I dragged out some of the more preoccupied Pietriots for comments. Got them to share their thoughts on why MONADO WAS SUDDENLY, MALICIOUSLY CANCELLED and how well they think this new Xenoblade thing is being handled in North Amerika – why did things turn out the way they did?
Bill said:
I predict NA won’t get either game…
[Tha Last Story, Pandora’s Tower]
April is already way later than expected for Xenoblade; NOA’s trying to draw out releases as far as possible. I still think NOA is actively sabotaging Xenoblade with this retarded marketing and lack of selling in more shops.
[durp? NA Xeno’s gotten more marketing than DKCR in the same time frame!]
Deg’s “retailers won’t stock the game” conspiracy is bullshit. Stores stock far worse games and far bigger bombs and this is Nintendo.
I also think Xenoblade is a tool for NOA to respond to cries for Last Story and Pandora’s Tower: “But you already got Xenoblade!” Unfortunately, I feel a lot of the “backlash” is full of trolls, so NOA will take poor sales as an excuse to not publish other good games.
I’m still pissed NOA has been localizing all of Squenix’s SHIT over their much better in-house rpgs.
[funny you mention that, Bill; I have something to say later]
Deg said:
Well I think it’s because they probably didn’t have fiscal wherewithall to bring the games to America. Which is why when they were convinced to localize it, it comes out in April, 2 or 3 days after their fiscal year ends.
The Gamestop/Nintendo online store is probably because they couldn’t convince any of the other big boxes to take a risk on a Wii RPG. The fact they are doing a limited release at all shows they know the targeted enthusiast audience is small.
[ oh no! Bill don’t wanna to hear any of it! RAAAAAGE]
I say the release date is the most important thing to note. It’s like April 3rd or 4th, days after the fiscal year ends.
[that is interesting; but gamers don’t care about real world “things”]
Also another thing is there seem to be people more pissed off that it’s coming than when it wasn’t, which shows just how psychotic somes of these fans are.
Ferny said:
The fact that it’s limited to Nintendo’s own online store and Gamestop (still sadly seen by publishers as THE hardcore destination for gaming nerds) means Nintendo is caving to the internet backlash pressure, by targetting Xenoblade’s release directly at them and nobody else. Kind of a “shut up and put your money where your mouth is” thing.
[wow, well said; were you really a game journalist?]
The localisation is done; NOA is not redubbing or anything; they only have to bring over a tiny shipment. A Wii game…. can’t really survive on the shelves of big chains anymore. Releasing Xenoblade in say, Walmart, would be a complete waste of Nintendo’s time and money.
Xenoblade will be used as a “test” for the potential American release of Last Story and Pandora’s Tower.
[“test”! It’s THAT word again!]
Bill: fucking joy i love tests
Bill: capcom got me hooked on them
Infernal Monkey: Ahahahaha
Infernal Monkey: And it got us Spyborgs! Success!
Deguello: IF Nintendo did the BIG TIME RELEASE for Xenoblade, THEN they’d have the data they’d need to never localize anything ever again
Bill: YESSSSS
Infernal Monkey: Hahahaha
Deguello: I just doubt it’s a conspiracy by Nintendo to not listen to their fans, and then suddenly replaced by a conspiracy theory that Nintendo is listening to their fans and sabotaging a game that they want to fail
Deguello: I also doubt NOA had much control over the situation until they asked NCL directly about it
Bill: let’s no go into that again *rolleyes*
Deguello: Because if NCL can force NOA to localize stuff like Fortune Street then I doubt NOA has much clout in the discussion
Infernal Monkey: Ahahaha Fortune Street… More like MISfortune Street !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bill: fortune street was localized because nintendo has been fucking shammed into localizing every fucking shitty dragon quest related game ever
[more Square Enix mentions! just the inspiration I need!]
