While Reeves point is technically true, I don't think it's going to appease the PS3 owners still waiting for Rock Band.

cdammers

@Odin:

Exactly, I always get annoyed when I play a game like Pokemon that has been in America for half a year and only just came to Europe because of all the translating, and then to find that the "English" is exactly teh same as teh American version! Thats just lazy and inconsiderate!

CrazyBlue

@Odin:
That's not true.
Nearly every game released in the Pal region has bugfixes and some rare examples have even additional content.

Garo

@Prime-Omega:
The paying more is more due to taxes than anything else so it's really more a government thing.

The "getting it last" is better spiel is a complete load of bullcrap though. Rarely does any game come out over here with any significant layer of polish added. Hell most companies don't even bother changing the American English to proper English. Waiting a few extra months for a release is not worth this phantom polish.

Odin

After reading that, I feel quite accomplished that I have the privilege of getting games last.

Damn, if only they'd think of something useful like online updates or delaying games to make sure they're completed fully.

Some day...

DwerG

SCEE's entire release policy can be summed up into: "yeah, that's gonna take a while. In the meantime, we have a new Singstar for you". Or to paraphrase Henry Ford "Europeans can get any game they want first as long as it's Singstar".

dionion

There's a difference between getting things last and getting things almost a year later!...And by the way, not every european gamer likes f***ing singstar --'...or Buzz! even if is the best selling game in my country.

Midnightchronicles

Fuck. You.

Tycoonalex1337

@Prime-Omega: -because The United States is still the largest market in spite of the floundering economy. The (not so)secret that these types always try to cover up(read: spin).

Black-Dog-Howls

Oh god what a total bullcrap, since when don't they fix the bugs with game updates in NTSC games anymore? Imo late game releases are comparable to the Iphone launch. Americans got it months earlier while it costs $200 there now. Just a few weeks ago they finally decided to release the Iphone in Europe, at a price of €600 = $1000...

That may sound a little crazy but I have a question for David Reeves. If America can get games first (with bugs or not), why the hell do we have to wait and actually pay more? For those "updates" the Americans got for free?

Prime-Omega

href="#c7403525">robinhood_0:
SMT: Lucifers Call
PAL version of Nocturne Maniax@

Garo

Only one big problem with this... oftentimes the game released in PAL regions is identical apart from additional languages... So yeah the "getting things last is good because things are ironed out" doesn't entirely cut the mustard...

PokeParadox

@robinhood_0:

Odin Sphere
PAL version has better loading times and less slowdowns

Garo

cough... Alone in the Dark... cough

Garo

Lucky Europeans; time to start importing PAL games for the most complete version.

everybest

I can't think of a single product that was "ironed out" before it arrived in PAL territories.

robinhood_0

So we should be happy to get shit last....that saves us what? The free updates that fix the issues, and all the fun we could've had before that? I call bullshit.

Windowlicker

@Black-Dog-Howls: That list only included Chart-Track's info from the UK (& maybe the Republic of Ireland).

dionion

@Cridia: Pulled from the recent top selling games list made up between NPDs, MediaCreate, and the European sales tracker to which I can't remember, the largest percentage by a wide margin came from the United States for game sales.

Black-Dog-Howls

Oh it would be even fuckin nicer to play the game at oh, say the the SAME time as everyone else in the world?

And as for everything being "ironed out" - everything should be ironed out before it even comes near a store shelf. Its funny that this guy thinks we should consider bugfixes and updates as a blessing when they're really just supposed not to happen in the first place. Its like going to a restaurant and expecting to kiss the owner's feet for him giving us clean plates.

Lateralus63

You know what I hate? I hate when people try to cover up their fatty chins in photographs.

Morpork

@Spedfrom: Yep, same for Greece. Just release the damn thing in English already, I'm not going to play it in French and I shouldn't have to wait.

dionion

It's also an advantage to be able to talk crap and refuse to acknowledge any faults. It's even more of an advantage to sell games at a mark up in areas that have stronger currency than where the money goes.

penty85

In Portugal most of us have a rather good grasp of the english language and you can count with the fingers on your hands the number of games that are translated into portuguese. What I mean by this, is the same that many british gamers have said before. Release the english PAL version first, on territories that will end up getting them anyway, and THEN release the other shit.
It's so fucking simple.

Spedfrom

@Odin:
It is not only taxes actually. If it were taxes alone, the difference wouldnt be that great. Remember Rockband? That game that charges us an arm, leg, heart, kidney and soul just to get it? And a more recent example; Soul Calibur 4. I did some math; the European version costs us €59,95, while the American would cost us €41,78 (if bought through playasia). Since I live in the Netherlands, taxes for a product like this is 19%. That would be a grand total of €49,72. Now, where does this extra 10 euros come from? It is obvious they are laughing their ass off and hell, the Dutchies aren't even that bad off compared to some games in the UK.

