Seems like a weak excuse to me.

It seems like gamers of Europe should demand a unified language.  Certainly, getting your games earlier is worth such a changes.

Nintendo doesn't exactly seem to be cranking out games at a huge rate.  Sounds like a total bullsh!t excuse to me.  Somehow other companies aren't so inept.

Do they legally have to release each game in multiple languages?  Couldn't they just crank out a quick PAL version using the American translation and release it in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and then just let the rest of Europe either buy the English language version or wait it out for a translation.

This is the same excuse they cranked out a few years ago.

It took NOE 5 months to localize Super Paper Mario and little "errors" like color made their way into the game. Now how can Brawl, a game with largely no text, somehow have a date of "2008" while the rest of the world already (at the time) had confirmed dates in December 2007?

No text?  There are over 500 trophies, each with a half screen of text that needs to be translated to umpteen languages.  I can't remember if the stickers have text descriptions, but if they do that's another 500+ descriptions that need to be translated a half dozen times each.

I honestly question why translation isn't done concurrently with development. Would it really be that hard for the people who write the text to work with the people who do all of the translations?

copy, babblefish, paste, click, copy, paste i could've done it myself in like 2 seconds

That reason doesn't hold water because we got Mario Galaxy (which was text intensive) only 4 days later.

Translating concurrently would mean that NOE would need to be proactive. How is that possible?

Mario Galaxy has to have a lot less text than Brawl. The only thing about Galaxy is that you're more likely to read it.

NOE is only slightly more effectual than Aussie Nintendo.  Aussies have an excuse, it's hard not to fall off the bottom of the planet.

We have one too! 60 Degrees Farenheit (20c) and half the country run around semi-or-practically naked for 12 hours a time to "get some sun", happy that our 4 days of summer (for all of 2008) has arrived.

No wonder NOE gets so much work done.

Nintendo - learn to prioritize.

An easier solution for the next generation is to simply release the same American NTSC console in to all english speaking territories. US, NZ, AUS, UK Canada, all under the same banner. Non english countries will have to wait anyway and you can't buy a TV that can't interpret NTSC in PAL areas. If you have a TV that can't use NTSC that TV has to be at least 20 years old.

I also don't care whether it is North American english, english english, or just plain bad english. It's all english. I don't care whether it is spelt center or centre. Although I would like my measurements in metric, I think I can live. Hey wait, the Japanese use metric.  :o >:( :o

But that would make NAL redundant. REDUNDANT!

I have NAL to thank for setting up a Wii Fit demo at a shopping centre today and making me laugh at a guy fall over attempting to snowboard. It was even funnier than seeing a real snowboarder fall over.

Exactly. They set the precedent with NTSC Metroid Prime 2 on GameCube and I thought that would usher in a new age of negligible delays. Yet they've managed to go backwards.

This is exactly why I stopped buying PAL systems!

How long does it take to translate the text in Brawl? - Not that much
How long does it take to re-record all the voice samples in Brawl? - Well seeing as only a handful of characters actually speak...not that long!!

Halo 3 had over 10,000 voice samples and that got a worldwide release.

No excuses.

But can that be explained in an idiot-proof way? Nintendo doesn't want to deal with people sending consoles in for repairs because they didn't read the system requirements on a box that is usually devoid of them.

This is the company who thought that HDTVs didn't have enough penetration to bother supporting them; they seem to expect people to be playing with their Wii on ancient TVs...

Also, if the same English translation was released everywhere, you could end up with more crap like the "spastic" incident in Mario Party 8.

Aren't there EU laws that would make this more difficult?

Being the next door neighbours to the most influencial country in the world, us Canadians have adapted pretty well with American English spellings and the imperial system and such.  We pretty much have to know two slight variations of everything.  90% of the books I read spell it "honor" because they're American and the spell checker wants it spelled that way but if I write that in any paper for school I'm expected to spell it "honour".  We have to deal with kilometres and miles, kilograms and pounds, Fahrenheit and Celcius.  Animal Crossing in Canada had Independence Day instead of Canada Day.  But it's no big deal.  So I agree that English is English.  If Canada can constantly deal with balancing our own culture and the similar but different culture of another country I would hope that all other English speaking countries could deal with it as well.

At the same time if a game originated in the UK I would not care if it used British English or even British slang.

