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Hey, do you remember how Europe's trade-off for having to wait a possible six months for Super Smash Bros. Brawl was the fact that we'd be getting Mario Kart Wii early? Well, think again, because despite the fact that Brawl is way more anticipated than Mario Kart (as confirmed by Reggie himself), it's been revealed that Europe only gets the game sixteen days ahead of America. This of course means that in just over two weeks, America will have both games, and the PAL territories will still be stuck waiting for a still unannounced Brawl release. I'd like to know exactly what Nintendo's problem is, but then again, I guess it's not worth begrudging my American friends a game with "let's race!" speech bubbles in place of actual online voice chat and a stupid plastic wheel in place of something interesting. Oh wait, sorry, I forgot that the prevailing attitude is to be grateful every time Nintendo so much as looks in your general direction. Right, sorry, just had to have a little moment there. It's not that I'm bitter or anything over the way Nintendo likes to take a huge steaming dump over its European market every other week. It's not that I'm bloody sick of it on principle alone. What's that thing writers have? Oh yeah, professional integrity, I have a job to do -- Mario Kart Wii is released in America on April 27 and the full press release is after the jump, we are all super excited. There. Job done. Nintendo Speeds Into Spring With Mario Kart Wii
Hotly Anticipated Racing Game Includes Innovative Wii Wheel
REDMOND, Wash., March 12 /PRNewswire/ -- This year, the typical signs of
spring will be accompanied by the sweet sound of revving engines and the sight
of lightning-fast shells whizzing around every corner. Mario Kart(R) Wii is
zooming toward its launch in the United States on April 27. The game comes
with the intuitive Wii Wheel(TM), which makes it easy for novices to compete
against veterans, so no one is left in the dust. And with a broadband hookup
to Nintendo(R) Wi-Fi Connection, players can compete with up to 11 other
drivers from around the world for racing dominance.
"Mario Kart Wii transforms one of our most popular franchises into a race
that every member of the family can join," said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of
America's executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. "Driving with the Wii
Wheel could not be more natural, and this is one place where speeding is
encouraged."
Mario Kart Wii will include 16 new courses and 16 classic courses from
previous Mario Kart games. For the first time ever, players have the option of
racing with either karts or motorbikes. Players can also hit the road as their
personalized Mii(TM) caricatures in addition to the handful of classic
Nintendo characters found in the game. True to the series, the game features
tons of racing, plenty of power-ups and oodles of objects for players to use
to slow down other drivers. And 10 battle arenas will keep players busy
between trips around the circuit.
The easy-to-use Wii Wheel will also be sold as a separate accessory,
giving every driver in the household a chance to get behind his or her own
wheel. And if veteran Mario Kart fans are afraid of getting smoked by rookie
drivers using the Wii Wheel, they can rest assured that Nintendo has them
covered. Mario Kart Wii supports four different control options: Wii
Remote(TM) with or without the Wii Wheel, Wii Remote and Nunchuk(TM)
controller combo, Classic Controller and even the Nintendo GameCube(TM)
controller. So there's bound to be a configuration that fits everyone's style.
Mario Kart Wii launches with a new channel added to the Wii Menu to
enhance game play: The Mario Kart Wii Channel. This new channel builds on the
huge online community of Wii owners and lets players compete in tournaments,
check worldwide rankings, see when their friends are playing and download
ghost data.
Remember that Wii features parental controls that let adults manage the
content their children can access. For more information about this and other
Wii features, visit Wii.com. For more information about Mario Kart Wii, visit
MarioKart.com.
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Gotta hate europe... NINTENDO... i mean gotta hate nintendo if you're from europe.
At least you get Gran Turismo: Super Shiny Demo Edition before us? Sucks that Brawl is taking so much longer to come out in Europe, but, hounestly, I've been wanting Mario Kart way more than Brawl.
Dammit Jim just move to America
That's sixteen days European time, though. Keep it in perspective, that'll feel like forever in North American time...
I can has freeloader?
