The games some American Wii owners have been pleading with Nintendo to release in the United States are finally being translated to English and released… in Europe.
In a body blow as devastating to American Wii loyalists as the one the floored King Hippo, Nintendo of Europe announced today that they’ll follow up the European August release of role-playing game Xenoblade Chronicles with 2012 releases of action game Pandora’s Tower and acclaimed (from-the-father-of-Final-Fantasy) RPG The Last Story.
All three games were made and released in Japan. All three are thought to be pretty good. All three have not been released in America, despite fan pleas, petitions and a letter-writing campaign that involved sending meat to Nintendo of America headquarters.
Through the (northern) summer, Nintendo of America has responded to questions about releasing those games in the States where Wii games have run dry with a few variations on the “no plans“/”nothing to announce” answer. They’ve disappointed the unknown number of people who would actually buy these games.
Nintendo of America has long kept games off American soil for fear they wouldn’t sell. Perhaps their abacus and crystal ball are correct again and too few people would buy these games. In that case, Nintendo of America is being wise here, recognising that these games just aren’t good enough or cool enough for people outside of Japan, Europe and sometimes Australia. Nintendo of Europe might simply be a batch of fools or a crew that caters to an audience with different tastes.
On the other hand, if Nintendo of Europe is releasing them, that means they’re being translated into English. That means all NoA has to do is toss them in a few boxes, truck them out to a bunch of GameStops, buy a few banner ads, and — voila! — they get some inexpensive hits! Or they risk making Nintendo fans fume, and surely Nintendo of America doesn’t like to make Nintendo fans fume.
A spokesperson for Nintendo of America told Kotaku today that there is “no change in the status of those two games”, The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower, for America.
My fellow Americans, don’t fret. Perhaps we’ll get the Wii U earlier in 2012 than those lousy Europeans. If you’re super-hardcore and super-angry, you might want to figure out how to get European Wii discs to play in an American Wii.
Nintendo announces packed 2011 line-up of upcoming games [Official Nintendo UK site, via Joystiq]
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