Teppo Holmqvist

Says the guy who thinks the Golden Sun is the apex of JRPGs... P.S. I'm quite fascinated how the most annoying and stupidiest trolls always also write poorest english, even if they are native speakers.

You people haven't probably noticed word Bandai on the front of Namco. That number naturally contains also all titles that Bandai makes.

I'm not forgetting that they are first party games, but you simply claimed that only party games sell on Wii. And what comes to 3rd parties, are you surprised that hastily crapped ports didn't sell well? It really shows that you are little bit out of touch with current situation, when you use FPSs as example of games that didn't sell to japanese consumers. No big surprise, as FPS never sell in japan. For example, Ps2 version of Call of Duty 2 moved magnificient 1 500 copies on PS2, and king of them all, Halo 2 moved 11 000 copies. And further prove about 3rd party titles selling is that One Piece Unlimited did sell its whole print run in one day, and Namco-Bandai is currently desperately trying to get it back to print. You are simply repeating same stuff that was said about DS userbase and 3rd party sales two years ago.

It just looks pretty much same as coin-op. Graphically it isn't anything special, but it is fun game overall.

Kick-ass! PS2's Rygar was damn good game and had wonderful soundtrack. It's so great to see this franchise resurrected.

Well, previous installments have sold over million copies on PSX / PS2 on japan alone. It is very important title for Square-Enix even if it doesn't feature generic 16-years old emo swordsman with mysterious past, blonde shirtless guy, and beautiful healer gal who is shy and fells with love with aforementioned generic 16-year old swordsman.

It's nice to see that we still have people who are intentionally ignoring sales charts, and bringing NeoGaf retard logic on the table. Super Paper Mario has sold 320 000 copies in two weeks, meaning that so far 14 percent of Wii's japanese user base has bought the game. Zelda has been bought by 22 percent of japanese Wii users. For comparsion, normal Square-Enix games barely reaches 5 percent attach ratio on their respective platforms. These are goddamn high attach ratios that tell serious games do sell well on Wii so long as they are quality attempts. But hey, Zelda and SPM are party games AM I RITE?!?

Sure, that's main reason why PS2 and DS (weakest consoles of their respective generations) have got majority of S-E's support. But anyways.. I don't find current situation surprising at all, because nobody excepted Wii to dominate like it does. Both FFXII and Last Remnant are projects that were clearly started long time ago*, and you just don't switch platform on the fly on this big projects. There is obviously few projects going for Wii too, but it does take long time before these are on the stage where they can be shown. S-E does have lots of faith on Wii, because otherwise they wouldn't have announced two exclusive, high profile projects even before Wii started to gain true hype. * I'm guessing that both projects started over 12 months ago

Well, at least Wii's GPU is physically twice bigger than overclocked / shrunk Cube's GPU should be, and it has also far more transistors, which means it isn't simply overclocked Flipper like certain people want us to believe (simple overclocking wouldn't add thousands of transistors or double size).

Curren focus is obviously on DS games (just look Q2 release list), because Nintendo is finally on position where it can take control of Germany, Spain, French and Italy. DS is dominating charts on those regions, and it just needs few good titles to solidify this position. In addition that incredible DS sales will also improve Wii's imago*, it will wear competition down. Money that customers use to DS games is mostly away from Sony and Microsoft, and will support eventual Wii domination. * Console from makers of DS.

Well, in Japan, TP sold 480 000 copies, and Super Paper Mario has sold 380 000 copies in two weeks. In USA, most games that have been "serious" attempts and not published by THQ have breached barrier of 200 000 sold copies. Those are very good numbers for installed userbase. "Serious" games do sell on Wii, no matter what certain circles hope.

Nintendo of Australia says that the game is coming out 5th of July. But if Jeux's date is correct, it is released on Europe only 24 days later than in USA.