Maybe you should do a test and review for the sake of dtoid users :)
I feel stupid for ever actually hoping Nintendo would be back on top of the console world. It's like that pain in the ass screaming girlfriend who you want to stab with a fucking knife and dump her after slamming her head through a wall for pissing you off, then 2 days later your back crying and blubbering going "Baby I'm sorry, take me back PLEASE", only to realize "The fuck am I doing with this chick?" 2 days later again. Nintendo just keeps fucking me over, but Goddamit I keep crawling back like a Goddam retard.
Makes me happy not to own a Wii. Time to get an R4, so I don't need to give any more money to Nintendo.
Ok Jim, you know I love your work and your talent. You're a funny guy with a chip on his shoulder. I feel your pain of delays. No, I really do! As gamers, we all can relate to the pain of game delays. In some ways, you might even think this is discrimination.
But Jim, please man, don't freak out and waste your talent on a post that is basically you ranting on about how America didn't get their game delayed unlike your region which is so oftenly neglected.
I'm glad you guys got it earlier than us, you deserve it, and I'm happy it's coming out sooner than I thought for the US. So can't we all be happy for that instead of this post that could easly be mistaken as a Rant and Rave on Craigslist?
Or just move to America.
Nintendo = Fail
Snaileb: It's the fucking principle. Now usually it doesn't bother me, especially since I don't even WANT these stupid fucking games, but I don't like the idea that I'm being discriminated against, and Nintendo seems to be almost making EFFORTS to do that.
When Reggie says something like "Oh yeah, they get Kart, but we get Brawl," I feel insulted, especially as it's not even a fair trade-off -- most people want Brawl more, and 16 days is nothing compared to six months. It's a really shit way to treat the European market and it makes me angry that so many Europeans are still loyal to a company that does this to them.
Reggie had to MAKE NICE to Americans because they had to get a game a mere sixteen days late. Where is Nintendo trying to make Europeans happy? It's not there.
Like I said, I don't even care about the games anymore. Nintendo systematically killed my interest in its products a while ago. However, it doesn't stop me being disgusted by the company's attitude.
I want to know what its fucking problem is with Europe.
We don't get Brawl till autumn, so we win!
I am bleeding, making me the victor!
Dear Jim,
You hate things. We get it.
-Kevin
Yeah I wasn't looking forward to this game either! Still it is pretty discriminating. I think every internet nerd knows Nintendo's EURO policy, even the Kotaku writers are shocked you guys get this game first.
I'll look past the hate and of course I agree what they've been doing is criminal ONLY because I'd be just as pissed if I had to wait that long for Brawl. Yet I wouldn't make every 'fuck you Nintendo' post reference the Brawl delay, it's a waste of your talent and I hardly think it'll help the situation.
Cereally, Nintendo just don't like you blimey wankers.
I think mario kart looks terrible.. thought double dash had a bigger impact than this game. i'm sure itll play nice but mario karts have always played well on any system it comes too. I think ill stick with my mario kart ds though.
house of the dead 2 & 3 comes out end of april woo
I am looking forward to Mario Kart, as i've always loved the games, and i think i will always be a fan of Nintendos games.
But fuck if there methods don't still piss me off. IF i didn't enjoy their games so damn much, they wouldn't get a cent from me on principle, but i just can't help myself.
Something of interest for EU Wii gamers.
CodeJunkies have released the Wii version of the FreeLoader, that lets you play any region/imports Wii games.
http://uk.codejunkies.com/Products/Wii-FreeLoader__EF000595.aspx
^ Here here, heartily agreed.
I want to know when Europe's getting Super Mario RPG!?!? It's been like 12 years now! >:(
In all seriousness though, it's been like this as far back as I can remember. Games would appear in the Nintendo magazine, the articles would get you all hyped up about it and then a few months later Europe finds itself with a cancelled release or a hefty delay. Even back then we were having to make do with import devices to play the latest and greatest games.
It confuses me beyond belief, if Nintendo would give us a plausible answer for such delays or cancellations I'd be inclined to believe them but as it stands it doesn't appear to make any sense. I mean, is the European software attach rate worse or does Nintendo's marketing department have some sort of master plan rescheduling release dates? The last time I checked there were 720 million of us in Europe, that's a pretty huge market so what's the problem?
@Snaileb
Of course we must say "fuck you" to Nintendo once in a while!
