Regular readers of Destructoid will know my long-standing complaints concerning the farcical period between Super Smash Bros. Brawl's North American and European/Australian release dates. Despite a range of excuses, Nintendo has finally settled on a reason -- translation is just too difficult.
"Every time you go through localization you then have to put it through a test, which involves making sure that you recorded the proper voice, and that the proper voice is being activated with the proper trigger, at the proper time… so it’s not just a case of swapping over some words, it requires some proper extra development processes. And so it takes time."
Nintendo's Laurent Fischer explained the above process was the reason why Brawl was taking so long, despite the fact that it takes most Japanese developers about a month to do (rather than Nintendo's six) and despite the fact that most studios can handle near-worldwide release dates these days. Games like GTA IV and MGS4 must simply be easier to localize than Smash Bros. It all makes sense now!
"I realize that from time to time we have still been disappointing some people, but in general we have also been able to bring to them games which would have never been available before in a European market, and the time frame is slowly decreasing, so I’m positive for the future. We know that we are still not reaching the expectations of all the people, but we’re really doing our best to resolve this."
Which would be fair enough, except in this day and age, when nearly every developer but Nintendo can seem to handle the localization process, claiming it takes six months just makes the company look bad. If Nintendo wants to look like it can't handle international publishing as well as its competitors, though, that's cool.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
11:32 AM on 05.19.2008
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They would have been available before if you released them in a timely manner.
I guess I can't complain since I've got here in the states already but that seems pretty ridiculous. Also, aside from the additional characters and the slight graphical update, Melee is better than Brawl anyway.
so apparently Nintendo just don't feel like releasing it earlier...or from what I understand. Cause that didn't get any belives.
nintendo was off to a mediocore start, super paper mario didn't take this long to get its PAL release did it? i guess after that fiasco, they're making sure all the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted.
just the sounds when they are hurt.
besides the only translation needed are the menus...
so i don't get this argument from nintendo
"Show me your moves, cunt"
And Nintendo's "excuse" is just pathetic......
Nope it isn't out until the end of next month (27th June)
Is GTA IV out in Japan in Japanese or do stores just import it?
It seems all Nintendo says nowadays is "blah blah bullshit excuse blah"
FUCK YOU, NINTENDO! FUCK YOU!
FUCK YOU, NINTENDO! FUCK YOU!
*I posted this comment before, where the hell did it go?*
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*Wipes of tear* Good one.
Did some europeans kick them in the crotch when they were young or something? Has a frenchman been peein in their cerial?!
Fuck em they lost atleast one sale of brawl for me (not that it matters thanks to those casual cunts who will buy enough despite the wait). There is nthing we can do but post on Indie Gaming sites about how much of a big CUNT they all are in the vein hope one will look feel ashamed and right this wrong.
More likely if they do see this they'll just cackle and jump in the money pile with the other exects and four hookers apiece...
Why aren't they fixing that??
Sakurai: Congrats team, it was a hell of a release, now lets go home
employee: uh, sir? what about the european release
Sakurai: Euro-what? oh right that... uh, err... ok, um ya, why don't you get right on that. Ok, everyone else, let's get outta here.
(lights go out and employee is left alone)
Employeer: ...
We got Wii Fit first though... Shame it looks about as exciting as solitary confinement.
*Goes to sleep ranting*
Plus, you're money is actually worth something. I went to London last year, and you know how much a hamburger cost in American dollars?
$20.
STOP BITCHING, YOU LUCKY LIMEY BASTARDS.
If they could get their games out within a few weeks, I'm sure they would have a lot more people wanting to buy them. As it is, they sell poorly 6 months after the hype and online experience has died, and it reinforces their idea that it's not worth it.
Fuck you Nintendo.
oh well. At this point, people either have it with a modded system or just don't care about this shit.
Maybe Translating to French/German etc does.
timeframe is decreasing?
he must not be living in Europe... Cause it sure feels like its getting longer and longer...
So, enough of the complaining. If you UK fuckers used the same English as the US, then we wouldn't have this problem.
Based on what? How much text and dialog? Are you talking about an adventure game, or what?
I've done localization for applications, and I can tell you that it is either easy or a nightmare, depending on your implementation. Did you use encoding marks? If not, it'll be a nightmare. Did you use a dictionary instead of lookup tables? If not, it'll be a nightmare. Did you at least allow for multiple plurals? Don't even get me started on that one.
The problem is, as usual, the developers just made a game with English and Japanese in mind, and did not plan for anything else. Perhaps a company that makes games in multiple languages should have a localization staff that trains developers before they start a project. You'd be surprised how far along projects are before they call in the specialists, especially for UI design.
Either that, or they are just fishing for excuses, which is more than likely.