I dub this thread "The Official Cultural Imperialism Thread"

Right, like translation is really that easy and 100% fool proof and has no grammatical errors whatsoever. Oh, and the term LOCALIZATION is an oxymoron. In no effort is there to make sure theres no offensive content to certain races or demographics during that process.

I thought that was the case some time ago. That there was some law or something passed that all the languages had to be represented or something. My memory is kind of vague on this.

That said, there is a little bit of Nintendo having problems with their European division. At least they've improved in certain aspects (Like they actually have some Virtual Console games that US gamers really want)

I could go for more engrish games.

Voice samples? Since when does NoE translate voices? Sure, there were one or two announcer changes in SSBM for the names of the Pokemon (which change in each country as they're pun based) but that doesn't constitute a full dubbing. The only Nintendo game with translated voice acting I've ever seen was Doshin The Giant.

Also nice to see thatz Nintendo puts SSBB at the bottom of their priorities list.

Oi cockneh bruv pand a taters fer a pand?

I was thinking more like "lorry" for "truck", "football" for "soccer", "chips" for "fries" and "crisps" for "chips". In exchange for that everyone has to refer to a knitted cap as a tuque and use the term "runners" to describe athletic shoes. ;)

pants are trousers

underwear are pants

yeah, you just nailed the only flaw in Doctor Who, I don't understand a lot of what they are saying even though it is supposed to be English. After watching four seasons of the show I am beginning to catch on though.

Just remember, an elevator is called a lift, a mile is called a kilometer, and botulism is called steak and kidney pie.

and chips are fries, that first episode when Rose and Mickey were eating fries and calling them chips I was so lost until the next time they were eating fries and calling them chips again, the lift I got right off the bat that was kinda a no brainer, but sometimes they say things that make no sense and cuz of their thick accents I can't figure out what they said to look it up. But as time goes on I started to get it more.


The movie I still have trouble with is the hole, there are times in that film I just give up and let them babble on.

To be fair, Nintendo isn't heavy on voice acting in general. About the only internally-developed game I can name off the top of my head with heavy voice acting is Starfox 64 (though I haven't played Command or Assault).

Did they really give a pass to translating those voices? How about Rare's various Nintendo-published games with voices, like Perfect Dark or (IIRC) Starfox Adventures?

Metroid Prime 3 may not have had a ton of dialogue, but as far as I can tell every line was spoken.

I'm not sure. It happened for MP2 so I'd say no. The LoZ Collector's Disc was also 480i 60Hz only.

Do we still have multiple languages in Europe?

Could be--I haven't picked it up yet, seeing as how I have yet to beat #1 much less #2. ;)

1.4 miles is a kilometre, but that's a nitpick ;)

There's another one, we refer to a season as series.

We could be here until the end of time.

The "urban term" for trainers seems to be "creps" these days.

And all of it was subtitled in the translated versions.

All other major publishers do translate the voice acting (and without long delays). Get a game by Ubisoft, EA or Sony and you get translated voice acting. On the PC pretty much all games are translated.

I'm from the colonies and I don't know what the hell you're on about. I reckognised "cockney bother" in there and possibly "potato" but the rest looks like jibberish.

That's why I often watch the show with closed captions turned on.  I can usually get the meaning from context once I have some idea what words they're actually saying.  Thankfully, later companions of the Doctor have been easier to understand than Rose.

I've picked up on that, but what do you call what we call a series?

"and chips are fries, that first episode when Rose and Mickey were eating fries and calling them chips I was so lost until the next time they were eating fries and calling them chips again"

Fun fact: my Dad, despite being born in Canada and being the son of parents also born in Canada always referred to fries as chips.  I call them chips when I'm having fish 'n chips but otherwise I call them fries.  Until elementary school though I didn't even know what potato chips were.  My parents never ate them so I didn't know they existed.  So "chips" was always the term for fries.  Then in kindergarten suddenly everyone is eating these flat things called chips and referring to chips as fries.  Thanks for f*cking me up Dad by being the only Canadian born person to use English terms for everything.  He order stuff "to go" as "take away" as well.

FREEDOM FRIES

FREEDOM DIP

Is there a reason you all haven't picked a language yet?  It's been two days already!

Pand meaning pound. A pound of potatoes for a pound? It's what they say at the local markets (or something similar, but equally silly).

I CHOOSE PIE.

Nothing, specifically. Usually announcers say it's the final series ever ever ever to emphasise a series (as a whole) is ending.

I don't know, Martha was pretty easy to understand, but the new one, what's her nbam, damn we're already into 8 episodes with her and I still forget her name, anyways she is impossible to understand.