Should we just shut up and give them the impression that its ok what they're doing?
I don't even understand why it will take you guys so long to get brawl. It's ridiculous.
You guys aren't being discriminated against, let's be real here. It's common knowledge that localizing a game for the European market is a lot more complicated than localizing it for North America.
It sucks that Europe gets shafted on most releases but unless Europe adopts English as its primary language, that is always going to be the case. It's not a vendetta against Europeans. I'm sure Nintendo of Europe would love to have its games out earlier and not have to hear "Nintendo why do you hate us?" every single day.
It's not as if Nintendo is the only publisher who releases games months and sometimes years after US/Japan.
Final Fantasy XIII? You'll be lucky if you see that 6 months after the US gets it (which will be 6-9 months after Japan gets it). At least in that case though the PS3 is region free and you can import from the US...
I just don't understand the rabid hate towards Nintendo when ALL publishers do this to Europe.
No Project Exodus, you can say whatever you want. It's the internet.. but you probably shouldn't.
I encourage people that have a problem with the services of any company to speak up and complain, but sneaking in 'fuck you we don't have brawl yet' in all Nintendo posts does get lame after a while.
Still, I won't stop what can't be helped, so go nuts.
Well we all know that translating a game from US English to English English takes approximatly 12 times longer than the other way around. It's all elementry my dear Jim.
I'm really very sorry there are some of us that care more about having a fun game than having voice chat, Jim. Really I am.
I don't give a rat's ass about the Wii Wheel. I don't give a rat's ass about not having voice chat. I do care about firing green shells at Toad's Car while I cut off Yoshi with a power slide in my Waluigi Crane. I'm not saying I think keeping those things out is a good idea, and I'm not saying that we should just take it becaus eit's Nintendo, but is it really worth totally ruining an otherwise excellent game over such tiny, insignificant things in the long run?
Not going to comment about the Europe thing, as I don't live there; but it's getting really tiring to hear you rant on Nintendo fans all the time.
It is ridiculous the delays we get here in Europe, it's good that Jim complains; 'lest we forget'
Gen Eric Gui: Tell me, how is adding these things going to ruin the game? If anything, it'd be adding to the game.
I used to live in America, then moved to Ireland. The harsh reality of these delays has really started to sink in; I mean, I was fine with Super Paper Mario, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid, and Metal Slug arriving late.
But Brawl made me realise just how fucking ridiculous this is, and I'm glad to know I'm not alone in my sentiment.
It WOULD improve the game. That's what I said. But Jim and several other people on this site seem to have it in their heads that because a large majority of Nintendo fans don't care if those things are in the game or not, that we think that having them will ruin the game. This is false and I'm sick of hearing it.
In every post about Mario Kart he's made, Jim's made this huge deal over the game not having voice chat. And while yes, it's silly of them to leave out, the game is still perfectly fine without it. And now he's calling every Nintendo fan a retard in his front-page articles over it? Not cool. Not cool at all.
"Not going to comment about the Europe thing, as I don't live there; but it's getting really tiring to hear you rant on Nintendo fans all the time."
Haha, thanks for proving my theory that people take words said against a faceless corporation as some personal insult. I never ranted on Nintendo fans, I ranted on Nintendo. Stop taking it personally.
"You guys aren't being discriminated against, let's be real here. It's common knowledge that localizing a game for the European market is a lot more complicated than localizing it for North America. "
A total myth. A lot of games these days can actually manage it. Only the lazy publishers, usually Japanese, have a problem with it. Just look at the vast majority of 360/PS3 games and how soon the European release is to the US. We usually get things three days after the US, simply because games are released on Friday here. Capcom can manage it with DMC, Lost Planet, etc. Most Western companies can do it -- Halo, CoD4, Bully, etc. etc.
Even Nintendo ITSELF managed it with Galaxy, but is holding out on Brawl. No, it's not "more complicated," that's such a falsehood it's amazing people still swallow that line.
Kojima is planning a worldwide release date for MGS4. If a game that packed full of dialog can manage it, there is NO excuse for Nintendo. None whatsoever.
