Topic: RE:Animal Crossing and e-Reader to Australia

[NewsBot]

...just in time for Animal Crossing 2!  Ha ha.  Also, Nintendo Australia's release schedule for the rest of the year.

Nintendo Australia today confirmed that Animal Crossing would be coming to Australia.  Here's the official word from Nintendo:

Nintendo Australia is pleased to confirm the October 2003 release of the anticipated Nintendo GameCube title Animal Crossing*.  

Australian consumers will also see the simultaneous launch of the Card e-Reader* in October 2003.

Further information on the launch of Animal Crossing and Card e-Reader in Australia will be available in the coming weeks.

In addition to this, NAL sent me their release list for the rest of the year.  Here are the release dates for upcoming games and hardware:

Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance SP Flame - 19th September 2003

Game Boy Advance SP All Blacks - 9th September 2003
[Exclusive to Target & Myer/Grace Bros in Australia]

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance - 19th September 2003

Pokémon Pinball Ruby & Sapphire   - 26th September 2003

Card e-Reader - October 2003

Super Mario Advance 4 - October 2003

Top Gear Rally - November 2003

Mario & Luigi - November 2003

Sword of Mana - December 2003

Nintendo GameCube
Soul Calibur II - September 2003

F-Zero GX - October 2003

Animal Crossing - October 2003

Mario Kart: Double Dash - November 2003

Pikmin 2 - November 2003

Mario Party 5 - December 2003

The All Blacks are a New Zealand Rugby team, so presumably, the Game Boy Advance SP will be a limited edition for the All Blacks.

[Mario]

Mario Kart in November? So.... we dont get it first? Oh well, Animal Crossing! YAY!

Thank you Nintendo Australia.

[PIAC]

ill give you haha *shakes fist at rudebot*

but yay this is awsome!

[Bill Aurion]

All I can say is it's about freakin' time!  Now our Aussie friends can have some fun playing with Ninty's twist on the sim genre. ^_^

[Plugabugz]

One down, one to go: Are you listening Nintendo Europe?

[JB]

Europe still doesn't get AC, even though the market for the game over here would be bigger than the market down-under. Why does Nintendo suddenly want to localize each and every game for a few European languages? We never got any translations of  games in the past, not even those with a high amount of text. Then there is also the fact that the games aren't translated into every European language. The only languages NOE translates the into Italian, German, French and Spanish(the games don't even get "translated" to UK-English, we only get the American-English version). Why is it then, that NOE deems it necessary to delay games in the UK, Ireland and all the other non-Italian/German/French/Spanish-speaking countries for translations that would not matter to most of the target audience in those countries anyway? If NOE's bad treatment of Europe continues, I might feel forced to import the N5 instead of getting a PAL-one.

Luckily enough, I already own an imported version of AC. Thank you Datel!!!!!!  

[vroenis]

far too little, far too late.
what is with all of these top line titles comming out almost under a year out from a new console?
i really don't see translation as an excuse.  it should be something that is budgetted for and organised during the production of the game to keep worldwide launches as close together as possible.  it's going to get done anyway, so why not start early?
i don't think nintendo have enough respect for the markets outside of japan and the u.s. - sure, in australia we don't have the potential to be a big consumer power, but if they had their act together, there would have been more console units sold here.
nintendo need to understand that x-box and ps2 releases in australia while ridiculously out-numbering gc releases, are timed a whole lot better.  it's all well and good for nintendo to say that they prefer to have fewer, better titles, and the fact that they aren't in the race to be number one in the market-place but are happy to have their own unique fan-base, but pull the finger out - it's time to start being more aggressive.
if the next gen console isn't played-out right here in aus, i'm changing consoles - simply to play more games sooner.  far far sooner.

[PIAC]

i wont change consoles, unless one of the others offers me what nintendo cant, ill just be annoyed to be fair, for what ever reason or not we ARE getting rebel strike, final fantasy, mario kart and sonic heros first..

[Plugabugz]

While Europe gets everything you have said, last.

[JB]

At the moment I'm expecting Mario Kart and The Twin Snakes to be delayed until at least May in Europe because of NOE translating the games. Chrystal Chronicles? I think that's a game we should be getting around next July in Europe.

