Nintendo Of America Hears You, But You’re Still Not Getting Those Games You Want

13 years ago

June 30, 2011 at 11:00 am

Last week, Wii owners in North America desperate to play games like Xenoblade, The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower, games already released in Japan, pleaded with Nintendo of America to bring those games stateside. Today, Nintendo has responded with a resounding, “Eh, probably not gonna happen.”

Those passionate, motivated Nintendo fans showed their support for those games to be localised in the form of a letter writing campaign. They pre-ordered a placeholder listing for Xenoblade, at one point announced by Nintendo of America as Monado: The Beginning of the World, on Amazon.com en masse. They cried out to Nintendo, “American Wii owners cannot live on The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Rhythm Heaven alone!” They called this campaign “Operation Rainfall”.

Well, Nintendo had heard those polite requests loud and clear, Wii fans. And nothing’s changed.

“Thank you for your enthusiasm,” Nintendo of America wrote on its official Facebook page in response. “We promised an update, so here it is. We never say ‘never’, but we can confirm that there are no plans to bring these three games to the Americas at this time. Thanks so much for your passion, and for being such great fans!”

Granted, when a PR mouthpiece says it has “no plans” to do this or that, it rarely means it actually has no intention of doing so. It’s usually bullshit language employed to avoid having to outright confirm or lie about unannounced software. But we’re inclined to believe Nintendo of America in its dismissal of Wii fans’ wishes at this point, mostly based on its past failures to bring notable Japanese games to American audiences.

While we’ll join NoA in never saying never, it’s probably for the best to resign oneself to never seeing games like Xenoblade, The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower\ – or any other Nintendo DS or Wii game you’ve been dying to see localised – if you’re a Wii enthusiast living in North America.

Don’t worry, there’s Mario Party 9, Kirby Wii, Fortune Street and a ton of fantastic third-party shovelware to keep that Wii busy for the rest of the year.

Nintendo [Facebook]

Comments

34 responses to “Nintendo Of America Hears You, But You’re Still Not Getting Those Games You Want”

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Jake

June 30, 2011 at 12:02 pm

I hate the Wii…

Reply
Richard Smack

June 30, 2011 at 12:03 pm

LOL well this really makes me worry about wiiu games…

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Strange: The First Lady

June 30, 2011 at 12:09 pm

Europe’s getting Xenoblade. If The Last Story never gets out of Japan I may very well sob into a jar and send my voluminous tears to Nintendo.

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1. Strange: The First Lady
  
  June 30, 2011 at 12:12 pm
  
  Also, I wonder if loads of people buy Xenoblade it will encourage them to release The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower.
  
  Reply
  1. Jimu, No speller fella.
    
    June 30, 2011 at 2:07 pm
    
    Let’s buy it.
    
    Also, if LS never hits I’ll join you for a night of drunken swearing!
    
    Reply
    1. Strange: The First Lady
      
      June 30, 2011 at 2:21 pm
      
      Wait, now I’m hoping it DOESN’T get a release. That can’t be right. 😛
      
      Reply
Pancake

June 30, 2011 at 12:10 pm

I wouldn’t give up hope. I thought Tales of Symphonia 2 was never gonna be released in Aus but then after something like 2 years after the Jap release it came over here so anything’s possible.

This might be a stupid question but I know these games aren’t planned for America and they are planned for Europe but does that include Australia?

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1. Al Christie
  
  June 30, 2011 at 1:13 pm
  
  Oh hell yes it does mean Australians can play it. Tons of titles don’t get an ‘Australian’ disc: Muramasa & Fragile for example, just European stock imported. Xenoblade I expect won’t be released in Australia, but you can import a pal version to work on your Australian Wii.
  
  Reply
TheRev

June 30, 2011 at 12:19 pm

Theres no reason why these games cant be released on the Wii… its just Nintendo being douches about it. I’m still waiting for Fatal Frame 4 to come release outside of Japan.

