America or Europe?

[david.dakota]

The debacle of Mario Party 8 has led me to consider exactly what Nintendo do for localisation. In the UK, we receive American English games - alongside 4 other languages (the translation of which consistently slows down the European release).

 

So, given that in the Uk we're usually happy to read our text in American Bastardised English, why don't Nintendo Europe allow a swift UK release, without any translation into Italian, French and whatever else.

[stuwii]

Because other europeans would NOT be happy

[Tellyn]

They never change English for European releases anyway, I spot loads of lazy Americanisms.

[GMC]

I posted about this on page 9 of the Mario Party 8 thread about an hour and a half ago. Basically my comments come down to:

 

a)this mess shows we do not get any localization

b)as a european country, we have to wait for all the languages to be ready, i accept that - but if we are waiting, why dont we get any effort put into english?

c)if they basically ship us the US version (with tacked on euro languages), why not cut us a break and just do a quickie pal conversion from a US master .. since that, in effect is what they do for the UK anyway

[DCK]

A British-only game would be freely distributable across Europe. Mainland shops will import from Britain to be ahead of competition. This'll cause confusion and annoyance among the mainland customers leading to fewer sales. Nintendo can't allow that.

[thirtynine.]

The thing is, something like trauma center is a piss take there is no reson we didnt get it last year. Essentially they should delay the US versions by a coupple of weeks so there are global releases. Or just have there games region free so we dont have to wait.

[blender]

I wonder if they translate

Japanese--> english ---> spanish--->portugese etc

or

Jap -->english -->others

or

Jap --->others

 

 

This must lead to some hilarious lost in translateion type errors.

Things like zelda are written so nicely that the meaning must change for coherence etc. SPASTIC

[Social]

These delays seriously make piracy more acceptable.

 

Take the new Harry Potter book. It comes out soon in English in all countries. So everyone can go out and buy the book and read it in English, if they don't want to read it in English, they have to wait. Simple as that.

 

Games should also have this.

 

The Irony in this is that a movie game like the latest Harry Potter game actually gets released worldwide pretty soon because most of those games aren't that good anyway but at least they make their release on time and worldwide!

 

Surely if those kind of games can be released on time, a game like Super Paper Mario shouldn't take until September 2007 to be released in Europe.

 

Delays like this make people download a game instead of buying it because of the long delay. I hope the Free Loader disc for Wii is still on the release list because then people can Import instead of having to use a modchip.

 

That's another issue, why does Europe get screwed in terms of pricing. Importing still beats any retail price I see around here.

[Eddage]

These delays seriously make piracy more acceptable.

 

Take the new Harry Potter book. It comes out soon in English in all countries. So everyone can go out and buy the book and read it in English, if they don't want to read it in English, they have to wait. Simple as that.

 

Games should also have this.

 

The Irony in this is that a movie game like the latest Harry Potter game actually gets released worldwide pretty soon because most of those games aren't that good anyway but at least they make their release on time and worldwide!

 

Surely if those kind of games can be released on time, a game like Super Paper Mario shouldn't take until September 2007 to be released in Europe.

 

Delays like this make people download a game instead of buying it because of the long delay. I hope the Free Loader disc for Wii is still on the release list because then people can Import instead of having to use a modchip.

 

That's another issue, why does Europe get screwed in terms of pricing. Importing still beats any retail price I see around here.

 

Now I'm not saying that the wait we've had for Super Paper Mario is acceptable but to be fair for games like the Paper Mario series it is more understandable. These games have a lot of jokes that simply wouldn't work in different cultures (American and English humour is quite different), therefore it isn't as simple as translating it word for word - the text has to be re worked so that those great little humorous moments are still appreciated.

 

That being said it still shouldn't take this long and I agree with the fact that we should get a pure English version release when the America's get it.

[Mikey]

Because other europeans would NOT be happy

 

Screw the rest of Europe, they hate us anyway.

[AshMat]

Because other europeans would NOT be happy

 

Fuck them, they don't speak english, we don't speak french, spanish, etc.