There isn't any logical reason for Nintendo to have this much of a freaking problem at least releasing the game in the English speaking countries. The fact that they don't is discrimination as you say. I hate Nintendo more for its underhanded crap every day. Brawl hasn't even felt like it was worth the wait for me.
For less than $50 you can modchip your Wii and never have to wait again. Just import a copy and burn a backup using the new region switching software they have out now and presto! Yeah its slightly more expensive but it beats the pants off of waiting for xxx months...
Same shit.
I'm not trying to be a dick here Jim, I'm really not.
Europe always got the short end of the stick in terms of release dates, I remember that from being a kid and reading Nintendo Power and Sega Visions. But it seems like it's gotten a lot worse lately. Between the indefinite Smash delay, and the entire PS3 clusterfuck, it seems like Europe is being dumped on pretty bad these days. Is it business as usual or are things indeed worse over there?
Again, not trying to be a shithead, just seriously asking.
"Oh wait, sorry, I forgot that the prevailing attitude is to be grateful every time Nintendo so much as looks in your general direction."
I dunno, Jim. That doens't look like a comment about Nintendo as a corporation to me.
"Is it business as usual or are things indeed worse over there?"
In many ways, things are better, and that's what makes Nintendo so infuriating. As I said, a lot of publishers these days have got their shit together and actually recognize that there's no need or excuse to delay European games, especially with online play being so big now.
However, Nintendo and a few other Japanese publishers have stuck to their guns with this prehistoric, discriminatory train of thought and it's fucking shameful. It's an outdated mode of thinking and they seem to do it just because they've always done it.
The world's fucking changed, it's a global audience now. This shit should not be tolerated, and PAL gamers need to let Nintendo know that "Y'know? Your games aren't worth this kind of wait."
Gen Eric Gui:
That IS the prevailing attitude. Someone once told me to be thankful the game was coming out. Thankful. So yeah, that was aimed at whomever told me that.
Oh, and it's hardly me calling everyone a "fucking retard" like you claimed.
Fuck Nintendo.
You would think Japan would hate the US for nuking them... maybe we should do the same and we'll get games in a reasonable amount of time from its release in Japan. Or maybe i am just being a bit radical.. or maybe not, lets nuke the US and Japan HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh wait, England doesn't have any nukes.. "Hello, France.. Yeah, what would you say to having a nuke weekend this week... Brilliant! Il bring the beers and doritos"
We pay more for less in the UK. When i get to the US in a month or two, i'm tempted to sell my PAL Wii, and bring a US one back with me.
Just ordered a Freeloader and Brawl online. Hopefully I'll get No More Heroes on Friday to tide me over.
No, GeneralWong, you see, the US still has nukes, and we aren't afraid to use them.
Scare tactics. "Give us Brawl and Mario Kart NOW or we'll bomb you again." Nintendo Ltd. hasn't forgotten that. Europe needs to be way more aggressive. Tax their tea or something. That'll work.
Don't forget that Germans get their censored current-gen games (this excludes the Wii) around the same date as the rest of the EU and the USA get them. You'd think that making a game uphold a totally different standard and actually editing and/or removing content from a game must be much harder than inserting translations (which they did not even do for Galaxy where I live).
Then again, it's sooo hard to print and read dual layer dvd's in this age of BluRay and the such. So that must be a fair cause of delays! :P
It's a good thing that we have "other" options for these kind of corporations. And no, it does not involve paying extra for a Freeloader that might or might not work for a while, and paying 19% import tax on imported games. Yarr!
Man, you must really be looking forward to moving to the US. Then you can laugh at all the poor Europeans across the pond who don't get their games at the same time. :)
Although I don't really blame Nintendo. It does take quite a while to translate things into that incomprehensible gibberish slang that British people for some reason claim is "proper English". :p
You know, Jim, maybe it's not Nintendo as a whole that's screwing Europe over. Maybe (and I'm just tossing out ideas here) Nintendo of Europe just isn't trying hard enough. I know you hate Reggie, but he helped improve relations between NoA and Nintendo Ltd.. Maybe if NoE had a better President, he could push for games to be released sooner.
