I don't want to admit it, either. But, fiscally speaking, has Reggie been making the right decision in passing up all of those cool-looking Japan-published Nintendo games? The responsible decision? I mean, Sin & Punishment 2 bombed, right? Did ANY of us think it would succeed? Would Captain Rainbow? Would Zangeki No Reginleiv or The Last Window or Jam With the Band or Tingle? Or even Soma Bringer or Mother 3 or a Nintendo-published Tales of Graces/Hearts? Will FlingSmash sell, even at a discounted price? NoE has been localizing a lot more games than NoA, and it seems to have resulted in an unending series of flops.

Or is that just perception? What examples can we think of? I know Jam With the Band flopped hard in Europe. Sin & Punishment 2 seems to have flopped here, and there were a LOT of copies of Rhythm Tengoku and Style Savvy on the shelf at Best Buy. Starfy actually did pretty well in the US, but the seems like an obvious gimme - a Nintendo-published platformer. The first Endless Ocean was a pretty successful game, I think, and Nintendo bundled the second with a peripheral. I'm not sure how it did. I guess Wario Land Shake It did fairly well here, as well. Excitebots bombed like your moms, but if they didn't publish it here, it wouldn't have been published ANYWHERE. And WHY did they fund the game, if they weren't going to market it? Puzzling! Then again, they did bundle it with a Wii Wheel, which could be seen as a huge push, after the gonzo success of Mario Kart.

That's just a small sampling of the data I'm familiar with, off the top of my head. But here's another important question: Does Nintendo owe us those games, anyway, as loyal fans? Can you think of a way to fiscally rationalize the localization of niche games by such a high-stakes publisher? I think letting a smaller company (who will be satisfied with smaller numbers) publish the more niche games is a perfect solution. There was already some precedent for this last gen, with Atlus publishing Cubivore and Polarium Advance. Has Nintendo cooled on the idea, or have companies like Atlus? I can't imagine that they (or companies like them) wouldn't jump at the opportunity to localize some of this stuff. If Nintendo is actively cockblocking other publishers, in addition to refusing to localize the games they have control over (including Japanese third-party deals like Fatal Frame), then that is just inexcusable and, just, irrational. They could offload all the risk of building the brand to other publishers, and capitalize on any success by publishing the follow-ups themselves. Seems kind of win-win. I really wish more interviewers would directly grill Reggie about this matter. Or even Iwata. He must have known that certain games would never take the world by storm. Why did he green-light them in the first place?

This is kind of disorganized, and I was going to write more, but I'll throw the floor to you guys. What do you think about the whole situation? From your own perspective and from Nintendo's. How can everybody be happy?

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Simbabbad said:

Again, there are many examples where religion was the main factor of a conflict and there wasn't any other reason

You mean actual battles/wars? I don't think it is possible to say this for sure. Most have several reasons, many we may never know about.

Anyway, I see your point. I kind of like the chaotic system like weather thing. That's more what I was trying to say. Without Hitler we may not have seen World War 2 and the Holocaust, but we'll still see other storms, and maybe you have a year here with crazy storms and a year here without them, but in the long run storms aren't going anywhere and it's semi-predictable as to how many will occur over a large period of time.

Mind you, I'm not saying World War 2 doesn't matter, of course it does. Everything that affects people matters.

@anandxxx That's what I've been saying, Nintendo didn't really do anything different with the Wii than they have been doing from the start, and I'm not even sure if I think their surprise games this year beat out New Super Mario Brothers Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Metroid Other M all debuting at last year's E3. What they did do, however, was present themselves differently, which made a world of a difference. Having a hot new handheld to show off didn't hurt either, since people sort of tend to judge Nintendo as a whole when it comes to E3.

Yeah and I hate all of you fuckers.

POINT PROVEN.

PS. EVERYONE IS BANNED.

@Simbabbad I wish Nintendo of America would make an ad like that.

Miyamoto does play games at least some of the time. I recall reading an interview with him where he discussed the Mother series, and said how he beat the original Mother using a debug version of the game, but beat Mother 2 all on his own, and how much he appreciated the game's storytelling and stuff.

That's a big statement, considering his barely concealed disdain for most RPGs.

I wonder how Miyamoto feels about the Mario RPGs?

Considering Nintendo has a ton of money and can afford to take risks, no, Reggie hasn't been right about not localizing niche games. They don't have to print them in large numbers, nor do they even have to sell to retailers at all. Amazon is big enough to take care of distribution for them.

Niche games are niche. You can't expect them to sell well.

Yes, I agree, that's why I said what I said. I don't think Reggie is right in negating the localization of some of these titles purely due to financial reasons. Many of them could generate enough sales to break even given the right push. The best thing though, is that it can help redeem Nintendo's image somewhat in the eyes of the hardcore demographic somewhat. I know Nintendo is a business and ultimately they're in it to make money but I wish they would take a page out of Atlus and cater to its niche fanbase a bit more.

I'm just really happy they localized Sin & Punishment 2: Star Successor. I never even played the original, and the Wii game is among my games of the year.

sigh.

I don't get business, at all. It's all hocus pocus to me.

I suppose a reason why a game that would turn a small profit, but a profit nonetheless, would be that it somehow devalues Nintendo's shares. Or something. Investors would rather have Nintendo focus on bringing out more Marios.

I think it's worthwhile to localize some niche games. Maybe not all, but with out taking risks Pokemon wouldn't be the juggernaut it is today.