PRO DECLARES:
As a condition of the Dragon Quest IX/X exclusivity contract, Square Enix demanded Nintendo keep their RPGs OUT OF AMERIKA. Square Enix desires to promote and develop Dragon Quest into a MAJOR BRAND in the West, so they certainly did not want to stand side by side with Nintendo’s attractive RPGs that would make their darling franchise look kiddie-stupid. Prized 3rd Party won’t compete with Nintendo, so Nintendo had to give them VIP treatment. This is why we see the nonsense of so many S-E spinoffs sent to Nintendo platforms – This is why you still don’t have Xenoblade – THIS IS WHY NINTENDO CONCLUDES 2011 WITH *FORTUNE STREET*.
Monado? The Not Final Fantasy Tale? They’re not killer apps. There’s no mistaking it. History has established that Nintendo has no idea how to sell mature, sophisticated PlayStation games to its kiddie casual audience (and the niche of pirates and critic-psychos) and drive system sales along with that. But the Funky Kong Company is smart enough to know that Baten Kaitos 3 and the usual crop of in-house titles aren’t the only properties they can leverage.
Nintendo, who missed the prime opportunity to destroy the industry in 2008, went soft on its enemies by taking the “let’s be friendly to 3rd Parties, especially our estranged Japanese publishers” sympathy approach. Unfortunately, we saw they had to bend over, squat on a cactus, “give 3rd Parties a chance” during the 3DS launch, and release the Circle Pad Pro-sthetic Tumor to get some crusty Resident Evil games (based on the “modern” RE5 art style and whogivesafuck grease-shading graphics engines) and score key 3DS Monster Hunter press conference announcements to suppress PSVita news and excitement that week.
But visions of Zephos tell me the big picture: Nintendo isn’t necessarily concerned with bringing great 3rd Party content to their platforms (we know DQ/MH don’t fall in that category, teehee):
Nintendo shrewdly, deliberately sought these franchises to keep them off of Sony platforms in the Homeland for YEARS to come. Dragon Quest? Belongs to Nintendo FOR A DECADE (practically). Monster Hunter? Not even a simple port showing on PSVita’s l(a)unch menu nor 2012 release lists; “sorry,” Kaz just doesn’t know what’s going on.
but I do
Pietriots 
I’ll just say that Bill will have to decide if NOA is in charge of Nintendo’s publishing in America or not. It can’t be both. Either NOA or NCL has the final say in these matters. If NOA can deny the release of these games in America, they’d certainly resist Fortune Street. And if NCL can FORCE NOA to publish Fortune Street, then Xenoblade’s American Absence is purely Iwata’s fault, not NOA’s Considering The game is finally being agreed to be published, it can be reason that NOA probably petitioned NCL to get it released here in the first place. Which means NOA is probably getting a lot of undue shit from the same peiple NOA just argued on behalf of. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.
Also it’s really hard to comment on the marketing of games that come out in 4 months from now. Bill, did you want them to already be plastering the TV with ads about it? Not even Zelda got that.
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Bill oughta stop being sore about being impatient and importing the game.
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Everything Pro says about third parties on 3DS right now is ab absolute fact. Third parties GAVE THEIR WORD they would take the opportunity to give their all for the 3DS, but as soon as the trolling and low sales came in, they gave the “we’ll wait until it sells more” bullshit excuse. Combined with the trolling by ‘fans’, Nintendo was basically forced to cut the price. But hey, I got FREE GAMES, what are you Vita fuckers getting? UMD’s being useless and touch screen gimmicks in an HD coating. No wonder Nintendo kept that touch screen AT THE BOTTOM of the 3DS; can you imagine the finger prints on the Vita screen. Holy fuck cakes Batman.
But, haha, I just can’t wait for Nintendo to crush any and all third party releases in Q1 2012. They had their chance, and they fucked it up. Nintendo has Mario, Zelda (64 remake), Star Fox (remake), Kid Icarus and digital-downloads/new IPs with the like of Rolling Western and Sakura Samurai. Pushmo is easily the greatest digital game I’ve played in FOREVER. ITS MY NEW MOLE MANIA.
lol capcom
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I must say I’m slightly disappointed that Bill seems to believe in that “Reggie hates JRPGs” nonsense. I’ve noticed a lot of angry internet nerds seem to be under the impression that because he is physically a large guy, he therefore must be some big dumb jock baka gaijin who plays Call of Duty all day long and thinks JRPGs are for faggots. But Bill’s a cool guy so I’ll let this slide.