I mean, both countries speak English, so it's not like they're translating shit (not that there's anything to translate. The announce in the Japanese version speaks English anyways for God's sake). I don't get it either, and I am pissed off for you guys, but I don't think Nintendo as a whole doesn't care about Europe, I think that it might just be that NoE isn't trying hard enough.
Or maybe Nintendo's a bunch of jerks. Either or.
Honestly, Phoenix Gamma's more than likely got the right idea. The US used to get pretty shafted too before Reggie stepped in to take charge. We didn't get a lot of games because of various bullshit reasons, but we get them now.
NoE is pretty much completely seperate from the Japanese and American branches, last I heard.
Jim: Well that guy's a dipshit and so is anyone who agrees with him. I still don't think it's a "prevailing attitude" though, as I've only ever met a handful of people, even online, that seem to think that way.
im guessing its delayed because the pal copies will have 5 languages on the disc and not just english. im worried that there is no release date and that maybe some content would be left out to fit in german and spanish options? this is unsubstantiated but anyway i ordered the freeloader as well as US copies of no more heroes and brawl. should get it all within a week.
has anyone here in the uk got thier freeloader and brawl yet? do you have any problems getting online? and for the US crowd: is the online multiplayer good or does it suffer from lag. I NEED MY KIRBY KILL FIX!!!!
Nintendo are lucky the freeloader has come into existence as i was seriously considering modding my wii. and anyone with an R4 will tell you, once you open that pandoras box of torrents you will never buy software again. so ill buy games for noe, but if an update kills the freeloader then thats it. ill just chip the machine and have done with it. if xbox can release games worldwide then why cant nintendo, dammit.
last time i buy a pal nintendo system.
Rant over :(
For God's sake. We know it sucks for Europe you guys get games later 99% of the time than everyone else, but it's getting old. Every other day there's some BAWWWW'ing about some company "screwing you over."
Get over it. It's not changing anything and it's just making you look like a constant whiner.
I want to know what its fucking problem is with Europe.
That's a good question. Have you tried answering it?
If I had to guess, it could be because Nintendo is a games-only company, unlike Sony and Microsoft. So instead of having corporate-owned distribution outlets everywhere, perhaps Nintendo relies more on regional companies and distributors to get its games out. And on a geographical basis, Europe has the densest collection of regions.
Seriously, I'd love to see you do a post that actually gets to the bottom of this. I don't think Nintendo has a bias against taking money from Europeans, or that Nintendo doesn't have access to the European internet in which displeasure is routinely voiced.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the game's going to be released throughout Europe as a whole, doesn't the fact that there are like a billion countries in the region affect how Nintendo has to keep the game within certain guidelines dictated by every country?
And is the NA market more profitable than the EU? Maybe they're going about this at a strictly financial angle as well. They can get such and such amount of money from NA Brawl for this quarter, then compound those sales with EU Brawl in whichever quarter that comes out in.
@Kia
the reason we all keep whining is because it's still not acceptable.
i'm glad it's easy for YOU to get over OUR problem, but if we do then you can guarantee that it won't ever be resolved.
KIA: how would you like it if the rest of the world was getting games not just before you but anything up to 6 - 12 months. (and at half the price i could add) the fact that there is no release date makes things worse. you feel whining wont get anywhere? well the hope is if we whine enough and import instead nintendo of europe will realise how much it upsets us. either follow microsoft with universal release dates or sony that at least has no regional encoding.
it dosnt help that brawl has been hyped up at least twice a week for the last year by almost every gaming website around. its like recieving an amazing hand job but then right at the climax the grip softens, lady nintendo stands up and says: ill finish you off in six months time, maybe.
Is GTA IV getting a universal release, also? If so, that'll totally null and void Mario Kart.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the game's going to be released throughout Europe as a whole, doesn't the fact that there are like a billion countries in the region affect how Nintendo has to keep the game within certain guidelines dictated by every country? "
Once again -- Capcom can do it. Epic can do it. Activision and EA can do it. Everyone, it seems, except Nintendo and a handful of Japanese publishers. It DOES NOT TAKE HALF A YEAR TO RELEASE GAMES. Nintendo repeatedly pulls this shit.
And as for KIA, refer to what someone else said. I'll stop "whining" about it when it stops happening. This attitude of "it's always been like this, stop complaining" is why taxes are high and why the TV license exists.