Let me explain this once again. Nearly all games that originate from japan are first translated to english, and after english version is done, translation for other languages starts. Why? There is three equally good reasons for this behaviour: 1) There no enough European people who would know japanese, meet other requirements for localizers, and be interested about localizing games (pay is weak if compared to other similar jobs). You need to understand the language, grammar, structure and be able to actually code, and efficiently use various programming tools that Nintendo's teams use. For example, do you know many guys who speak japanese fluently, have at least bachelors degree in computer science, love videogames, and are willing to work for 2000 euros per month? 2) When japanese version is translated to english, US localization team is usually forced to do changes to actual code, because original code has fixed length for paragraphs, and if your translation is longer than the fixed length, you need to adjust code. Here is good and relatively simple example from my own Kid Icarus english-to-finnish translation: Original english paragraph "MAY I HELP YOU?+ WE HAVE EVERYTHING. 35 characters Finnish translation "KUINKA VOIN AUTTAA TEITÄ?+ MEILLÄ ON KAIKKEA." 44 characters + = Means break in the text. Without doing any changes to code, my translation would be restricted to maximum length of 35 characters, resulting in some extremely wonky dialog. That's actually reason why old NES games had some bizarre dialog. When localizers translated text, they were forced to work on same character lengths that original writers had used. They couldn't add more size to game, because bigger cartridges would have been too expensive to manufacture. These days situation isn't really that much better. Japanese can fit their dialog in much smaller space than in english, and localizers need adjust code to make their translations fit. And even this isn't always possible, because in menus, for example, there literally isn't room for long words. In these cases, you must replace words with icons, use abbreviations*, or do something *really* creative. When European localization starts, you get even more problems, because all four additional European languages are little bit different structure- and grammar wise. Here is one classic example: English: You got 2 sword(s) Sounds simple right? Plural is always same when you are speaking english, but unfortunately, there is 16 different possible plural endings in FIGS. Once again code must be changed to meet European needs, and after source code has been changed, European localizers must also debug whole script again. This is because there is always risk that changes to code make game function incorrectly, change how script deals with breaks, etc. US localization team can't do European changes to code, because they don't know FIGS languages well enough. And anyone who has done relatively big software projects knows that two, complete seperate and different teams trying to adjust source code at same time results in catastrophe sooner or later. Probably sooner. 3) Unlike anyone else in the business, Nintendo has always over 30 localization projects under work at same time. In addition of Wii games, there is DS games, and Nintendo of Europe also localizes Square-Enix's DS / GBA games, that nearly always fall into < 1000 A4s category. Lots of work, and there is definitely limit how many games team can take at same time. All these things, when put together, are responsible that localization process takes long time.

There was retail list going around the net, and according to that list, we are going to see new controller colours* at the end of July. Retail list are usually quite dependable, but Nintendo hasn't confirmed (or denied) anything at all. * If I remember correctly, new colours were pink, blue and silver.

Didn't SEGA just few weeks ago buy rights for Moto GP?

Heh. But seriously, localizing something so text heavy as Super Paper Mario is tedious process. Just be glad that NoE is localizing it instead of Konami or Atlus.

* me gives Owen over 2000 A4s worth of text, and excepts him to translate it to four different languages under three months without any kind of drop in quality. And re-code text script. And debug the text so it won't contain any bugs. *

Time for reality check. TP has already sold over 4 million copies worldwide. That's extremely well considering that Wii has userbase of 6.7 million, and Gamecube is practically dead system. For comparison, Oblivion has so far sold 1.6 million copies, Final Fantasy XII 5 million units, Wind Waker 4.6, and Ocarina of Time 7.6. When Wii's userbase grows, TP is eventually going pass every of aformentioned titles that it hasn't passed yet.

Certain people in this thread are fucking overreacting, twisting his words, taking them out of context, and making some rather stupid claims that have nothing to do with reality. That's bloody annoying and nobody should tolerate crap like that. Except that RPG market isn't bigger than before, because sales show exact opposite. Sure there is more titles on the European market, but this is mostly because companies have understood that they need to scrape sales from every possible region. Nippon Ichi / Atlus games rarely sell more than 40 000 copies in Europe.

Nintendo of Australia has announced that Mario Party 7's PAL-version will hit to the shelves on 5th of July. Not too bad considering that it is only 38 days after NTSC-release.

* /me slaps Funktion with something heavy and blunt *

Final Fantasy is exception to rule, nothing else, and even FF has faced huge drop during last six years (FFXII sold 600 000 less than FFX in japan). In the west*, there has been only seven* JRPGs that were able to sell over 500 000 copies** during last six years. * Yes, and I truly mean combined sales of both Europe and USA. ** Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XII, Dragon Quest VIII, Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts II and Tales of Symphonia.

Once again Pit-JR demonstrates his skill of taking stuff out its context to push his own agenda: - How saying that certain outsourced games didn't turn out so well as they could have is insulting 3rd parties? And are you actually defending Star Fox Assault, Star Fox Adventure and GBA's F-Zeros? - If you haven't grasped it, they aren't so important as before no matter so called "hardcore*" wants to believe. Worldwide sales numbers clearly show this, and numbers don't lie. In fact, there was only 7 JRPGs that were able to sell over 500 000 copies in the west (yes, Europe and USA combined) during last home console generation. - Well, according to sales Nintendo has exactly given what public wants. Of course, it is hard for you to grasp that world doesn't revolve around you or your friends. * Hardcore meaning this case wannabe posers, whose idea of being hardcore is playing FPS's and GTA clones, and having HD-TV.

Blame Concentera, not Nintendo. Furthermore, most people probably didn't know this, but Nintendo has pretty much started dominate continential Europe. During last week, there was 10 Nintendo console titles in Germany's TOP-10, 7 in France, 8 in Spain, and even UK had 4. Times are indeed changing.

Yeah, sales numbers do put TP already over Wind Wanker.