And for the one who said that the US is still the largest market; that is not true anymore. If anything, the markets are actually just as big, Europe only being a more fragmented. In fact, I do remember seeing this nice little article in which was written that Europe has become bigger than US as a market. Wasn't that on Kotaku actually?

Cridia

@Dijkie1337: You have my full support!

djlowballer

@CrazyBlue: Seriously? That must fucking suck. I'd be totally pissed off. they could at least throw in something about tea or crumpets(sp?).

AngelMayLaugh

Waiting for EU localization sucks! Even so more because these localizations seldom include Dutch, but we have to wait because those damn Italian/Spanish/German/French people don't understand English.

I wish they would just release an English-only version first, and a localized version later for those Europeans who didn't learn to read and write English at school.

Dijkie1337

Hate getting things last? Just buy a 360. Most things are released simultaneously in Europe.

Kaprikawn

Take Jet Set Radio
The game was bugged in Jap.
Added a new level in the US.
And PAL got the complete game without the wacky rock soundtrack destined for US territories.

Jet Set

@Black-Dog-Howls:
Okay, fair, I did indeed forget to watch the recent sales figures before I made that statement.

Cridia

PAL territories pay more, wait longer and in return for that we get a product that's been through slightly more bug testing than the NTSC versions?

I have a better solution, which would definitely appease the ridiculously large and undervalued European market. DO THE BUG TESTING BEFORE YOU SHIP THE PRODUCT. There really isn't any justification for any of this beyond the fact that it's always been like this.

TrjnRabbit

Why are PAL PS3 owners such as myself still waiting for Soul Calibur 4 DLC? Surely it doesn't need to be, ya know, "ironed out"

munkah

Getting games months later and at a higher price is in no way an advantage.

Geez.

NickyJ

@Black-Dog-Howls: No wonder the US has the largest margin, we're still waiting for the games to arrive...

Prime-Omega

That, or you could... You know, finish the game before you release it at all. You know?

At least these days games that come out here have a 60hz option. Most last-gen games that came out here were WORSE than their US/Jap counterparts due to being squashed into an almost-letterboxed format and made slower, again due to the whole PAL region thing. This is why I don't generally buy SNES/NES/Mega Drive games via the Virtual Console. So yeah, things have improved. A little bit.

MrPerson

Wow. SingStar. We got it first. Shit, I have to make myself a pilgrim and go to Jerusalem on my knees to thank Sony, that we got A SingStar before States. Oh... I forgot. I'm a fucking atheist.

Mr Herring

thank god all their current consoles are region-free so we don't need to care anymore. besides, in rpgs they always throw out the japanese sound in favour of spanish, german and french.

kraembaer

Yeah, it's called importing. You all should really look into it. The games are cheaper and you get better box art (yes, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, I'm looking at you).

Mr.Bates

@Garo: Final Fantasies have crappier animation in PAL versions. Ugh! So do many other games - they just interpolate roughly the 60Hz animation keypoints to 50Hz and voila. In some games they don't even bother to interpolate. Oh well, that was during the previous 2 generations of consoles, but still bugs me as I still play those games.

We don't get some awesome games in Europe.

We import a lot, making the US market seem larger. Thus chicken-and-egg situation where we stay with status "just an afterthought"

Region-locks fuck us up. Their DLC even more so.

Console games as a rule must ship almost perfectly-runnable, the last few months of development are spent on that. With online capabilities, consoles now can download patches.

somarix

@Lorrr: Protip: When importing things to the EU, you have to pay duties on them. I had a friend get some games sent from states and he was hit with the lovely VAT(19%) and his shipping. Import shops charge as much if not more.

djlowballer

when was the last time we had to wait long for a game?

also, your ps3 is region free, so import, pay less and stop bitching.

also, grow up.

Lorrr

yup.i remember thinking how lucky we were when we had to wait a whole 6 months after North America for Kingdom hearts II...and luck certainly was on our side when we had to wait for final fantasy 11 for over a year as well..and Final Fantasy 12 confirmed we had stumbled across a four leaf clover when we had to wait 4 months after for that one

being on forums reading people rave about these games was hell..pure and simple(just like FF4 now for the DS)

why dont the UK and Australia just get the North American release,why should the rest of Europe and its dead languages hold us up?

metallicorphan

@kraembaer: This is not true.
The Wii isn't region free.
The PS3 is in regards of games so you right there.
As for the 360. It's not truely region free. You see the thing is that there seems to not be much of a difference between NTSC/J and NTSC/U. This however doesn't fly for Europe. Look on the big chart for 360 games region compatibility at Play-Asia [www.play-asia.com] and notice how a lot of games are definitly not region free. Notice then that far more then often games that both work on NTSC/J and NTSC/U will not work on PAL.