[Plugabugz]

Mario Kart appears to be set for release in the UK in November.
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles says December. I thought this was delayed until at least February?
The Twin Snakes simply isn't listed.

Starcraft: Ghost and Mario Golf both say TBD.

Source: http://www.nintendo-europe.com/NOE/en/GB/games/coming_soon.jsp

[JB]

Quote
Originally posted by: Plugabugz
Mario Kart appears to be set for release in the UK in November.
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles says December. I thought this was delayed until at least February?
The Twin Snakes simply isn't listed.

Starcraft: Ghost and Mario Golf both say TBD.

Source: http://www.nintendo-europe.com/NOE/en/GB/games/coming_soon.jsp

I don't trust anything that is listed on that page anymore. Metroid Prime was listed as being released in December of 2002, but we didn't get the game until March of 2003!

Strangely enough most third parties are able to release games in Europe almost at the same time as they are released in the United States.

[Bemathkata]

I dont trust anything on Nintendo's website. Nintendo of Australia still has Phantasy Star Online as TBA even though its been out and I've had a locally purchased copy for at least 6months.

[PIAC]

i wish i had PSO :\ stupid hard to get games, i did score a copy of skies of arcadia though, 1 of like 10 in the country -__-

[JB]

Where I live PSO is easy to find, it's just the BB-adapter that is impossible to get.

[PIAC]

BBand adapter isn't out in australia i dont think, or the NBand adapter, so that turns PSO into PSOff

i still want it

[JB]

I've just found out the David Gosen, managing director of Nintendo of Europe, has admitted to not playing any games at all!!!!! No wonder he doesn't have any idea about what the European gamers want!

[vroenis]

JB - if you go to play-asia, you can import a japanese BB adapter for around $80, plus $10 shipping - serious, it's about the same price as what it's going to cost if and when it ever comes out here anyway, just yours will have japanese text on it - a mate and i are thinking of getting them when more games that support it come out.
also you can import platinum controllers (any controllers really) at two bucks cheaper than what controllers cost in stores here!
and where the hell can i get skies of arcadia in melbourne???

[PIAC]

you can get it in aiai's house, skies has sold out in australia after its incredibly tiny shipment, and they have discontinued it allready, they only had enough to cover preorders i think -__-

[JB]

Thanks for the tip vroeins! As it turns out, there is a shop near the university I go to that actually sells the broadband adapter, and they're not even imported! Now I just need a reason to actually buy one of those things......

[vroenis]

i hear ya.  i'm willing to go all out, get the BB adapter, a vga converter (play-asia - also does all things not prog scan ; ) and a nice 15" tft for laning... except...
no
lan
goddamnit.  i think i'm going to drop a thread somewhere to whinge about lan - all the hardware support is there, but it just isn't happening.

[RABicle]

Nintendo dont translat their games into all languages because, simply because they dont directly distribute to eastern europe. Eastern Europe all speak Russian anyway (horrible sterotype I know), requiring a completly new character set. I'm willing to bet that there is definatly a scandinavian version of games too seeing as Sweden and Denmark are too of their biggest european markets (Mario has his own street in Sweden) and you western europpeans simply dont know about them.

[JB]

RABicle, I wasn't talking about eastern Europe, I was talking about western Europe(There are countries in western Europe where French, English, German and Spanish are not the official languages). I live in the Netherlands and there are no Dutch translations of ANY Nintendo games(some Electronic Arts games are translated into Dutch). There are many more languages that are left out in a similar fashion.
What Nintendo of Europe does is take the English language version of the games and add a menu option for choosing the language(English, German, Spanish and French are the only options) and then release this version all accross the continent.
The biggest problem Nintendo of Europe has it that the games are being released 6+ months after the internet hype is over. A lot of my friends saw Eternal Darkness on the internet around the time of the US release and said they thought it looked cool and that they wanted to buy the game, but by the time the game was released(5 month later) they had already forgotten about it.
Most X-Box, PS2 and third-party GameCube games have less than a month in between the American and European releases, so why can't Nintendo do the same??