Why the release in Europe first before America?

[VincentASM]

I really don't think so, but you never know.

Since in the past, there were still some Nintendo games that Europe got first. I can't think of many examples though, besides Terranigma, which America never got strangely enough (it's an awesome game BTW).

[Tamara]

That was mostly Enix faults. They didn't see any profit in a RPG for a last gen console.

As for Shadow Dragon... I think Nintendo was afraid it would be crushed by all the other November and December releases. Those months are always filled with big titles because of the holidays. Fire Emblem is the kind of series with a loyal fanbase, so it doesn't really need the Christmas boost to sell to it's full potential. Plus there is a lot less competition in Q1, so that won't hurt either.

[Justin]

Another game that never made it to US but went to EU was Ys tactics (Im 99% sure).

But that was only because it didnt do so well I think.

But the Economy here is in shambles right now so that may be why.

I also can agree that they may not have wanted it to be eclipsed by other releases.

[Mr.Shiu and Watch]

I think they thought the DS is in it's not selling very well phase and they are hoping it will come out of it.

[Sylvan]

Computer games are very resistant to economic downturn. They are a luxury good, which makes people think that when your short on cash you stop buying them. But this isn't true. When people have less cash, they stop going to the movies etc. Once off things that burn money, how much does it take to bring a family of 4 to the movies? How much re-play value do you get? People are more likely to buy games over movies, because they are a physical item that has re-play value.

I wonder when Australia will get this game. . . . And I wonder if the american version will be compatible with the Eur version. . .

[Kintenbo]

Well, Europe got Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland while America isn't getting it at all... Europe doesn't have it all bad. Whatever, at least we will be getting Shadow Dragon. (not too far away, but I still don't understand why we didn't get Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland)

[Tamara]

Computer games are very resistant to economic downturn. They are a luxury good, which makes people think that when your short on cash you stop buying them. But this isn't true. When people have less cash, they stop going to the movies etc. Once off things that burn money, how much does it take to bring a family of 4 to the movies? How much re-play value do you get? People are more likely to buy games over movies, because they are a physical item that has re-play value.

I wonder when Australia will get this game. . . . And I wonder if the american version will be compatible with the Eur version. . .

Yes, games are just like board games. When times are tough, people want to entertain themselves at home, because it's cheaper than going to the movies or eating out. So families will gather around the monopoly board or Wii instead.

(not too far away, but I still don't understand why we didn't get Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland)

Soccermom backlash? If a slightly controversional game isn't released in the US, it's usually something like that. Not that it's a solid reason... Persona 3 (kids shooting themselves in the head to summon monster-like-thingies) and other MegaTen games (Lucifer wants you to kill YHWH, because his ending is better than God's) managed to stay under the radar just fine. Sure, a Nintendo game might be a bit different, but it's not as if it's Tingle's first appearance.

I think they thought the DS is in it's not selling very well phase and they are hoping it will come out of it

The most popular handheld system not selling well during the Holiday season? That's a sign of the apocalypse.

[La Yodha Stasella]

Fire Emblem is the kind of series with a loyal fanbase, so it doesn't really need the Christmas boost to sell to it's full potential.

mh, it's not exactly like that, Shadow Dragon benefits the presence of Marth who attracts a lot people from the Smash Bros. fanbase, still most part of the Melee fanbase hasn't touched a single Fire Emblem yet, and the ones who instead did so, expected to found Marth\Roy everywhere.

If a whole new fire emblem (new characters, new continent, new all) were to come out instead of shadow dragon, I doubt it would have gained the same effect.

Ike himself, being considered cheap by nubs in brawl is granting radiant dawn a nice amount of sellings - at least here - from the release of brawl on.

I think fire emblem has become more than a loyal-fanbase-title with radiant dawn and shadow dragon

The most popular handheld system not selling well during the Holiday season? That's a sign of the apocalypse.

indeed

Edited December 31, 2008 by Jeel

[Tamara]

Yes, there is the Smash crowd... but I think they belong to the group that would buy the game regardless of releasedate. Fire Emblem is the kind of game you either buy, or don't buy. It's not like the casual games people usually get for Christmas. In any case, SD gets the sales boost from Smash, not from Christmas. I wouldn't be surprised if the Smash games were the reason we get Fire Emblems in the first place.

(You might even say I got into Fire Emblem because of Smash, and I don't even play those games!)

[Sylvan]

The smash crowd is the only crowd. Basically without smash, FE would never have been released out of japan. There are hardly any people who got into FE before melee came out.

There are almost no turn-based strategy games on (non-handheld) consoles, they aren't popular. FE had the SSBM advertising, and that's where 99% of the fan base came from.

[La Yodha Stasella]

Tamara's right.

But my point is that smash crowd get radiant dawn regardless of the release date for the simply fact that rd came out in april and brawl in june (I live in europe so I'm assuming pal release dates, I don't really remember the rd's one though), and brawl made radiant dawn more relevant, common conception is

game cube graphic + no wiimote point system\other features + no mii (yes, I saw this on some reviews) = radiant dawn sux

shadow dragon was released on december, after brawl, plus brawl gained much more players so the crowd is now formed by

ssbm elders + smash newbies + casual gamers

and due to the fact that most people need to squander money for christmas, (I mean that some people feel the need to buy stomething for christmas even if there's really no need about it) a lot of people from the new emerging fanbase was looking for the game featuring the cool-looking-swordman-nonetheless-high-tiered-on-smash, indeed I know a lot of people who bought this game on christmas as a first fire emblem game, well I suppose most of them will play normal mode and eventually not resuming the game once finished

[Tamara]

The smash crowd is the only crowd. Basically without smash, FE would never have been released out of japan. There are hardly any people who got into FE before melee came out.