As for the 3DS launch, I suppose the silver lining to all this is that NINTENDO FINALLY CALLED THE 3RD PARTIES’ BLUFF. They can no longer use the “we can’t compete with Nintendo excuse”. I mean, they CAN. And they almost certainly WILL. But at least we finally have proof that that is a bullshit excuse. The fact that so many games were delayed until AFTER Nintendo released their heavy hitters is pretty telling. You’d think there would have been a rush to get their games out BEFORE 3D Land and Mario Kart 7. And the fact that Monster Hunter seems to be doing well despite having to compete with that Mario Sandwich only destroys that excuse even more.
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I’m disappointed too, Urkel. Reggie has logged 200 hours in Dragon Quest IX. Dragon Quest hate is not cool, and Fortune Street (or the name I prefer – BOOM Street!) looks like a great game with a lot of depth, the only thing i’m not to keen on is that every game goes for over an hour. I guess the same applies to DQ games though, I always give them huge play sessions anyway.
There’s some good points here, nice discussion. I don’t think Nintendo is anywhere NEAR as bitter, or as clued in about third parties as this suggests. Square-Enix probably don’t even know what Xenoblade is. I’m calling bullshit on any conspiracy, Xenoblade is being overlooked because gamers, and the gaming media, just don’t give a fuck, and Nintendo has no confidence in this audience. Ferny makes a good point about it being a targetted release, ONLY for those who demanded it. That’s pretty nice of Nintendo to satisfy the 5000 people who’ll buy it, without sacrificing much. Put it on the shelves at Walmart, and people will walk right by it because Spike TV and IGN told everyone Wii was for kids and grandpas, and the REAL games are in the Xbox 360 section.
My summary of the situation – Xenoblade is a victim of the Wii market, created by BOTH Nintendo and the idiot gaming media’s social propaganda
I’d also like to point out the fact that Street Fighter 4 sold a million copies, just by “being there” at the 3DS launch and not being shit. That WAS a huge chance for third parties, but most companies aren’t talented enough to have a big game ready for the launch of a system. They couldn’t have known the window would be there. Time to move on, I think third parties and Nintendo can co-exist as they did on DS, as long as the market is healthy.
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^ More good points from another reasonable perspective (I wasn’t exactly aiming for “reasonable” myself).
Just don’t forget there’s reasons why a “market is healthy” in the first place – leadership has to come from somewhere; some step forward while many don’t, but sometimes some can’t step forward every time you need them.
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Mario Land 3D hopefully sets the standard. Third party games have to be THIS good to be competitive in the market, it’s a reality that should have hit third parties at launch, but we had to wait until now. All the 3DS shit is quickly being reduced to ten dollars ALREADY. Mario is the great cleansing.
Look at how Mario 64 exploded onto the N64, along with Wave Race. Amazing launch and we hardly saw any crap games on N64 because they wouldn’t even compare. Not exactly a WEALTHY market but a healthy one I would say. In todays market of Nintendo dominance and a blue ocean, I think we need to see this approach again. Wii U needs to explode out of the gate with Nintendo’s best games. The only games that will suffer from good Nintendo games “existing”, aren’t worth saving. Quality Nintendo games that sell millions and millions, will only help quality third party efforts that normally get overlooked, by EDUCATING THE MARKET.
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Oh to sit in on a boardroom discussion.
I’m with Deg when he suggests that NCL is dictating terms to NOA. Nintendo has a history of being a very top down, paternalistic company and I doubt NOA would be given the autonomy and budget they want to operate. That or they’re being wasteful with the resources they do have. In fact, so little is known about the relationship that a lot of data is conflicting. Have a google around and tell me what Tatsumi Kimishima has been doing for the past ten years. You can’t. The only thing that is clear is that even after 30 years, NOA are still run by a representative of NCL.