 

Why we have to wait for french in our games is beyond me.

[Cube]

Why we have to wait for french in our games is beyond me.

 

Isn't French already in there for Canada?

[Ren of Heavens]

There's really no excuse in todays globalized world. Almost all other companies release their games simultaneous in US and Europe.

 

btw, Mario Party 8 has yet to be released in Japan.

[Hellfire]

Japan.

I just read the title.

[conzer16]

I feel that if the translation into European languages delays the majority of games, then the least they can do is add the bloody "u" in colour, replace allthe ize's with ise's and change sidewalk to footpath etc...

[ShadowV7]

I'm gonna keep moaning about the whole localization thing and how we get treated like crap untill the freeloader comes out.

 

After that I won't give a damn and barely buy any game in Europe.Be so good if a fair amount done it and sales decreased,then I could laugh at NoE...

[The fish]

Isn't French already in there for Canada?

 

I was going to say this.

 

They should release the game, formatted for PAL, and colloquialisms removed/added, in the UK, Ireland, France, Andorra, Belgium, Luxembourg and Monaco at the same time as the North America release. They're isn't really a reason to not do so...

[Emasher]

they should at least use canadian english which is somewhere in between. For instance we spell colour C-O-L-O-U-R instead of C-O-L-O-R. But we pronounce "H" atech instead of hatech

[Guest Stefkov]

What about the Austrailian territory. What do they wait for?

It's pretty simple.

Either they release US games over here, with a tiny delay for shipping and whatever.

Or they translate it thoroughly.

Or they just translate it into proper English and US English at the same time. It can't be that hard to have 2 mini departments running at the same time translating it can it?

[Emasher]

But then there's the fact that its NoE that were talking about.

[The fish]

But we pronounce "H" atech instead of hatech

 

So do the English, if not the rest of the UK.

 

I once saw a person in the street tell her child "I brought you up to say your "hatechs" properly!

I could do nothing to stop myself laughing out loud...

 

I propose that all who pronounce "H" as "hatech" should be taken away and shot, or forced to play Halo 2 online against stupid little racist homophobic arrogant Septics for 24 hours strait, WITHOUT BEING ALLOWED TO MUTE THE HEADSET!

[Shino]

Lets be honest, there's no real reason for us to get game delayed this much if anything. It doesn't take 6 months to translate a game, no matter how many quirks it has. And anyway, they could try to translate the game during development while they test it. The real reason our games get delayed is tradition, we traditionally get our games late, and they don't even try to change it (at least not always).

[Teppo Holmqvist]

So, given that in the Uk we're usually happy to read our text in American Bastardised English, why don't Nintendo Europe allow a swift UK release, without any translation into Italian, French and whatever else.

 

I have heard from semi-official source that the distributors wouldn't like it at all. When Pokemon Crystal had come out in USA, some UK distributors bought it straight from the US, and started to offer it to retail chains and other countries wholesalers. Shitstorm that resulted was phenemoal, with some distributors threatening to boycot Nintendo. After all, it gave importer into extremely unfair edge in competition. In the end, Nintendo bludgeoned importing distributor to submission.

 

Lets be honest, there's no real reason for us to get game delayed this much if anything. It doesn't take 6 months to translate a game, no matter how many quirks it has.

 

Lets be honest, and say that you don't know what you are talking. You haven't ever done any translation jobs, and can't even speak other languages than your own mother tongue. That is some classic brittish arrogance right there.

 

Here at Finland most foreign books are translated to our language, and I know personally some top-class, respected translators. I also know personally how long it does to translate something so "simple" as Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix from english to finnish. And guess what? It took ten months, solid 8 hours per day. And something like Super Paper Mario has far more text, and lot more technical hurdles to overcome. In this light, NoE's localization efforts are incredibly fast and swift.

[Maiky-NiSuTe]

i own a US and European Wii for this reason.

[thirtynine.]

i own a US and European Wii for this reason.

This or a mod chip is the only way to play imports, freeloader wont exist i dont belive. people need to stop holding out for it.