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.
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"but in general we have also been able to bring to them games which would have never been available before in a European market"
They would have been available before if you released them in a timely manner.
In all honesty, I'm long past caring how long this thing is delayed. Just get it out already.
But, most of SSBB is just grunts and squeaks....
That's a lame excuse. If nintendo were running their company in a vaguely modern way then their QA team should have a group of Localisation testers, one for each language needed, to test all the language changes. Something that would only take each one a matter of days. also they would have access to the text files on the disc to check spelling and grammar is correct. Localisation is done from quite early on in the QA process so there's no excuse for nintendo unless they have literally could not be arsed to pay for a loacalisation team.
I still don't get it. I don't recall their being any voice acting other than grunts, with the exception of the guy going "READY... GO!"
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.
Excuses, excuses... all completely shit. Damn you Nintendo, damn you to hell.
Blablabla general Nintendo bullshit. Wake me when they release a game with a good story worldwide.
Are there places that sell import versions of games? Or is that more of a online thing? What are the laws about purchases from other regions, or are there any?
that sense make no.
so apparently Nintendo just don't feel like releasing it earlier...or from what I understand. Cause that didn't get any belives.
I gotta say, it's not really worth all this trouble. Brawl is a tuned down version of Melee, with strange features to make up for a lowered difficulty. The story mode is really dumb, especially the last level, and the wifi play is pretty laggy.
i heard the word 'spaz' was used in ssbb. so yeah, happy waiting :)
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.
do the smash bros games even have voice acting?
just the sounds when they are hurt.
besides the only translation needed are the menus...
so i don't get this argument from nintendo
Jesus Nintendo, if you are going to make up some completely BS reason, at least put some effort in.
I didn't know it was so hard to add an extra U to some words.
Calm down guys. You don't even realize how hard it is to get a hold of all the voice actors again so they can say "wanker" and "cunt"
"Show me your moves, cunt"
You guys still don't have Brawl?
Im glad they sorted that out. And I tought they were just being slow for no apparent reason.
Bully Bully Bullshit.
I really dont care about this release anymore. I was so hyped about it when it was released in the other territories, but now I just dont care :(
And Nintendo's "excuse" is just pathetic......
@Mxyzptlk:
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"
Allow me to translate Nintendo's reasons: "FUCK Europe!"
I think this just proves that Nintendo of Europe is really inefficient at translating and putting out games. Don't take this as a fanboyish comment, but I highly doubt Nintendo would like to delay a big money maker like Brawl from the February/March release dates other territories got, when there was tons of hype to sell more copies of the game. It just reeks of them not having enough resources. In which case, I would tell them to get more resources, but I'm sure that they're saving money for themselves somewhere along the way.
Wow, translating all the menus must be hard as shit.
FUCK YOU, NINTENDO! FUCK YOU!
Wow, translating all the menus must be tough as shit.
FUCK YOU, NINTENDO! FUCK YOU!
*I posted this comment before, where the hell did it go?*
Wow! Now that they say it, it just seems so obvious! I can't believe it's coming out in Europe this year even. What, with all of the voice-acting that's contained within the SubSpace Emissary. That's a lot of translating!
Why are we still talking about this?
I kinda missed the option to change the language to Japanese in Brawl, that was awesome in Melee because of all the little changes it made. With all the stuff filling the two layers of the DVD though, I guess that had to go.
"and the time frame is slowly decreasing"
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*Wipes of tear* Good one.
Oh god, I've reached the point now where I couldnt care less about this game after having to wait so f*cking long for it.
@ Necros
As someone who has worked on translating and subtitling DVDs, I can tell you that their reasoning is absolute horseshit. Any decent translation team coupled with QA testers (and really, there shouldn't be much of any QA needed for this, as the code is already all there and working) should have this finished up in no time. Not to mention, they knew they were going to release worldwide from the beginning, so they had a huge head-start.
I'm a long-time Nintendo fan but I'm getting really fed up with this kind of dishonesty. When they are being honest, they're being irrational. They make some great games, but there's always some ass-backwards Nintendo bullshit limitation or mucked up "feature" that ruins some aspect of the game for me. More than either of the other two console companies, it seems like the people making the big decisions at Nintendo do not play games themselves and are out of touch. That might be why they do so well with hitherto non-gamers.
I did not read the post, therefore I don't know the excuse they gave because I don't care, the delay was unacceptable and Nintendo can go f*** themselves.
What I don't get is, how come we managed to get Mario Galaxy at the same time, which has more sound in it? I've got SSBB right here, and there's barely any voices in it at all, there's a few taunts that have sound, otherwise, no voices, at all.
How the hell have we offended them for god sake!
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...
I've played the game in Europe using a freeloader and I understand it perfectly, English is a universal language.
So...they want to make Link grunt in an English accent? Who would even notice? They should just leave all the english dialogue (god knows theres tons of it) in and just translate the menus.
But will the online actually work for you guys? Nah, it won't.
Why aren't they fixing that??
I guess they mixed up the Pokemons names...
