Nintendo Has 'No Plans' to Publish Xenoblade In North America, But Hey, Thanks for Asking

I think we can all agree that this is our own fault really. We bought into Nintendo's shallow hype-machine, we allowed them to gain momentum they hadn't seen in years, and then, when they got it into their heads that they were bigger than jesus, they left every loyal supporter behind, in support of kiddies and old people. Way to change demographics...bunch of pricks.  The Jimquisition did a great episode on this actually, and I don't often agree with him, but right now, he's absolutely right. Nintendo have no right to withhold a gaming experience, just because they might not make a lot of money. Sales statistics don't lie, Japanese titles sometimes sell better in the US than even Japan, so fuck Nintendo of America. 
 
I for one suggest a kind of call to arms for people who are sick of Nintendo's treatment of them. Bombard their emails, rate every half-baked rehash title as low as is fairly possible, because if they want to nitpick, why can't we? And something more, organize a mass Wii trade-in event, showing just how much this has pissed us all off. They want to let their console stagnate, fine, we have to show that we don't need it anymore. That is, unless they cave and release the games, which they don't seem to want to actually do.
 
And most importantly, something that we all have to at least consider, and I know I'll take flak for this, but just consider it: Do not purchase a WiiU. This is important. One shallow hype-machine later and we can see just how little they give a shit about gamers anymore. Feeding into their delusions of grandeur will only solidify their beliefs that they are making all the right calls. We brought this to our doorsteps by never criticizing Nintendo, no matter how many fuck up they made, so now its time to show them that we won't back them if they choose to be dicks about releasing just three games that could extend the life of the Wii. They think the Wii was a godsend, that we should still be praising, and that jumping ship now means that they no longer have to care about it, lets put a stop to them once and for all, shall we?

Hey, just notice this on their (Nintendo's) job site (I check video game companies job pages, because i want a job in video games, but that isn't the point of this). 
 
There are 3 new posting from July 1st.  
Contract - Localization Translator (French) 
Contract - Bilingual Localization Editor (Spanish) 
Contract - Localization Translator (Brazilian Portuguese) 
 
All 3 are for NOA... I hope this means that they might be translating Xenoblades for America, since this grouping of jobs implies that something is getting translated for release in the Americas 

 
I hope they change their mind around on this or at least hurry the WiiU release.  I'm really surprised because at the end of the GC life cycle there were several crazy games (like Odama) that just sortof popped out and were really interesting.  It'd be cool to get a couple games here at the end of the Wii's life cycle to say good bye with...

In other news, my Wii continues to sit on the shelf, squeezed between a Dreamcast and an HD-DVD drive for the 360.

I'm pretty sure I'll never have to plug it in again, which is strangely comforting.

@MuddyDonut said:

@Kjellm87: ;~; That was a tear jerker bro

Yeah, kinda. Sorry. :P The forums makes me a grumpy guy.

Make no mistake, Nintendo have noticed what is going on, there is hope yet.

If you guys really want them why not sign this petition?

May not change anything, but I think the creator can communicate with Nintendo and it can't hurt.

And if they end up bringing them over, you better buy em, people.

I heard there's a dolphin that might help some fans out with this problem.

In other words, "Nope! Run along now!"

Well, guys, it's time to learn to import games like us old farts have been doing since forever. Or you could continue to throw a fit on the internet and still never play the games you want to play. Either way.

This article was disappointment, then excitement then more disappointment.

@HerbieBug said:

@Rolyatkcinmai said:

Nintendo sucks.

Really, they do.

Remember when Nintendo was awesome?

The last console of their's I purchased was the N64. It wasn't the SNES, but it was still okay. Gamecube couldn't compete with the other consoles on the market. I'm not buying a console just for Mario and Zelda. The Wii completely disenfranchised me as a Nintendo fan. Now they've put out a game that I might actually want to play and huzzah, it's not coming out in my region. :/ What happened?

Nothing really, the GC and Xbox was on par but PS 2 dominated that gen

The WII was a smart move to reach out to the much needed casuals ( either them or BS DLC prices and in-game ads) But it was lacking thanks to difficult controls.