As for the Gamestop exclusivity, shit. I reject any notion that Best Buy, Walmart and the other major American retailers don’t want to stock Nintendo games. Suggesting otherwise is stupid. I mean the game entered Amazon’s top sellers list, Amazon would be angry over the entire outcome. I think Gamestop aggressively courted Nintendo for this exclusivity deal and are offering NOA some sort of subsidy or internal marketing program. I think NOA took the deal because fuck, they weren’t given the resources to adequately distribute and support this game or they wasted those resources elsewhere.
Whatever the case, I think it’s clear the both the NCL-NOA relationship and the structure and operation of NOA itself is grossly inefficient. Nintendo need to sort out their own shit because right now they’re losing money and seemingly too inept to release their own games.
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RAB, the potential revenues from Xenoblade in America would be about $5 million, generously. Meanwhile games that they weren’t too “inept” to release are worth much much more than that, such as Mario Kart 7, Super Mario 3D Land, Kirby Wii, and Zelda Skyward Sword.
If I had to pick which ones to focus on, I’d pick The others before Xenoblade. Running a games business isn’t as easy as you make it seem.
Also, NAL might suck, but NOA doesn’t, despite all the bullshit it gets from people wanting a scapegoat. Stop conflating the two.
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There is no reason why Xenoblade couldn’t sell as many copies as Dark Souls or even Skyrim.
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Well, there is. Take the climate created by awful gamers and gaming media that Grub mentioned, and complement that with the mismanaged NOA that you discussed. With your powers combined, we now have a GameStop Exclusive.
company + media + gamers = Triforce of Garbage
Tada! See how close to the truth we are?
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RAB I think you are a bit too optimistic about the game. IS Xenoblade outselling Skyrim in Europe where it got the full ad treatment?
Xenoblade got a bad draw and is being released at the end of the generation in America and it is being run up against the buildup to the Wii U. This and the 3DS are obviously where NOA is going to be spending most of it’s energies in 2012, and rightly so. If you would have NOA focus its energies on last year Wii titles instead of insuring its newer console launches without issue and gains userbase quickly… well that’s why you don’t run a game company.
Besides I highly doubt Nintendo blowing $20 million on an ad campaign will just suddenly make the game sell millions and millions. Marketing is not a magic elixir that solves all problems.
Also, Xenoblade is an apple while Dark Souls and Skyrim are oranges. One is an unabashedly “J” JRPG while the others are very Western-themed and M-rated. Don’t think they even appeal to the same market within the RPG market, sadly.
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Deg, Skyrim is on an even older console. The whole reason Wii is dead is BECAUSE of Nintendo ignoring games like Xenoblade. The reason Skyrim did well was the gaming media and social conditioning, look at how it’s sweeping the GOTY awards. It’s winning about 90%, that doesn’t happen by accident nor does quality have anything to do with it, personal taste means the greatest game of all time wouldn’t even dominate a year like Skyrim is doing. Strings are being pulled. The game was handpicked by journalists and media agents to be the social masturbation-fest of 2011. It justifies “HD”, traditional controls, western development, passive gameplay, ugly textures and game installations.
Like you said it’s in a different market, but what’s the solution. How DOES Xenoblade get “in” on all this? It’s not going to happen from game journalists because they don’t actively SEEK game experiences. They get every game for free in the mail. Xenoblade is fucking worthless, even if it’s the best game of all time. Therefore, unless we completely overhaul the social media structure of the western gaming industry, the only people who can take action on this is Nintendo.
We need a way to sidestep traditional media, and somehow get games like Xenoblade into peoples homes AROUND the hype and, not through it. Then the true uprising can begin and we can all have bacon.
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Just Dance 3 is doing spectacularly. It’s moving units, it’s moving people.
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Its further moving my opinion of Ubi lower and lower until it passes by Earth’s core. Then it will move all the way into China or whatever is below Canada on the globe.
