Topic: Kokuga Not Available in Canada

[TalesOfFan]

Nintendo of Canada says Kokuga cannot be sold in Canada in its current state.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/34804

Kokuga, the latest game from the director of Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun, Hiroshi Iuchi, is currently not available in Canada and likely won't be in its current state.

Kokuga launched on the North American 3DS eShop on June 27; however, 3DS owners living in Canada quickly noticed the top-down shooter’s absence from the eShop in their country.

According to developer, G.Rev, they “were informed very late in the preparation process that the game would not be able to be sold there as is.”

G.Rev was unable to give any information as to the reason Kokuga does not meet the requirements to be sold in Canada, but they did ensure that they would be looking into their options in hopes of bringing the game to Canada in the future.

[Enner]

This is really strange. I hope this situation clears up soon; the game looks cool.

[negative_zero]

Does anyone even live in Canada?  Just that Guillaume guy.

[christapo]

So I guess I won't be getting this... Sigh.  Is it just based on your IP address, or the location you specified when creating your account?  I'm guessing I couldn't even go across the border and buy it. 

[ejamer]

Ah, the beauty of digital content. (And, presumably, of stupid language laws in Canada.)


I was quite interested in this game... but maybe this is a sign that my backlog needs more loving. Maybe it'll come out later. Until then, back to Luigi's Mansion on the good old GameCube!

[Shaymin]

Does anyone even live in Canada?  Just that Guillaume guy.

-_-

Between this and Black Rock Shooter, I am really wondering what the hell is going on.
Thanks, Harper.

[Caliban]

It might be what ejamer mentioned. Some language requirement is the most likely cause, but I thought it was only for Quebec.

[the asylum]

Hi, actual Canadian here. Almost zero of our game releases have French option outside of Quebec. It's our packaging that has to be bilingual across the nation.

It makes zero sense but that's Quebec for you.

[ejamer]

Hi, actual Canadian here. Almost zero of our game releases have French option outside of Quebec. It's our packaging that has to be bilingual across the nation.

It makes zero sense but that's Quebec for you.

This is why it doesn't make sense - there is no packaging, right?  But the in-game manuals for my other eShop purchases are all available in French and what else could it be?  Maybe they only did English/Spanish translations without realizing that Canada needs French as well.


If this is the only roadblock then hopefully it can be fixed pretty quickly.

[ejamer]

... other eShop purchases are all available in French ...

I take it back. The initial random selection were all available in French, but there are actually many eShop titles that aren't. Details below:

• 3D Classics: Kid Icarus - English, Espanol
• 3D Classics: TwinBee - English, Espanol
• Animal Crossing New Leaf - English, Espanol, Francais
• Bit.Trip Saga - English
• Colors 3D - English, Espanol, Francais, Portugues
• Crimson Shroud - English, Francais
• Fluidity - English, Espanol
• escapeVektor - English
• FreakyForms - English, Espanol
• Gunman Clive - English
• Liberation Maiden - English, Francais
• Marvel Pinball 3D - English, Espanol, Francais
• Mighty Switch Force - English
• Resident Evil Mercenaries 3D - English, Espanol
• Pushmo - English, Espanol
• Pyramids - English, Espanol, Francais
• Rising Board - English, Espanol, Francais
• VVVVVV - English
• Zen Pinball 3D - English, Espanol

If manual requirements are what's blocking release, they must be a relatively new requirement for eShop titles since manuals for many older games (including Nintendo-published titles as recent as Fluidity) aren't available in all languages.

[Bman87301]

But isn't that still easy enough to bypass by just changing your country setting?

[Shaymin]

You'd also need a US credit or eShop card to buy it. The US store doesn't take international credit cards and the eShop cards are Canada only.

[Ian Sane]

This brings up another point in favour of physical media that I had never thought of before.  In previous generations if a game wasn't available in Canada I could just hop over the border to get it or have it mailed to me.  There was never any regional lockout between the US and Canada so if you could get ahold of a physical copy of the game, you had it.

This better not be the start of trend and if some government restriction is responsible it needs to be changed.  There is no good reason to jerk us Canadians around after decades of getting the same games as the Americans.