It is starting to look quite likely that North Americans will be able to enjoy the excellent Xenoblade Chronicles next year. Better late than never, but what's taken Nintendo of America so long to announce it?
It is starting to look quite likely that North Americans will be able to enjoy the excellent Xenoblade Chronicles next year. Better late than never, but what's taken Nintendo of America so long to announce it?
Twitter: BeckyCFreelance
As reported in another thread there's a Facebook wall post from Nintendo showing character renders as well.
As for what took them so long? I'm guessing getting voice talent lined up, localization work, and finding a spot in the release schedule once they had a better idea of WiiU's launch. Probably nothing terribly scandalous as we all want it to be.
So long & thanks for all the fish!
They'd be idiots to do that, as the PAL version already has good enough voice acting to pass in NA. I believe the script is the same way, so their job isn't that hard at this point.Originally Posted by shoptroll
In fact, we linked that Facebook post in the article.
Twitter: BeckyCFreelance
Yeah it would make very little sense for them to completely redo the localization, I am prepared to get very offended if they do ^^
(Not like all the voice actors are completely new to US gamers either BTW, Shulk = Anders from DA2)
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It wasn't linked when I read it!In fact, we linked that Facebook post in the article.
Also, /fistpump for this news!
So long & thanks for all the fish!
Yeah, there's one single character with a Cockney accent who occasionally says things that may not be entirely comprehensible to North Americans who are unfamiliar with British slang. That's part of his charm, though. The rest are completely comprehensible, and their performances are excellent.
Twitter: BeckyCFreelance
It's been in the article the entire time...It wasn't linked when I read it!
Also, /fistpump for this news!
Twitter: BeckyCFreelance
I don't know what you're talking about
(I skimmed the article and the red link would've caught my eye)
So long & thanks for all the fish!
Told you guys not to worry about this. Or at least I thought it so hard, you should have heard me telepathically.
My guess is one of two things: Nintendo is spacing out its final releases on the Wii to smooth out its financials as much as possible and try not to leave as massive of a dead space between the Wii and the Wii-U, or they originally planned to make this a Wii-U release title to increase NA Wii-U sales, then realized they were losing so many NA Xenoblade sales to importing that they scrapped the idea recently and are quickly bringing it out now.
The lesson here is that dreams inevitably lead to hideous implosions.
That's a pretty good guess actually. I think the expectation after E3 last year was for an early to mid-2012 WiiU launch, and by the sound of it the final hardware won't be shown until E3 so I think a traditional fall launch is looking most likely. Also, taking a hard turn toward traditional gaming genres leading up to the WiiU launch might help boost early adoption of the WiiU, especially by people who passed on the Wii initially. Also also, maybe they wanted to use Skyward Sword as a hook to get people to buy the Wii this holiday and follow up with Monado?
No doubt with Rhythm Heaven and Mario Party 9 looking like February/March releases they're probably trying to prevent an absolute dry spell until launch for their financials. Which makes me wonder what's up their sleeves for the rest of the year.
So long & thanks for all the fish!
I think the reason why Nintendo of America was taking too long to release Xenoblade Chronicles in North America was Reggie Fils-Aime's failure to listen to North American gaming fans.
If it wasn't for Operation Rainfall's persistence, assertiveness, and peaceful lobbying to bring Xenoblade in our side of the Pacific, North America would be left out of this best RPG in gaming history, possibly even better than the Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy series.
However, I hope that from now on, Reggie Fils-Aime starts listening to his fans as Nintendo of America is nothing without them. Otherwise, Nintendo will go the way of Sega and Atari.
Last edited by TheMoose; 12-02-2011 at 09:25 AM.
So THAT'S what that painful throbbing in my brain was, followed by blood out my ears.
Really, really hope Last Story and Pandora's Tower aren't too far behind.
"One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings." -- Diogenes
Eh. The same tactics were tried with Mother 3 and Mother 1+2 years ago and we never got anywhere. I don't think it's that they suddenly decided to cave to fan pressure.
EDIT: Don't forget, Sin & Punishment 2 didn't do very well despite fans clamoring for a sequel and the virtual console release of the original EU release. Nintendo placed that bet and it didn't pay off. So fans don't always know best.
That would be a nice way for the system to ride out into the sunset. However, we don't have any European release date locked down so who knows what's going on.
EDIT: Also, it would bolster the number of traditional genres available on the Wii for when the WiiU launches...
Last edited by shoptroll; 12-02-2011 at 10:04 AM.
So long & thanks for all the fish!
Looks like I need to swipe a friend's Wii again.
I last borrowed one for Muramasa.
My theory is that NoA didn't decide to actually bring Xenoblade out here until they saw the sales in Europe. If they'd been honestly planning to bring it here the whole time, why not announce it in the summer so that people didn't go into an import frenzy once the game came out in Europe? Reggie is savvy, I'm sure he knew that a reasonable percentage of the RPG enthusiast audience would import the thing if there was no reasonable assurance that it'd come out in North America. Spacing out the releases makes sense, yes, but I think there's more to it.
Operation Rainfall probably didn't hurt; at the least it showed NoA that there's an audience for the game. Just because fan demand for one project (Mother 3) didn't work, that doesn't mean that Nintendo will never listen to fan movements. It's just that the fan movement has to line up with various other variables in order for a game to come out.
Twitter: BeckyCFreelance
Well didn't they announce a couple years ago (2009?) that they were going to localize it once it was out?
That was somewhat my point. It has to be convenient for them to give it a green-light, and I don't think they just arbitrarily decided they're going to start listening to their fans from now on. Getting Mother 3 and Mother 1+2 (of which Mother 2 apparently is a huge copyright infringement lawsuit waiting to happen) over here just wasn't something they thought was a good business decision despite a years of call-ins, fan letters, etc.Operation Rainfall probably didn't hurt; at the least it showed NoA that there's an audience for the game. Just because fan demand for one project (Mother 3) didn't work, that doesn't mean that Nintendo will never listen to fan movements. It's just that the fan movement has to line up with various other variables in order for a game to come out.
If all companies listened to fans and ignored every other factor, I'm sure we'd have a Final Fantasy VII PS3 HD remake by now
So long & thanks for all the fish!
I don't know if there was an official announcement, but they showed it at a couple trade shows. Then after it stopped showing up, people asked about it, and we got the whole, "We can't confirm that it's coming out here" thing. I think because Nintendo got burned on several hardcore titles like Sin and Punishment, NoA decided to wait on Xenoblade's European sales (and in fact Reggie even said they were doing so) before committing to releasing it here.
Twitter: BeckyCFreelance
*nods* that seems likely.
So long & thanks for all the fish!
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