You guys have castles, right? That's pretty cool, isn't it? You can throw things off the battlements, and raise and lower the drawbridge, and neat stuff like that.
See? It isn't all that bad.
When you move to America, are you going to stop complaining about this stuff?
@Popculturejoe: "it dosnt help that brawl has been hyped up at least twice a week for the last year by almost every gaming website around. its like recieving an amazing hand job but then right at the climax the grip softens, lady nintendo stands up and says: ill finish you off in six months time, maybe."
Hahahaha! Thats probably the best and most truthful quote I've heard recently!
@Jim: A quick Google search turned up the following: European distributors (Nintendo). It could be a good place to start digging for answers.
Again, I don't think Nintendo wants to turn down money or anger its customers unless it has competing interests -- like regional distributors / affiliates who want to space out big releases to keep their income steady throughout the year.
Mr. Bean can fix your problems.
Here's the gross income for FY 2007 from all three companies (in USD), to give you a reference for size comparison.
Nintendo Co., Ltd. (pdf)
$9.443 billion
Microsoft Corp.
$51.122 billion
Sony Corp. (pdf)
$81.048 billion
Although profitable, Nintendo is clearly much smaller than its rivals, and may not have a comparable global distribution system in place. Nintendo's sales were also nearly twice as high in FY 2007 as in FY 2006, so they may be having trouble scaling to adjust for unanticipated growth.
I am reminded of the time when you brits got your knickers in a twist over a game that called you "spastic." additional work needs to be done sometimes to make a game 'euro-friendly.' just like, how we 'Mericans have to wait a while from the Japanese release so they can translate it from moonspeak to English/french/spanish (anyone else irritated by the waste of paper that is the smash manual? its bi-lingual, and thus HUGE.)
I love you to death, Mr. Sterling, your writing is usually top notch, but you Euros come off as whiney crybabies, whining about how Nintendo loves its American children more than you. well, two can play at that game, mister. I'm going to start whining about how Nintendo must hate Americans for delaying their games *months* after the release in Japan. its not fair! and its the principal of the matter! they're discriminating! and hey, where's Mother 3, Nintendo? ITS NOT FAIR! *WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH*
At least Europe GETS its own release dates. Here in Canada we just get like... downgraded American release dates, in that there is no official statement of when it comes out in Canada, and we just assume that it will come out at some point in the next two or three days after the American one. And once in a while it doesn't. It's hell.
Let's get localization off the table. Jim rightly pointed out that releases from other publishers don't suffer from extreme localization delays.
The question is: Among major software publishers, why is Nintendo uniquely slow to get games to certain foreign markets?
Max your explanation is very intelligent.
This is the kind of thing that makes me enjoy pirating games when needs be.
errr
Legitamately backing them up.
>_>
<_<
Seriously though Ebay + Freeloader ftw. With how cheap the Dollar is right now, it's cheaper for me to buy DS games from America on ebay, pay for the shipping and still save a fiver and get games months earlier than the release over here. As for the Wii, well the region lock is annoying, but it's made me appriciate my freeloader purchase, which I think is a worthwhile investment.
@Jim Nice rant buddy. Are you a big fan of Genesis? Do you like Huey Lewis and the News?
I'm just sayin'
43 Weeks of vacation, universal health care and a severe lack of fatosis in your womens. I'll trade you Mariokart for just the health care. I pay $188/mth for my wife's health ins, and that's the fatty deductible, don't-actually-use-this plan.
America! Fuck yeah!
Here's the point. I'm a British gamer.
It annoys me that Nintendo hate Europe, but after 15 years of gaming or so, I'm used to it. Nintendo of Europe suck for not getting Brawl out.
So what am I doing? Buying from the good part of Nintendo, Nintendo of America at the same price.
Long story short, I couldn't give a rat's ass about company release policy. A good game is a good game and is worth buying.
If you care so much, grow some balls and buy from Nintendo of America. If you don't buy the game, Nintendo can just conclude you never would have bought it to begin with and don't matter. Import it and they have figures showing them that they're being stupid.
Wait, Europeans have video games? When the hell did they get electricity?