Burny

New Japanese Trailer: Shows off quiet a bit. They've used normal maps on lots of textures and water surfaces really look good.

As I tried to imply in the part you quoted: Yes, Atlus had to do a second print run.

Absolutely! Matching colors and all.

Release: September 2nd Nice... (That red CC Pro goes well with the red Wii Play Motion Wiimote!)

Now I understand. After "sending out review copies", I omitted "selling the game", as that seemed too obvious.

It's probably hard to effectively advertise an inherently Japanese home console RPG that's not Final Fantasy to a mass audience, if it suffers from piss poor texture quality (due to the game's scope and the platform it's on) in any case. Viewed up close, Xenoblade isn't a looker. That's why they shouldn't bother with expensive ads and rely on review copies. Favorable reviews are nothing but pure advertising (half the point of gaming media is, really) and are guaranteed to reach the enthusiasts. Those are the people who are after Xenoblade, not the soccer moms. Trailers on their homepage, press releases and youtube videos hardly cost them anything and will reach the same audience. In this day and age, they're the most effective means to advertise niche games. You cannot tell me that this doesn't work. Ever heard of Radiant Historia? Atlus didn't have to do a second print run because the game bombed. And Xenoblade easily plays in a different ball park. Heck, with people in the US campaigning for the game, it's currently getting free advertising from fans. Even in Japan, Xenoblade, Pandora's Tower and The Last Story climbed in Amazon rankings in the last two days, probably due to the campaign.

There is no excuse for that. :p It does matter very much if we're talking about an international release, because MS did not do it again. It's kind of hard to ask Nintendo to do something, that somebody else didn't consider successful enough in order to repeat it.

How much is "a hell of a lot", when all they theoretically have to do, is kindly ask NoE for their translation, pay the ERSB for rating the game, do a limited print run and send out review copies? If there's not some disproportional money sink hidden in there somewhere, they would have to sell like no copy at all in order to actually lose money. It's not like anyone is asking them to run Super Bowl ads.

Waiting a couple of months for a big game to release? The humility! I don't see this as an issue as long as the game releases. It would be nice if all games released at the same time globally, but most already do. I don't even count a month or two as meaningful difference here. We're flooded with great games these days when all platforms are taken into account. There is always something else to play. And there is no point in crying after obscure stuff. Captain Rainbow and Zangeki no Reginleiv - seriously? You could scare the average western gamer up a tree with Captain Rainbow and Zangeki no Reginleiv could not even be called critically acclaimed in Japan (Famitsu: 8/7/7/6). If someone is this attached to Japanese games and has the time to play them, actually learning Japanese and importing a Japanese system + games should not be out of question. Lost Odyssey? Very bad example. Checking who the publisher was explains instantly why the game was released in all territories within a short timeframe: Microsoft Game Studios. They likely did not do this out of generosity, but because they wanted to conquer the JRPG market and one up Sony. The result: Mistwalker's next project was published (and probably funded) by Nintendo. That should tell a great deal about how successful their cooperation with Microsoft was. The reason why some games are brought over, even if they're ultra-niche at best and some stay in Japan, seems to be caused largely by the desire to please shareholders and by Nintendo Japan mandating some releases due to deals. Reading Neogaf you sometimes find very interesting posts: 1 2. Tingle, Disaster, Excitebots, Sin & Punishment 2 all turned out to be niche games. In the short term, Nintendo likely has more to lose than to win by bringing them over. The things that really irk me are high profile games that are already translated and released for either Europe or the US, but not brought over to the other territory. In this case it's pretty much only Xenoblade and The Last Story, which both seem unlikely to get a US release at this point. JRPGs are more of a niche nowadays, but those two games are still high profile titles. Overall it's a very unfortunate situation where people are unlikely to get all the games they want, if they're interested in more niche things. Removing region locking would remove the issue for gamers entirely. I've yet to hear an explanation for the benefits region locking offers Nintendo, but they're unlikely to do it just in order to spit into their customer's soup. It's time someone started to squeeze the actual reasoning behind it out of Iwata. I don't buy age restriction regulations. US copies of games aren't sold in European shops and vice versa. That only applies for things like the eShop which have to work with parental controls. We shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that removing region locking and starting to release every niche game globally is going to do Nintendo much good though. If they lose money on such games even the contrary will be the case. And with the WiiU it's going to make even less of a difference. They're after the Assassin's Creeds, the Mass Effects, the Call of Duties and the Battlefields. When they succeed in getting such extremely high profile titles on their system, some obscure Japanese titles are even less likely to see releases in the West.

If my memory serves me right, yes.

If we eventually get "The Last Story" that should show that NoE does actually care. I don't know what they expect in sales and if the translation they're doing for Xenoblade will pay off. But it's sure nice to know at least one RPG I care about is coming to the Wii. ^^ Amazon.com still has Xenoblade listed as "Monado". If US gamers really want the game, they might as well preorder it:

Do something new and unexpected!