And now the Wii-U, if Iwata is to be believed, Nintendo has listened to what fans lacked with the WII and is trying to bring that to WII U, as far the in-house games go they're as good as ever.

On topic though; It really sucks, but business often do, this is nothing new. Besides there is still hope.

Aww maaaan.

   I finally figured out how these three games could be released state side.  First Reggie Fils Aime's arch nemesis, Geoff Keighley would have to be notified after being bombarded by twitter posts and e mails.  Shocked after learning Reggie would disregard his hardcore audience so blatantly, Geoff began to put on his suit and soon after wards flew to his house.
 
   After Geoff crashed through the second story window of Reggie's personal home he was shocked upon his discovery.  What he found was a bizarre act of love making between Reggie and Activision CEO Bobby Kotick.   He found piles of money all around both of them, but what shocked him more was that there was an unusual vortex above them that seemingly never ended, devouring all the money near them.  Geoff gained his wits and asked.   "You have three really good Japanese games you could release for Wii 2011!!! Why Not!?!?".  
 
  Suddenly Reggie and Bobby began undergoing a weird transformation.  Their bodies began merging into one and resulted in becoming a monstrosity.  Combined they had become Reggie Kotick, the first words they spoke of were utter nonsense as they  blabbered incessantly about milking the game industry dry.  Then they launched an attack, Geoff Keighley could not grasp the true form of Reggie Kotick's attack. "Geoff took 1700 points of damage!".  Severely hurt, Geoff had no knowledge of how he could beat this horror.
 
  Then, out of nowhere hardcore gamers prayed that the industry would realize such gems and not overlook them... "Reggie Kotick took 150 damage!!".  Elsewhere people gave up casual games on consoles and went to the iPhone... "Reggie Kotick took 380 points of damage!!!".  In the games journalism industry, some of them prayed for Geoff's safe return..."Reggie Kotick took 750 points of damage!!!!".  All around the world hardcore gamers prayed that the industry would not fall due to over saturation of sequels, nor the insane increase of casual games like on the Atari that caused the industry to collapse during the 1980's...."Reggie Kotick took 2,576,434 points of damage!!!".
 
  The damage was too severe to Reggie Kotick, he began to ramble nonsense about money and sequels.  Then he just began vaporizing, as if he was just burned paper in the wind...  Soon after wards all three games were brought state side, the industry began to re invent itself and everything was great in the games industry!!  Geoff Keighley just went back to GTTV as a happy games journalist....
 
                                                                                               THE END

@Hailinel:

I am not sure how in tune Nintendo of America and Japan really are, and were they ever? I think there is some conflict there as well.

Nintendo sucks.

Really, they do.

Remember when Nintendo was awesome?

@TehFlan said:

@Hailinel: I hope so. I'm just so confused. :(

Well, I'll be writing the first of three letters to mail to them next week. And I'm going to continue pestering @NintendoAmerica on Twitter. There's not much I can do as an individual, but as long as there are enough of us putting pressure on them, they'll have to feel the heat, even if they do everything they can to deny it.

@TehFlan said:

Man, fuck you Nintendo. I want to play these games. Why you no let me?

The question of the day. Nintendo's response was just baffling non-speak. Hopefully furthering the campaign will wring a better answer out of them.

Man, fuck you Nintendo. I want to play these games. Why you no let me?

Time and time again. "wii disc games don't sell", well you know what? They sell better in america than they do in japan in every instance I'm looking up on similar games. Considering the cost at this point is down to pressing the god damn discs and shipping them to stores, since it looks like 1 game has a release date and another one of these games seems confirmed both with english tracks, the sales would be basically icing at this point. These three games have sold like shit in japan and I would expect it to more than double sales by localizing around the world if not 3x or 4x that 400k estimate of game sales between these three games. 
 
If your only continued statement is "well wii games don't sell" then your argument is against the DEVELOPMENT of these titles NOT the localization because at this point in time with a product already on the market you should be trying to wring it of as much money as you can.

@YukoAsho:   Ah, touché. But again, Dragon Quest still has name recognition, something those games don't really have, and I still have serious doubts that such games would be successful stateside without the same aggressive advertising that Dragon Quest IX received. I guess that in the end, it comes down to that: advertising this game to the point of moderate success would cost too much for Nintendo t put down, and I honestly doubt that all those pre-orders would translate into direct sales. Anybody want to get some sales data from VGChartz to see if that assumption holds true for games of this kind (Dragon Quest VI is the only game I can think of that joins this league).