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PrettyTones

June 30, 2011 at 12:30 pm

This really sucks for the Americans. I wasn’t planning on getting Xenoblade but I think I will now, just because I can. 🙂

Still hoping Ace Attorney Investigations 2 gets localised though. It’s like skipping a volume of your favourite book series with a large fanbase, lousy Capcom/Nintendo…

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Karachi King

June 30, 2011 at 12:30 pm

Wow, that’s terrible PR. They could have at least bullshitted about localisation/licensing issues and claimed they were doing their best, or something.

And when at least Xenoblades is getting a PAL release, which will have English language options, it really seems so stupid…

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1. Jamie What?
  
  June 30, 2011 at 12:53 pm
  
  It has an ENGLISH english dub and that doesn’t market well in the US. They would have to localize it and re-dub it to be more ‘American Friendly’ and obviously they don’t think it’s worth it.
  
  Personally, I prefer British accents in my fantasy genre. Probably because all the fantasy movies I saw growing up had them.
  
  Reply
2. ba!
  
  June 30, 2011 at 12:59 pm
  
  I know what you mean, it doesn’t really generate a kind of positive disappointment you would expect from PR denying something.
  But at the same time, at least they were kind of honest about it.
  
  Reply
Thom

June 30, 2011 at 12:39 pm

This is why I probably won’t pick up a wiiU. In the consoles lifespan, I’ve played five games. All first party. The complete lack of interest in the core audience is overwhelming, and I doubt they’ll be able to shake that in one console generation.

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Jamie What?

June 30, 2011 at 12:49 pm

with any Luck Xenogears will sell a lot in Europe and NOE will bring over Last Story and Pandora’s Tower as well.

American’s should import and help the sales!

To be fair, during the PS1 and PS2 eras, I had to import a ton of RPGs from the US. Fair’s fair.

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1. Jamie What?
  
  June 30, 2011 at 1:40 pm
  
  Xenoblade even -_-
  
  Reply
Wisp

June 30, 2011 at 12:59 pm

They better bring out last story that’s all I can say

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Lone Wolf

June 30, 2011 at 1:00 pm

At this stage in the Wii development cycle, despite comments that Nintendo will continue to support the Wii, they really don’t care.
Apart from long-term, all-region developments and third party shovelware, Nintendo are shooting for the WiiU now.
While Nintendo may still have a dedicated in-depth fanbase in Japan, as far as it’s concerned, the western market is casual.
Still, colour me disappointed.

Reply
1. Braaains
  
  June 30, 2011 at 3:04 pm
  
  The problem they’re creating is that they’re trying to get the “core” gamers interested in the Wii U, but then they turn around and do this kind of thing. This then leads to those same core gamers wondering why they should take a risk on the next Nintendo platform considering how they treated this one. They might as well go with Sony or MS who have the runs on the board in recent years as far as support for core gamers goes.
  
  This is a silly PR mis-step that really didn’t have to happen.
  
  Reply
  1. Terrak
    
    June 30, 2011 at 5:18 pm
    
    Firstly i wont defend what Nintendo has done here, however if people are using this as reasons why the Wii U will suffer the same fate, well thats just ridiculous.
    
    Firstly the original Wii was a casual console first and foremost. Alot of ‘hardcore gamers’ knew this, everyone did. Its why the Wii suffered from a serious lack of third party hardcore games. Its why many gamers didnt buy a Wii. So now theres a hardcore game that ISNT coming for the Wii in the US now everyones up in arms (probably just those that dont have a Wii). Well everyone knew its a casual console, its missed out on many ‘hardcore games’ in its history, dont sound surprised now when it misses out again (just the US i know)
    
    The Wii U on the other hand is Nintendos way of changing the Wii into a more core gamer centric system and so far especially with the third party support that we know of, its a massive change from its predecessor.
    
