Have you ever had one of those dreams where you think you've already woken up?

You know the ones. You wake up, get out of bed, get dressed, head off to school, college, or work, and get on with your day quite happily, before suddenly waking up again and realizing that none of it has actually happened, except in your mind. And on top of that, you've usually slept straight through your alarm and are now going to be late for wherever you thought you already were. 

Today is a lot like that for me. You see it's finally been announced that Elite Beat Agents is coming to Europe on July the 13th, and frankly, I'd long since forgotten it wasn't already out. It's not that I'm not used to this sort of thing you understand. I've lived here for 26 years, so I'm fully au fait with the continent being seen as the hungry dog under the dinner table; not a real guest at the party at all, but okay to throw scraps to every so often. 

It's just that with EBA we're talking about an eight month delay, for a game which I've already played three versions of since this year began, including its originator's official sequel. And which they've already had in Japanese stores for months, meaning that everyone in the world has already completed it several times over. The kind of double-take I made when reminded that the release date is still over a month away hasn't been seen since the heyday of Looney Tunes. 

Odds of Ouendan 2 not getting a European iteration when EBA inexplicably doesn't sell to everyone who's already got it? Place bets now!

[Via Kotaku]

Legacy Comments (will be imported soon)

CannibalCalvin

Wait... it still hasn't come out yet?

Why the hell does it take so long for Europe to get new games?

Mabec

Becouse there is so many retards who needs it in spanish, french, german and so on.

David Houghton

Strangely, I'm not even sure if that's always the case. Some games do come with multiple language options, but I've seen many more that only come with a multilingual instruction manual and a general "EUR" stamp on the cart.

Any of our mainland Europe readers know any different?

Ndizi

Who even bothers with european DS games nowadays?

David Houghton

This is the problem Nintendo and the third parties are landing themselves in. The longer they delay an importable game, the less likely it is to sell when it's eventually officially released. You'd think it'd teach them, but they usually just miss the point and decide that the game in question mustn't have been right for that market.

The most famous example if Secret Of Mana taking a full year and an independent magazine campaign (God bless you Super Play) to make the journey. After the lacklustre European sales (and a strange coincidental spike in the adaptor market), Nintendo shied away from releasing RPGs in the EU until Sony got hold of Final Fantasy

Mabec

WTF David? Är du svensk??

Ndizi

Nintendos release dates haven't made any sense at all lately. Why did we get Wii play like half a year before the US while half of the american launch lineup still isn't released here? And now with Super Mario Strikers I'm just confused.

I agree with you 100% Houghton. We europeans get on the same hype train as the americans do sadly it stops sometimes even a year before the game is released over here. You just don't care anymore after that period of time.

Joe Burling

I srsly love EBA... I might even consider ass to mouth...

Wodkaredbubu

@Mabec

"Becouse there is so many retards who needs it in spanish, french, german and so on."

In fact many European gamers would love to get the games in English or at least wouldn`t mind if there is no translation. But it`s the same with TV shows and movies: broadcast stations decide to translate them and most times ruin the show just because they might get a bigger audience with the translation. That`s retarded. In the Netherlands e.g. they don`t seem to translate any stuff at all, just subtitles, which is way better.

Simon

Didn't the gamecube version of Animal crossing take two years or so to get over here ? and yeah Nintendo's releases make no sense , as for all the language stuff It could be something to do with Nintendo's random ass triangle colour code thing, I think it's like Green for all Europe and their is pink, yellow and brown as well if I remember right, it could just be that the games in the UK aren't the right versions with different languages, then again I could be quite wrong.

Cell9song

that goddamned J-pop song "Melody" from the Japanese version still sticks in my head every so ofetn...

Rosseh

I wonder if they realise how well connected the markets are now. Aren't there supposed to be research people who find these things out?
I hate being part of the EU. Stoopid other languages

Ndizi

If it takes them a year to translate the game they better do a better job. I'm so tired spotting five billions typos and mistakes the same fucking day I buy the game.

David Houghton

"that goddamned J-pop song "Melody" from the Japanese version still sticks in my head every so often..."

RINDA, RINDA! RINDA, RINDA, RINDAAA!!!

Best song ever. Fact.

Fana7ic

The Game industry hates Europe (especially German Gamers are fucked for not getting Games like gears, but that´s another story.) That´s why we get Games so late.

Tempus

@Houghton

That's not Linda but good effort. True fact, that is the best song ever and I regularly find myself going "do bu ne zu mi, mi tai ni..." etc :D Sexy times.

David Houghton

I know it's not the same song. But Cell9song's comment gave me an excuse to go

RINDA, RINDA! RINDA, RINDA, RINDAAA!!!

So I did.

lowercaseluke

@ Gemsi

lol I remember the Animal Crossing petition. That was a fuckabout, but we got it in the end ^.^

Aaron Mxy Yost

Suck it Frenchies! YEE-HAW!!! *puts on cowboy hat and rides off into the sunset*

3r0t1c n3rd

aperrently this is what all Game companies, not just Sony think.