First of all, thanks Tommy Oliver for your post above. Indeed I hadn't expected that an honest, straight forward answer to a fan's question on a stream or here that could avert uncertainty for months or years would have created quite the outrage among a few folks that it has. I'll have to keep that in mind for the future when I consider giving a straight answer.
Secondly, Japan is the #1 territory for AA. Sales there continue to be solid which is why it was released there and why it is always the lead territory. Over the years we have had several titles (Basara comes to mind though there are others) released only in Japan because that market can sustain them all by themselves and the costs of bringing them to market in the West are higher than the revenue opportunity.
It's not totally clear in the P&L assumptions above, but it looks like you're asking us to charge Japanese customers more... or alternatively, you're equating Western sales of AA to those of Japan and making sales assumptions from there. In case one (charging the Japanese more), the sales in Japan have no bearing on the sales opportunity in the West (they don't need to localize for Japan as that's the original release). To justify the localization and local marketing costs, sales forecasts need to be high enough to cover those costs on their own. Charging Japanese consumers more doesn't justify the expense. In case 2 (equating Western sales to Japan) I can't get into details but that's not accurate.
In the sales and P&L assumptions above, what you also neglect is the cost of goods of the product (what it actually costs to produce cartridges, packaging, manuals, with royalties due to Nintendo in this case), testing costs, and marketing expenses, sales commissions, freight and overhead. There are other costs neglected but they're smaller individually so I won't get into them. In short, what you think we're recouping per unit, isn't actually what we're recouping.
And to those saying "localization costs can't be that much", in a game like AA, localization is everything when it comes to overseas perception of quality. A quick and dirty literal translation doesn't get you very far. It doesn't help you capture the character's quirks, help you understand the humor or references when there aren't appropriate "direct" translations. Our loc team in Japan has continually done a fantastic job on these products which is part of the reason why you love them so much. There is no shortcut to be had there.
Lastly, the dynamics at retail for NDS have changed a lot over the past 12 months and even more since the introduction of the 3DS.
I'll be having some conversations tomorrow with our roadmap planning team on this topic given the feedback here. I have a few ideas. We'll see what happens.
In any event, please keep the conversation civil. I understand the disappointment and I'm happy to share how the market operates within reasonable ranges but I could do without the "sky is falling" hyperbole. There may be other solutions.
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