The only systems really region free right now are the DS and PSP.

StormdragonBlue

@djlowballer: I've never had to pay VAT when importing stuff from USA, even when the package states "merchandise: Video Game". But maybe it's thanks to my country's laws. (it's in EU, btw)
@Mr.Bates: I like the EU boxart of Uncharted :P. Sure, it doesn't look as badass as Nate with a shotgun, but fits his character - and the back-side on EU versions is often much better. Haha, and EU versions don't have a large portion taken by "NOT FOR RESALE" text.

somarix

PAL curse. Just an example.
Mass Effect for PC, russian version.

DLC (BDtS) that were released isn't compatible with russian release of ME. Our distributor and localizer have made the translation in one week and send it to BioWare for review and signing. That was one (!) month (!) ago (!), so we're still waiting when the planets above our heads will made a perfect crest. ~_~

13xforever

I just can't belive what I've read. It's... It's... It's an outrage.

Besides, the taxes in PAL territories don't justify the much higher price we've to pay. It's normal for PAL games to be priced a little higher than other regions, but the difference is abysmal.
"Oh boy, we release our games late and priced Higher in Europe in our region-Free console and people aren't buying them! I wonder why..."

Fulgurator

@djlowballer: depends on where you live, how much the game costs and how big it is. i've only had to pay one out of more than ~20 times, and it was on the collector's edition of persona 3 from playasia who don't mark their packets as gifts... bastards.

kraembaer

That's bs. 99.9% of the games are just localized without a single addition, and are still delayed months.
And the extra cost includes games localization. You know, so they can pay people like me =)
To make things worse, I play all games in English, if possible. Usually, I end up buying the game and replacing audio/text files in PC games.

@Lorrr:
Persona 3 was delayed one whole year. Some friends of mine bought Persona 3 FES for almost half the price from PlayAsia one week BEFORE the original game was seen in Europe.
Etrian Odyssey for the DS has been released one year late and I have bought the second part for guess how much and got it one week before or latter.

Really few games (Bangai-O Spirits) get released without delays, and usually because they are not localized at all.

EloraHRanma

"its an advantage to be last in europe"? screw him!

Rexter

wow i feel so great about getting casual crap afterwards yawn not everybody cares about shitty singstar and crap just release games same time as american already ffs.

adamr999

@StormdragonBlue: The original poster said "their current consoles", "their" meaning Sony, the company the guy works for. So he's right with PS3 and PSP.

CTU_Kyoto

i can always import the game. Much cheaper now with the low dollar.

Crippen

Super Mario RPG is my only remark.

iamerror37

Yet again, the people at SCEE are talking absolute trash. It's a great pain in the ass to wait for games to be released in Europe whilst other territories are already playing it. And now this guy comes up with a statement to add fuel on our flaming heads. I mean, you can just shut-up for once and hope our heads exstinguish but no! It's just pure laziness from you guys and respective publishers which is taking so long because you don't give a toss about Europe. I'll just wait and see how long Disgaea 3 gets a release date over her in the UK now that it's out for US and JP.

Rickster

@Andronix:

But they're the same company, If anything Sony Europe is higher on the food chain so who cares if Sony Italy/France get angry.

Do they just get angry because they think they deserve to be there on launch day? What kind of market share do they represent to have the kind of pushing power to stop Sony Europe from releasing an English version for everyone else?

If Sony Italy/France are the reason these releases get held up then they really need to be put in their place by the rest of Europe.

robinhood_0

@Spedfrom:

Good Point. But in a previous interview Reeves has said (with reference to pan Europe PSN releases) that the people in charge of these territories, eg head of Sony Italy get angry if an English version is released first, so Sony Europe wait until all translations are complete.

Sony Italy/France. Gits.

Andronix

No. No it's not. Aside from perhaps the Adv. Sphere Grid and Dark Aeons in FFX I cannot think of a single example where I would prefer to have the European version over the US. And that is predicated on me being a huge fan of FFX.

Guess who imports his PS games? Of course, I don't have to worry with the X-Box or PC, the former gets releases mostly within days, and the latter is forced to have near-simultaneous releases due to the ease of piracy.

Having differing release dates was an annoyance back in the 1990s. Now, with everyone online, it's much worse. Not only do games come out so late that most people stop thinking of discussion as spoilers, but it really gets people's backs up to see widespread discussion of a game they're really looking forward to, which won't be in their hands for months. Bad form, Sony and Nintendo. Get your shit together.

