appealing to the enthusiast", why are we still seeing said niche games, sometimes coming from Microsoft and Sony themselves?

 

It's a bit silly to think that Nintendo is in no position for some experimentation. They can, they're just too lazy and/or greedy to actually try to spread their wings, even a little bit.

Edited July 9, 2011 by RockyRan

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

By "no money" I mean "it's not going to sell millions like Nintendo is used to at this point"

[RockyRan]

By "no money" I mean "it's not going to sell millions like Nintendo is used to at this point"

 

I'd agree with that. Doesn't look like Nintendo's interested in modest sales on anything anymore.

[CorgiShinobi]

Nintendo is probably use to it since they were probably financially sound until Microsoft entered the foray of the gaming industry with the Xbox. Nintendo was ruling and challenging Sega almost two decades ago, Sony came along in the middle of the 90's while Sega slightly lost grip in the industry.

 

It was probably in the course of the GameCube that Nintendo realized how serious the industry evolved where they had both Sony and Microsoft to compete against. Microsoft is still in it and has changed the face of gaming with its first party exclusives. Still, this is all theorizing, but I can see why Nintendo [of America] is cautious. Op Rainfall could simply be a vocal minority, a.k.a. the niche group.

 

EDIT: Though, yes, the Wii did make them tons of money. I do like motion controls, or at least the proper concepts to them, but you could still say Nintendo got rich off a gimmick and lightning rarely strikes the same spot twice.

Edited July 10, 2011 by Atomsk88

[excel_excel]

By "no money" I mean "it's not going to sell millions like Nintendo is used to at this point"

 

I'd agree with that. Doesn't look like Nintendo's interested in modest sales on anything anymore.

 

That's not true. They've released dozens upon dozens of niche games on Wii and DS in Europe and the US, just recently they released Solatorobo: Red The Hunter and that game will hardly crack 100,000 in Europe and the USA. The JRPG's not coming out on Wii are just a bad business decision there's no 'oh they won't sell enough' behind it.

[WTF]

Excel has a point, it's not entirely to do with million sales. It's just the Dollar-Yen rate is pathetic right now compared to before. Businesses operating from Japan have a major issue because of that. You just can't have it working that way.

 

Now before people bring Sony up, Sony doesn't work like Nintendo. Yes Sony does have their HQ in Japan but most of Sony's subsidiaries function autonomously and they do not feel the exchange rate pressure as much as Nintendo would (not saying that they don't, they do. But when you look at the system it works different).

 

As for the Wii U and the presentation, that was halfbaked. It was obvious that they wanted more dudebro games as opposed to others because honestly Nintendo has quite a lot of those niche titles but they don't sell and even on HD consoles some of them sell less. It's just Nintendo rarely (almost never) lets anyone else publish a game if they have publishing rights in their home territory. In fact for titles that do well there, they try to secure international publishing rights case in point Professor Layton. We're just making assumptions on Nintendo based on how other companies work. They're all different corporate structures.

 

Nintendo did care more for the gamers when their userbase was about 20M. No console this generation has such a low userbase and Nintendo's back to normal. Prior to the GCN era they were pretty shite in localising everywhere. I mean look at Terranigma, we got it, but NA didn't.

 

Disaster didn't make it because NoA wanted some changes in the script but Monolithsoft (which is a NCL subsidiary from around the time of that game's release) didn't want to and that's why that game didn't make it. Each game has individual reasons for not making it to a territory. But currently it's more to do with exchange rate. It can and will change in the future. If you want more niche titles to succeed improve their market to a point where it can't be ignored. I don't mean that every game needs to be a million seller but it needs to have a better sell-through ratio. The vast majority of Nintendo users today are casual and they don't care and it's not just anecdotal evidence that certain titles don't sell.

 

As for the hardcore gamer, they definitely mean the popular gamer not the niche hardcore gaming enthusiast.

[FMW]

Ok, this seems fair. The exchange rate is bad going from the Yen to the Dollar right now, so Nintendo doesn't want to localize small titles. That's logical. I accept that.

 

I guarantee that Nintendo not aiming for the gaming enthusiasts with their new consoles, but for the most mainstream audience. Why? Because that's a more profitable audience. That's also logical. I also accept that.

 

Why on Earth would Nintendo launch new hardware, the Wii U, at a time when international business is of minimal profit?