Falcon Poinçon!
Super Smash Bros Fisticuffs is going to rock europe
the day after Brawl's american release:
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: ...
Europe? Where's that?
"Every time you go through localisation you have to (explanation of localisation process) and thats why it takes us fifty times longer to localise our games for European than everyone else"
We got Wii Fit first though... Shame it looks about as exciting as solitary confinement.
Simple. Release brawl in english speaking countries at same time then do bloody "european, lets all speak different languages" Why the hell should aussies and brits have to wait for something that america gets we speak the same language! (about 95% anyway).
*Goes to sleep ranting*
Europe got WiiFit, Mario Kart Wii, and now Dr Mario Wii before the USA did.
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.
I'll believe that they intend to improve when I see it.
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.
Adding and checking all of those U's takes time, guys. Valuable time that Reggie and the gang could better use rolling around in money.
Oh crap, I forgot that Brawl wasn't out in Europe.
oh well. At this point, people either have it with a modded system or just don't care about this shit.
hahaha, Translating english to english takes 6 months?
Maybe Translating to French/German etc does.
Wait, What?
timeframe is decreasing?
he must not be living in Europe... Cause it sure feels like its getting longer and longer...
surprising nobody's mentioned rock band yet, since us here in australia are probably getting it a full year late by the looks of it.
Oy vey yourself. I told you before that it takes at least three months to localize a title from English to UK English, or vice versa. And those three months are for shitty sports titles that barely have text. A longer, text heavy title will have almost double the localization time -- which is about six months.
So, enough of the complaining. If you UK fuckers used the same English as the US, then we wouldn't have this problem.
*Dyson: "I told you before that it takes at least three months to localize a title from English to UK English, or vice versa."
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.
somethings never change games for the n64 were also delayed for the european market
Dyson: It doesn't take six months. It also is no real excuse when smaller dev studios than Nintendo can manage to release games in Europe less than a month after the US in many cases now.
Nintendo is simply worse at localization than Capcom and Konami if it's so much harder for them to do it.
ahhh... I see the problem: "Localization Test" isn't English, it's Japanese for "GTFO Europe". Easy mistake.
Clearly, adding the U in "Color" is extremely taxing for Nintendo UK.
As is the daunting task of changing the Region code number on the source code (or whatever passes for the "To the presses" code) to "2" (or, again, whatever passes for the EUR code).
As is the daunting task of finding every roboteching european video game player who has been waiting for this roboteching game for god knows how long and shoving thier (questionable nonexistant) american mandibles into our hineys.
Every time a european says no, they have to bump the date up by a week.
have to bump up the date by a week
Why bother translating US English to UK English anyway, it's not like they don't understand. It's still english
Dyson* "So, enough of the complaining. If you UK fuckers used the same English as the US, then we wouldn't have this problem. "
Someone obviously doesnt understand where americans got their chewed-up spit out english from... yeh its vice versa if the prisoners and refugees etc shipped from UK never changed the god dam language we wouldnt have this problem. Lazy fuckers.
Brawl is never being released in Europe, it was a April fools joke.
I hope you guys imported the game like I did, or else u guys are in for a sour treat.
Europe rocks, Nintendo of Europe sucks bad ass.
Who cares anyway? We got GTAIV all over the world.
@Toffy
Oh goody, the same game we've played three times before with a shitty online component and even worse driving.
I don't meen to be a pissant but that's not much of a consolation prize for anyone.
Might as well say "But it's ok, we have AIDS" or something.
Meh. I just don't care anymore.
Before the US release, I used to be super-excited about the game. Afterwards, I was constantly thinking of importing the NTSC version. However, seeing how Nintendo is trying to "deal with the Freeloader problem", I've just become apathetic. Thanks for that, Nintendo.
That's not to say the Wii's useless, though. Besides, I'm sure Brawl's a great game. Maybe I'll buy it some day in the future from a bargain bin.
Brawl is actually just a hoax perpetuated via the internet. It's not actually a real game. That's why Europe hasn't got it yet.
I agree with the general sentiment here - the long wait for games like SSBB results in me being interessted in other things when the game finally arrives. The same thing happened with Pokémon Battle Revolution: I clocked up about 350 hours on Diamond, and if the game had arrived at the peak of my Poké frenzy, I'd have played the shit out of it. As it is, I never even bought PBR- it had ceased to be relevant by the time the game arrived in europe.
I understand that the problem is that so many different languages are spoken in Europe, but most games seem to only have a few languages on offer in the first place - say, English, Spanish, German and French - so that doesn't seem like a plausible excuse for such a long delay, especially in games which are much less speech-heavy than, as you say Jim, the likes MGS4 and GTAIV.
The wait for DVD movies to come from the US to Europe is rarely more than 2 or 3 months -at most- these days, and they usually get translated into about 20 languages, and are obviously very heavy on dialogue, and require the same kind of synch issues which Nintendo is talking about.
It just doesn't quite wash as an excuse, but st least they're starting to acknowledge that we Europeans may be justified in moaning sbout them.