I don’t know why Bill is hating on the Dragon quest spin-offs. Rocket Slime was one of my favorite DS games and it wasn’t published by Nintendo. The Dragon Quest remakes of IV, V, and VI are quite swell and IX just eats up my time. I am eagerly looking forward to X on WiiU. Would you find it hard to believe that the DQ games are the only Squeenix games I found to be not complete and utter shit? Final Fantasy: NES Frustration on a DS Card and Final Fantasy IV DS were the only half-decent FF games I played this gen. The World Ends With You was the only GOOD Squeenix RPG I’ve played recently (and the probably has a lot to do with Jupiter give or take).
Seriously, they are becoming Japan’s Activision/EA. Remember how people only bought the PS1 and SNES for their games? THAT ERA IS LONG OVER. Nintendo is the new Squaresoft, and if they decide to go third party and/or make cell phones, they are going to destroy the industry and make everyone their bitch.
…As much as I DON’T want Nintendo a 3rd party, too much negative ignorant karma from people pretending to be analysts/gamers/critics has forced me to rethink this option. Nintendo will become 3rd party and destroy everything these fucktards held so dear to their heart; all that trolling towards Nintendo will became tears of pain as they slowly eat away whoever they pick to make games for. HIGH HO NEXT GENERATION.
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Whoops, cell phone GAMES. That’s what I meant to say.
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I’m just going to step in and say that most of these quotes are taken out of context or mixed up together (Pro being quite the troll! *shakes fist*). For one, I never said that Reggie hates JRPGs. Surely he hates ever game genre ever!
Second, my irritation surrounds some really iffy localization decisions that seem less stringent with third party garbage, which I admit is an unfortunate impasse for Nintendo. It seems the only way they can get third party support is by buying it out and publishing it themselves on their own dime. It’s why we are getting a flood of Dragon Quest crap (yes, I’m stating this as an opinion of personal taste) instead of quicker localizations of first-party product. Why ELSE would Nintendo localize FORTUNE STREET of all games?
Finally, I don’t really care whose fault it is for NOA’s piss-poor localization. NCL, NOE, NOA, in the end they are the same damn company, and it’s annoying as hell that they have been trying their damndest to keep me from playing their games. And if it’s third parties that are the real problem then Nintendo needs to get it together and make them pay for their own damned games so I can get my first-party ones.
And just so you all know, even with all my bitching, I’m still buying a U.S. copy of Xenoblade Chronicles (because I’m a consumer whore and I want a copy to play on Wii U). It’s one of the, if not THE, best RPGs of all time. And you all better be getting copies too, OR ELSE! Spread the hype, because we know NOA sure as hell isn’t…
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I agree. In fact it’s the best game of all time, period. RPGs and everything included. I just beat it after 150 hours or so, and i’m keen to start again already.
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“I never said that Reggie hates JRPGs.”
I know, but that was the gist of what I got out of those (allegedly) out of context quotes.
“And if it’s third parties that are the real problem then Nintendo needs to get it together and make them pay for their own damned games so I can get my first-party ones.”
You think Nintendo can make third parties stop acting retarded? The Wii proved that’s not possible.
“It’s why we are getting a flood of Dragon Quest crap (yes, I’m stating this as an opinion of personal taste) instead of quicker localizations of first-party product.”
I don’t believe it’s an either/or situation. I think this situation would’ve played out exactly the same if they weren’t publishing any third party games. I mean, it’s not like the release schedule this year was packed for the Wii.
And you don’t need to worry about me getting this game. It’s the first time I’ve ever considered buying two copies of the same game. I have a feeling this is going to be a very expensive game in a few years.
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“I don’t believe it’s an either/or situation. I think this situation would’ve played out exactly the same if they weren’t publishing any third party games. I mean, it’s not like the release schedule this year was packed for the Wii.”
The problem is that it does take time and resources to localize games, especially RPGs, and NOA doesn’t have infinite of this. It’d be NICE if they’d expand their localization staff, but it seems like for now this isn’t going to be the case, and I fear this will be something that will only become more of a problem for fans of Nintendo games further down the line…
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So I heard a rumour that gonintendo sourced off nobody that I am totally right and that it was Gamestop who courted NOA to release the game.
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GoNintendo + News = What the ‘gaming media’ considers hard hitting news.
Yup.
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