I like my example better because it's on the Wii :P. (That's halfway between a joke and a serious point, in case you feel like replying to this.)

@chrissedoff said:

@zoner said:

'We want the core gamer back. You want Xenoblade? No, not that core gamer. We want some of those CoDbucks'

in fairness, nobody wants to hang out with the type of guy who is into xenoblade

I hang out with guys that are into Xenoblade, the fuck are you talking about?

To be #1 on Amazon it had to have had some decent preorder numbers, right? Why not make a limited run that covers preorders and not much more. I'm sure they'd at least break even. It's already translated (or being translated) for Europe into english, so they pay what? Distribution and burning discs? If only the Wii had a harddrive then they could just sell it digitally.

@Beforet said:

So, any chance this is Nintendo not wanting to pay extra licensing fees? I know it seems silly, but that's the only financial reason I can come up with.

Nintendo owns the IP of all three games, and there are no licensed music or asssets. The only money that NOA would have to pay would be for the localization process (which they could do in-house if they wanted), and the costs related to publishing and shipping games to stores.

@Video_Game_King said:

I might as well say it: hey, remember the last time an interesting Japan only Wii exclusive (eventually) got an American release? Remember how everybody just fucking loved it, and it sold more copies than the Wii itself? Exactly. I don't see any hope of these games coming out.

I'd rather remember when a company license rescued an interesting Japan only Sony exclusive and it did sell like gangbusters compared to the expectations of the company which picked up the game. And the game actually became a "Greatest Hits" game on the PS3, inspired a spiritual sequel which is among the my most anticipated games of this year.

@YukoAsho:

Dude, just because there is a lack of games for the wii coming up doesn't mean anything and you saying they hate gamers is just you being stupid. Disc based games don't sell on the the wii like i said and the DS is a different thing. You're saying that because nintendo knows the market is dead they hate gamers when in reality no one buys wii games and they would make no return. Mad world was the game that hardcore audiencies were waiting for and it got good reviews yet still it never sold. Don't blame nintendo just because they're smart enough to see a pattern!

@YukoAsho said:

Bull.   This is the same company that managed to wring out respectable sales out of fucking Dragon Quest IX.

Look at what's ending that title: a number. The Dragon Quest series isn't much of a risk, so it's not really a good thing to use in an argument. Besides, I'll say it again: Fragile Dreams didn't sell too well on the Wii, so what reason is there to believe that any of these games will? They're in pretty similar scenarios, so there's reason to believe that there will be similar outcomes. Remember that for a lot of Japan-only releases, gamers were given a chance to bring it over, and they fucked it up.

Bull.   This is the same company that managed to wring out respectable sales out of fucking Dragon Quest IX.

who is the playasia of europe...if I wanted to buy a European Wii? 

Nintendo needs to rethink this. There's no doubt in my mind that this game will completely flop on the Wii, but Nintendo really needs to be thinking about the Wii U's prospects here. The early adopter demographic is the core gamer demographic, and Nintendo really needs to be extending an olive branch (or, in this case, three olive branches) to the core gamer if they want the Wii U to be successful. Take the financial hit now, reap the rewards later. Snub the core gamer to save a buck now, be ignored when the Wii U launches.

Nintendo needs to rethink this. There's no doubt in my mind that this game will completely flop on the Wii, but Nintendo really needs to be thinking about the Wii U's prospects here. The early adopter demographic is the core gamer demographic, and Nintendo really needs to be extending an olive branch (or, in this case, three olive branches) to the core gamer if they want the Wii U to be successful. Take the financial hit now, reap the rewards later. Snub the core gamer to save a buck now, be ignored when the Wii U launches.

@Vortextk:

The market in america is a different beast and if you look at most wii game titles the only ones that make a profit are mini game collections that don't need much return. Localizing is expensive and time consuming so don't just say its easy to make returns on thier invesment. These games will only be on the wii and looking at the fate of mad world and other games that lack the name mario you can tell it won't sell. Im not saying i can read the future, but anyone who knows basic buisness would see a pattern and stop investing in wii disc sales, ergo nintendo won't invest their money in this.