You might think that's cool, but what you describe is just like every other braindead hack'n'slash game. Minus the control-the-army part, but that's what strategy games are for. :p

Nintendo Japan and Nintendo of Europe do. NoA? Not so much it seems. At least not enough to announce anything at E3 Edit: There is a new video showing off some locations btw.

The definition of which type of game suits a handheld and which suits a big screen is probably as non-existent as the definition of a "hardcore" and a "casual" gamer. But I'm in the same boat as Cube: things like Uncharted, I'd want to play on the TV with a controller.

So, I guess you don't like Starcraft 2. Don't know why, but somehow I get the impression... :p I also understand you have never played Starcraft 2 long enough to realize that's very, very far from the truth. Amassing units works as badly or as well as in CoH. Ooooook... Seriously, I stopped frequenting the official Relic forums a long time ago. But from what I can vividly remember what drove most discussions, their balancing was a complete and utter mess. Even to the point where they had bugs that completely broke the balance. It seemed worse for DoW, but CoH wasn't free of such problems. It didn't help, that Relic took ages to release patches, that seemed to mess up more than they fixed. It wasn't helpful either to introduce new factions that screwed up the balance every year. Though that was admittedly more of a DoW problem, as CoH only ever had 2 factions added in the first add on iirc. That said, at the price you can get CoH for today, it can't hurt to play it. It definitely has a lot of "omph".

Or instead, they might start to bring out the games. Rebranding isn't an option at this point imo. Rebranding the DS line is wasted money - it's too late for that. Rebranding the 3DS is even more wasted money - the required effort would be colossal after 3DS has been mostly established as a brand - weak as it is atm - and would only confuse uninformed consumers more than they are now. That money should be put towards making games. A "rebranding" of sorts might occur however: When the first revision is introduced. If they've build a library of games until then, some 3DSXL or whatever they come up with could reinvigorate the market somewhat, if only by getting them into the media a bit more. Without system selling games however, none of the things you suggest would help the 3DS as a brand with its current problems.

Pray that Nintendo pulls their heads out and patches some use for the friend list into the firmware.

Why "no doubt"? Didn't Phantom Hourglass even start out as a Four Swords kind of game? They think all the time what they'll do with Zelda and their franchises. Heck, they even said the visual style of Skyward Sword was changed to what it is now during the development. And going by Iwata Asks, Motion+ integration wasn't a no brainer either. I'm not sure they'll just continue with the templates for Phantom Hourgalss and Spirit Tracks. Those games were showcases for the DS' features. If anything, they'll want to show off the 3D as a feature and the slider now.

To be fair, most things up there fell into the "SWIMMINGPOOL CREAMING DESIRES" category.

That was to be expected though. Won't improve much over time either, even if - for some reason - the 3DS sales would skyrocket tomorrow. If they can't port their high profile games, they won't bother to build up first class dev teams specifically for handheld development. Nintendo will have to drive the sales with their own games again and I'm sure with Mario Kart and Mario at least they are capable of doing so. I don't know if the Vita's price will hurt the 3DS directly. It will make sure that people, who weren't much into handheld gaming during the DS generation but got swayed a bit when the 3DS promised console level experiences, will stay clear of it now. What I'm really looking forward to with the 3DS, is when they introduce GBA games to the VC (they surely cannot not do this?) and what kind of download games will appear on the shop. It looks like the first time Nintendo has a competent online shop up and running.

As long as you won't have to turn the bloody wind every time you go somewhere...

I'm sure you're all a great help for BodyCount. Although one could argue that he should be able to decide on his own by now. Choze pretty much summed up how the Playstation is superior to everything else out there. I'm just somewhat confused he forgot to mention that it cures cancer. That should be a major selling point, no? @BodyCount If you want to play games now, especially multiplayer, multiplatform games, get the cheapest thing you can find. That's probably the 360. Even new Slim models are dirt cheap for what they offer (party chat, all multiplatform games). If you want more unique exclusives, don't mind a less convenient online system and are willing to spend a bit more, get the PS3. As it's a Blu-Ray player, you'll probably still be using it in ten years. Don't wait for the WiiU. It's out next May at the earliest and nothing should stop you from still getting one a year later or so, if you still want one then.

You shouldn't really consider the development time as an indication for the quality. It has been started over from scratch about three or four times in those 14(!) years. It was an utter mess. And it's not Gearbox's fault that the game is what it is either, I'd say. There were a lot of leaked design documents and early footage after 3D Realms closed and they seemed like the game was pretty far along and contained scenes that are in the finished game. It looks like Gearbox simply tied up the loose knots and released the game. If anything they can be blamed for cashing in on the game's name. But so long as there are people enjoying it, I don't see the problem.

That means you'll be arguing about the Zelda timeline and which is the best Zelda then?