I just started watching the original William Hartnell shows and for some reason those older episodes are a lot easier to understand, their accents aren't as heavy and their dialog sounds more, normal.

Donna Noble, husband to Doctor Noble.

Back in the 60s and 70s, the BBC required their actors to use what's known as Received Pronunciation. In recent years, they've let up, allowing actors to use different/their own accents.

I see, that makes sense, thanks.

What? A mile is longer than a km. Pretty sure it's 1.6km to the mile.

Yep, might want to check your measurements Plugz.

What makes no sense to me is that NOE doesn't even make games. There is the rare exception for NOA, but NOE has nothing. There shouldn't be any employees there other than corporate heads and translators. They have no excuse to not get Nintendo's own games out quicker.

So, Europe... how's that "one unified language" thing going?

MAKE ENLISH THE OFICAL LANGUEGE

Really, any choice but English or Japanese would still involve big delays because even if it's just one language Nintendo doesn't care enough to translate again into pig-Latin or whatever you choose at any good speed.

We'll go with a majority vote. Müssen wir nur noch die Franzosen platt machen und das hat sich.

OOPS.

They can't translate what they aren't given to translate, though. If NCL doesn't give them any assets...

I doubt NCL tells NOE "no you can't have that, we'll give it to you months after the US release".

Sounds illogical and arrogant enough for Nintendo to do it. ;)

You'd think that Nintendo would want to treat Europe well considering the huge markup in prices over there, they most likely make more money per game in Europe than in America or Japan.

It's not a huge markup. It's subsidy money! We subsidise YOU.

Oh well, i managed to get Geometry Wars Wii for £5 new, so its not that hard if you don't wander into GAME and buy GTA IV for £45/$90.

Be happy, GTA4 is 70 Euros here, that's 110 dollars. So much for the UK getting shafted. Gerometry Wars Wii is down to 20 Euros but still not five pounds.

Just out of curiosity, how much of that is tax?

Tax is 19% on top of the base price so 17.5 US dollars (11 Euros) out of the 110 (70), base price 92.5 USD (59 EUR). Well, at least in Germany, in the UK its 17.5% tax IIRC.

Wow. I know the extra translation/debugging costs some money, but I sure as hell doubt it's worth an 80% markup!

I assume that your DS carts are manufactured in Japan, same as North American ones. Where are your Wii games made, though? (At least with ours, it says on the back, usually right by the UPC.) If they have to ship them in from elsewhere, that could explain some of that...

I also wonder what percentage your retailers are making on games. IIRC, in the US they only have about a 10% margin on games; are European retailers making more money, closer to the 40-50% margin other industries (like bookstores) see in the US?

19%??! http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3212/2301963458_5ed8d33f27_o.gif

To be fair, that example was an Xbox 360 game so it's more of a 50% markup. Last gen games went for 60 Euros, this gen about half the Wii games are 50 (79$, including 12.5$ tax) the other half 60 (95$, including 15$ tax). DS games are 40 Euros (63$, including 10$ tax) for the full price ones, 30 Euros (47$, 7.5$ tax) for the budget ones (the ones that are announced as 20$ in the US AFAIK).

I know they assemble the Wii boxes in Europe so if they ship something it's probably just the discs which really shouldn't cost much. "Made in Japan".

Margins are most likely tiny if we go by the likelyhood of store-initiated pricedrops (near zero), some stores charge up to 5 Euros less per game and some go up to 3 Euros over the MSRP (up to 5 for Wii points cards which are never below 20 Euros and frequently above). We never get things like those "buy two, get one free" deals I hear about in the Amazing Deals thread. Getting a blanket discount of 20% on all videogames is close to a miracle (I've seen it as very short time promotions that ran 2-3 days and once for a store that was going out of business). Non-PC games are less likely to go into the bargain bin and especially games for Nintendo systems almost never drop in price (with a few exceptions you usually see these stay at full price until they disappear). I'd wager that as a result strongly budget limited but not well informed customers (e.g. kids) will get a disproportionate amount of crap on Nintendo systems (the first bargain bin titles on the Wii were Barnyard and Spongebob IIRC).

Same thing happens with Nintendo's games here; third parties usually end up dropping prices eventually, though.

All I can say is, I don't envy European consumers; I'm willing to put up with being hated by the rest of the world if it means I get twice as much game for my money. ;)