@Beforet said:

So, any chance this is Nintendo not wanting to pay extra licensing fees? I know it seems silly, but that's the only financial reason I can come up with.

Nintendo owns the IP of all three games, and there are no licensed music or asssets. The only money that NOA would have to pay would be for the localization process (which they could do in-house if they wanted), and the costs related to publishing and shipping games to stores.

@Vortextk:

The market in america is a different beast and if you look at most wii game titles the only ones that make a profit are mini game collections that don't need much return. Localizing is expensive and time consuming so don't just say its easy to make returns on thier invesment. These games will only be on the wii and looking at the fate of mad world and other games that lack the name mario you can tell it won't sell. Im not saying i can read the future, but anyone who knows basic buisness would see a pattern and stop investing in wii disc sales, ergo nintendo won't invest their money in this.

@Hailinel:

Sorry you feel that way, but you can't just denounce the buisness side of this industry and declare you want nintendo to lose money because you want a game without importing.

So, any chance this is Nintendo not wanting to pay extra licensing fees? I know it seems silly, but that's the only financial reason I can come up with.

Unreal, you say never would have made a profit yet the games have not sold well there so far. In total, vgchartz has tracked not even 400k sales over all 3 releases combined. If you look up japanese rpg or japanese action rpgs on any home console you will see that in nearly every single case, japanese sales at most have been around 50%. At worst, 25% or so. That means, in a worst case scenario, releasing all 3 games in europe and america would get sales close to 1million by doing nothing except localization. Shipping, production etc are the same or nearly the same as it is going to be with the japanese release anyway. At best, they could get 1.3mil+ between the three games based on other japanese rpg sales figures.
 
They could double or quadruple game sales by changing languages, slapping some new crap on the box + disc, and shipping it out to other stores. Regardless of "bad" or low sales, take your pick of these types of games for 360, ps3 or wii and you will see almost without exception they sell better in america versus japan and much better when counting all nations against japan. Atleast 1 for sure, possibly 2 are coming to europe but that still leaves the -biggest- wii market untouched. Even 100k more sales on a game is a good figure when it only manages to hit 170k after like a year in japan( that is how old xenoblade is, if I'm not mistaken).

@UnrealDP: I am through talking to you. Do not bother responding to any further posts I make. Your negative attitude insults me.

@Hailinel:

Its better off this way and hey atleast nintendo said they wouldn't sell them instead of saying nothing at all and ignoring the whole thing. The wii disc market is terrible and they never would of made a profit, so no amount of letters will sway thier opinion, but keep on trying i guess.....

@Napalm said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

Project Rainfail.

Unfortunately...

It's not over yet. Letter-writing campaigns are still going forward and the movement's followers actually increased dramatically over the past day. It might not succeed, but it's better to try than to simply give up.

@CrashTanuki said:

Let Atlus, Xseed, Ignition, or one of the many other localization publishers take them.

This actually makes the most sense. I can definitely see Nintendo outsourcing the publishing rights to XSEED, but I'm not sure if Nintendo would allow that or not. Is there any precedent for this?

@zoner said:

@BeachThunder said:

I still haven't come to terms with the fact that Mother 3 will probably never get an official English release =(

The sad part is that Atlus practically begged Nintendo to let them do it

Had a dream that it came out here, woke up very upset upon realising the reality :(

I couldn't care less about two of those games, but I'm bummed about not getting The Last Story. That and Skyward Sword are the only upcoming Wii games I care about, and they haven't released anything else for core gamers since 2010. 
 
Makes them seem like they're just blowing smoke up our asses with the claims they made at E3 about wanting to win the core gamer back.

I typically don't like to hate too much on Nintendo or any game publisher/developer out there, but damn Nintendo. This shit is fucked up. Many of these people in the US are long time fans that probably want Nintendo to return as the JRPG console as they were in the pre-N64 days. All this does is promote piracy when inevitably somebody translates these games and people start playing them through homebrew and emulators. 

Puts Nintendo's E3 presentation into perspective, doesn't it?