    Dont paint both consoles with the same brush, lets see how things pan out for the Wii U before we start prophesying that the Wii U will be the Wii all over again.
    
    Finally this in terms of the Original Wii is a poor decision for Nintendo, lets hope its because Nintendo are concentrating on the Wii U to care about releasing a hardcore title for a casual console
    
    Reply
sarujin

June 30, 2011 at 1:03 pm

This is why I dislike Nintendo.

The other 2 may not be perfect, but they don’t flat out refuse to localise games, and region-lock everything.

Reply
1. Jimu, No speller fella.
  
  June 30, 2011 at 2:10 pm
  
  Since when?
  
  Last I checked my 360 was VERY region locked.
  
  Reply
  1. Lucas Brown
    
    June 30, 2011 at 7:37 pm
    
    Quite a few 360 games are region free!
    
    Reply
brokenlogic

June 30, 2011 at 1:28 pm

Will Australia be getting Xenoblade and the others? Since we’re a PAL region like Europe, who is getting it, we should get it right?

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1. Jamie What?
  
  June 30, 2011 at 1:57 pm
  
  I believe it’s been confirmed for an Australasian release.
  
  Probably cheaper to import though.
  
  Reply
Douglas

June 30, 2011 at 1:58 pm

After the MOTHER 3 fiasco, how could anyone really /not/ see this coming? It’s pretty clear that fan demand means nothing to Nintendo, or they have very strange ideas about it (see: did anyone actually /want/ a Kid Icarus sequel as they so insist they did?).

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Daniel

June 30, 2011 at 2:10 pm

Nintendo just doesn’t want any competition for when Skyward Sword comes out.

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Scott

June 30, 2011 at 2:33 pm

I’m sick of Americans only having the interest of Americans in mind. We should all be concerned with unlocalised games being localised for multiple regions.

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Powalen

June 30, 2011 at 3:52 pm

It sucks for those that want the game, but I think it’s fair enough if Nintendo doesn’t want to localise something that it thinks will not sell in America.

I might be wrong, but it just seems like it’s the vocal minority that actually would buy these types of games (as opposed to people complaining about a game that can’t be bought on principle).

Of course, I’m not encouraging this type of thing from Nintendo. Especially when there really aren’t many other games coming. But I imagine an RPG would be harder to localise than your regular game, and for not much reward.

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Craig

June 30, 2011 at 7:23 pm

oh, like they finally care about us?

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Allanon10101

June 30, 2011 at 8:07 pm

Yet another example of why it’s been 10 years and counting since I bought a Nintendo product

Reply
crb

June 30, 2011 at 11:18 pm

I think i’m losing faith…..
It may be a PS3 and Vita for me next, instead of a Wii U…

Reply
pyrojack

August 30, 2011 at 12:29 pm

i agree with alot of these comments. theyre only hurting themselves more in the long run of a nex gen console. no one is going to buy it because a game will come out that every one wants and they cant get it. Im a ps3 owner and if i find a game thats not in the states i can get it and play it since ps3 is region free

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Schprocky

September 2, 2011 at 4:23 pm

I wonder exactly how many ‘hard-core’ Ninty fans there are in the US.
A few might import NTSC-J (Japanese) consoles but even fewer import PAL Wiis.
If they were that keen to play games, then get console from different region, I say.
Probably too hard to figure out if they have a multi-sync TV or not…

I couldn’t play ExciteBots with my US mate so I bought a 2nd hand US Wii and ExciteBots new for a little over what it costs for a new PS3 title at RRP.

The PAL region is sooo missing out with ExciteBots: Trick Racing – beats the pants of Mario Kart.
Oh yeah, and the Japs have just got this in their region, btw.
http://club.nintendo.jp/present/P125/index.html

Reply

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Nintendo Of America Hears You, But You’re Still Not Getting Those Games You Want

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34 responses to “Nintendo Of America Hears You, But You’re Still Not Getting Those Games You Want”

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