Mister Adequate

David Reeves clearly has never played a European port of a popular game abroad. Nothing changes except that the people in the USA tend to get patches first while the European version is delayed for reasons people just pull out of a hat.

Reeves is officially competing with Cliff B and Mark Reign for the prestigious award of making the biggest fool out of themselves by saying stupid things. What was this guy managing before he came to Sony? Does he even play the games his company sells? Probably not.

BigDragon

No doubt he's getting advice from the same PR company that suggested Sony spin rumble as a 'last gen feature'. It's all down to native languages.

Despite a significant Spanish (and to an extent French) speaking population, the first language in the North American region is English. Not so in Europe where the five largest countries speak five different languages.

Sony will struggle to speed up PAL releases without simply releasing them with just English language support. And then those non-English speaking nations will ask why they have to wait so long for their native language releases.

As a Scot/Brit, I'd love to see European English language releases hot on the heels of the North American titles, but as a European, I can understand why this doesn't happen.

yashin19

@metallicorphan: You made a little fool of yourself, speaking about "other dead languages", y'know. On this particular planet more peaople are speaking Spanish than English. I don' t know how the things look in outer space, though. Maybe yoy should just blow yourself up and check it out? What do ya think?

Mr Herring

@Lorrr: Smash bro's took 6 months, FFXII took about a year, Most RPG take several months up to a year and tons of games get delayed in europe and no where else.

Llost

Yay we come last! We get to pay more, have stuff people have been playing for around 3-9 months and rarely get anything extra but that's an advantage. I wish SCEE would shut up sometimes, he didn't even give an example of a single advantage anyway/.

Llost

Someone should fly a plane into SCEE headquarters that will show them

sweetasman02

Don't forget to also blame the overly bureaucratic corporate work culture over at SCEE (think Vogons from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).

BallPtPenTheif

Big game fans get their stuff from overseas (especially considering the fact that it's actually cheaper to do so). I'll be damned if I'm going to wait till 2009 for Square Enix to bring Disgaea 3 to Europe, pre-ordered the game a week ago from Gamestop so it should be arriving shortly. Soon they'll just stop localising the games over here, which is fine. More space on the shelves for crap like Singstar and Sonic and the Olympic Games, which sell disturbingly well here.

Ladi

I guess it also means its an advantage to be ripped off, sold inferior hardware and block Europeans importing?

Someone fire this asshole.

jigglypoofs

@BallPtPenTheif: I think, bureaucracy it's the most common thing to all european countries. Exept Italy. There' s no bureaucracy anymore, only madness.

Mr Herring

Has there been a case before where the late European was significantly better or improved over the American and Japanese releases?

Altersparck

yeah what a lame point of view

mpar

@Black-Dog-Howls:
I'm not surprised since a lot of frustrated PAL owners are contributing to US sales by importing! ;)

PokeParadox

[www.videogaming247.com]
I think Reeves was talking about service and product announcements. Not game releases.

OliverFIN

If most of the delay is because of translation then its just a case of bad planning by the companies involved. If the company knows a game is to be released in Europe then surely the script can be sent for translation when it is confirmed. Not exactly rocket science. Also as modern LCD/Plasma televisions become more common, PAL conversion becomes irrelevant
The current situation is purely a case of lazyness as far as i can see.

demontweek

@Garo: No, Lucifer's Call is exactly the same as the US release of SMT: Nocturne. The only difference is that it has a 50/60Hz selector, and the title screen is different.

Hell, the save file still reads "SMT NOCTURNE".

Kirbysuperstar

when everything's ironed out.
I think the point here would be that there shouldn't need to be anything "ironed out", otherwise it's a fault against the creators.

Blah8

Who gives a damn about Singstar or some gay ass music download? Europe always gets screwed and no one cares lol.

Elwood2112

@Blah8:

LOL @ "when everything's ironed out" thats not what happens, we get the same buggy shit the Americans get, just later, and more expensive.

senote

Wow yeah I am so grateful I get to play everything days or weeks after the rest of the world, thank you Sony and MS for treating everywhere outside America like the retard cousin.

senote

It is always best getting screwed the most! Oh wait, this isn't sex :(

Lyme

It makes me think of the Day of the Triffids. Sometimes it's great to be blinded!

Aprocalypse

What the fuck? Singstar is that what we're all playing in pal land now? this guy needs to be shot!

HitokiriX

GOD DAMN YOU REEVES. GOD DAMN YOU TO HELL. At least some other companies apologise for agonzing waits but you? PHHH!!

excel_excel