We all know by now that Australia gets the short end of the stick when it comes to Nintendo releases. The country can wait up to a year after the North American release before getting a sniff of a new Wii or DS game. Frustrated gamers may be tempted to pirate these titles, but Nintendo, fresh off winning $1.5 million from one Aussie pirate, has claimed that piracy affects Australian release dates.
"Nintendo Australia is always pushing for games to be released here at the same time as the rest of the world, so we were pleased to get New Super Mario Bros. Wii before anyone else," explains Nintendo of Australia. "Unfortunately, due to to the actions of this individual, future release dates may be affected for Australia, which is disappointing for us."
Now, I fully understand that it must be insulting to have New Super Mario Bros. Wii ripped and uploaded in Australia when it was one of the few games to be released on time in the country, but I have to call bullsh*t on this statement. Nintendo has a long history of delaying Australian games while giving no justifiable reason for it. To retroactively try and shift the blame onto pirates is a bit of a pathetic move, in honesty.
Australian gamers are frustrated with Nintendo and its long history of shafting the territory. I don't think any smart Aussies are going to fall for Nintendo's buck-passing.
Nintendo Stomps Aussie Mario Pirate [GameSpot]
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Contest:
10:00 AM on 02.09.2010
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That's a bit ridiculous NoAu.
Hah, what a load of shit.
Mr. Iwata should treat the australians better. Everyone should treat Australia better.
Not only do we care so little about you that we delay all of our releases to your country, but we also believe you are effing morons who'll believe anything.
Love,
Nintendo
Its a business, so they want to make as much money as they can from said business. What, would you rather them just outright ban a million consoles like Microsoft does? If Nintendo did that, than you would never hear the end of the shit storm, that would undoubtedly come from it on blogs like this one.
-rape is BS, but hey it's not like rapist in other places don't do it too
-That guy shooting a kid is BS, but it's not like it doesn't happen in other parts of the world
AM I DOIN IT RITE?
They're not delaying games because a guy got caught pirating.
They're going to delay games because they want to and they don't give a crap for the aussies. That's the true and only reason why Nintendo is delaying games.
Thank god importing exists right? Or us, brazilians (games aren't even launched right here), wouldn't be able to play this fast, huh?
Nintendo released this game EARLY (as in BEFORE other territories) in Australia, and a guy immediately put it up online for download. Because it was released in such a small territory AHEAD of time, the amount of illegal copies downloaded all over the world SKYROCKETED.
In this stance, they are correct. They should NOT release FIRST in small territories because it creates the largest demand in populous territories for illegal copies of the game.
Why this is a stupid statement from Nintendo is because the BEST way to lower piracy is to make sure that ALL locations get the game in a similar time frame.
Just schedule worldwide releases for games (all within a week of each other) and you ensure that ALL locations are able to purchase the game LEGALLY at about the same time.
The whole delayed release thing has never made any sense to me. Companies are always spouting "Localisation takes time!" which is so much bullshit compared to the amount of time it takes to MAKE the damn game (RPGs and games with a lot of voice acting aside). Most games can be at least TRANSLATED in a few days by a single good translator. Any other programming decisions are, in general, incredibly minimal.
Culdcept DS was about 90% translated by a few fans in their spare time in about 2 weeks and that game has TONS of text! To tell me it would take any significant amount of time for a PROFESSIONAL translator running regular 8-hour days to finish a game is just plain bullshit.
Get you acts together, incorporate a day-one worldwide launch into your initial budget, and you will expose your game to the largest possible audience.
What you say makes complete sense. Nintendo makes business decisions based on their tangible hatred of Australians. It's in their company charter. It's executive policy coming down from the very top. That is not at all an irrational and silly sentiment.
Ah Microsoft, you may be a bunch of crooks but at least YOU can keep a decent release schedule.
I do kinda miss Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition though.