There are almost no turn-based strategy games on (non-handheld) consoles, they aren't popular. FE had the SSBM advertising, and that's where 99% of the fan base came from.

I doubt it. I'm from the RPG crowd myself and the major reason people like me didn't import FEs was that RPG's and languages you don't understand are not a good combination. If Vandal Hearts and Ring of Red can earn Konami money, Fire Emblem can do the same for Nintendo. Disgaea was a cult hit, even made it to GH status. Many RPG franchises got a SRPG installment (Final Fantasy Tactics, Suikoden Tactics, Ys Strategy, Wild Arms XF etc) so there has so be some kind of market.

Translating and publishing your own games isn't very expensive. If one person can translate a SNES Final Fantasy in two months time, the same can be done for a Fire Emblem game. Distribution is probably the most expensive part of getting the game to western players. So the reason behind us not having FE is probably Nintendo being assholes who prefer no profits over minor profits. I mean, Fire Emblem is the first game of it's genre, yet we got stuff like Shining Force and Tactics Ogre first!

Edited December 31, 2008 by Tamara

[Sylvan]

I doubt it. I'm from the RPG crowd myself and the major reason people like me didn't import FEs was that RPG's and languages you don't understand are not a good combination. If Vandal Hearts and Ring of Red can earn Konami money, Fire Emblem can do the same for Nintendo. Disgaea was a cult hit, even made it to GH status. Many RPG franchises got a SRPG installment (Final Fantasy Tactics, Suikoden Tactics, Ys Strategy, Wild Arms XF etc) so there has so be some kind of market.

I'll take two comprable games here, Fire Emblem RD and Tales of Symphonia: DotNW. One was in Melee/Brawl the other was not. Tales of Symphonia sold substantially more than FE, despite far less advertising. Even then, with the added revenue, a large number of the tales of games do not get a world wide.

I don't have the article anymore, but nintendo have admitted the major reason FE was released out of japan was due to the popularity of Roy and Marth in melee.

Without melee, I'd take a bet and say FE would have sold roughly similar to Advance Wars. (AW sales are about 10x less than FE sales.)

But my point is that smash crowd get radiant dawn regardless of the release date for the simply fact that rd came out in april and brawl in june (I live in europe so I'm assuming pal release dates, I don't really remember the rd's one though), and brawl made radiant dawn more relevant, common conception is

RD was released in NA November 11, 2007, Europe, March 14, 2008 and Australia got it lucky last April 10, 2008.

I never really got video game release date logic. It's certainly not localisation issues. The number of games I own that still have "mom" in them is annoying.

[Tamara]

The original Tales of Symphonia was very popular, because:

1. It was a good RPG

2. Had next to no competition on it's console of origin. It stood out just by being a RPG on the GameCube

3. It got the right backing from Nintendo and Namco

A sequel based on a popular game is naturally going to sell atleast a decent amount of copies.

The reason we don't get more Tales games:

1. The series is competing with itself in Japan. The market is reaching the point of saturation. We don't really need all those spin-offs.

2. Namco Europe is retarded.

And while we don't get many Tales games, we do get a lot niche RPG's. Nippon Ichi Software SRPG's, Growlanser, Atelier Iris... There must be demand for these games, or we would never have gotten so many of them.

I'm not saying the Smash games did not have any effect on FE sales, what I am saying is that FE probably didn't need Smash to pass the break even point. RPGfans would have bought the game regardless the characters' popularity in other games. Besides, Nintendo brought over FE7 first, instead of the game that featured Roy! That alone shows that had some faith in the series.

[slax]

FE 7 had Roy in it.

>.>

<.<

....What? It did.

:P

Nah, this probably got released in Europe cuz Nintendo of Europe wanted some good publicity and this was the easiest game to achieve that on (ie: no text to censor), or something.

Edited December 31, 2008 by slax

[FionordeQuester]

There is no reason why it won't be before Easter. The game is ready to go unless NOA want to tinker with the translation *glares at Advance Wars...only America ended up getting that first by 4 days*.

Whaddaya mean by that? What did they do to AW's translation? I'd like to know, was there anything significant edited?

[Dat Nick]

They made it better.

The EU's version of the "Let's bag us a dinosaur!" scene was pathetic.

They also switched some names around....most people I know of prefer the American version. I even remember hearing some Europe people saying they preferred the US version.

I'm interested to see if they change the script at all in the US version, apart from the obvious [armour to armor and whatnot] cause truth be told, I kinda doubt it's gonna change much at all. Well, okay, they COULD throw some more FE slang in there [Dastard! Craven cur!]

[FionordeQuester]

They made it better.

The EU's version of the "Let's bag us a dinosaur!" scene was pathetic.

Huh, that makes me wish I could see the EU script, the better the American version is, the more I can feel good about the fact that the translators do a better job than I thought they did (up fairly recently, I was always under the impression that they always dumbed the scripts down in games released here. Nice to hear I'm wrong).

They also switched some names around....most people I know of prefer the American version. I even remember hearing some Europe people saying they preferred the US version.

Well, that's good, I was afraid they did something bad to it!

[Celice]

I remember hearing moreso that NoA took liberties with their translation, as they've done with Fire Emblem. Starwolf can likely clear up this issue if he sees it :/

[Starwolf_UK]

I'm in a bit of hurry now so sorry for being brief...

besides Terranigma, which America never got strangely enough (it's an awesome game BTW).

Enix America went bust. Their swansong was King Arthur and the Knights of Justice. An poor RPG based off a saturday mrning cartoon nobody had heared off

(not too far away, but I still don't understand why we didn't get Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland)

Popular belief is a tingle character survey that did the rounds in 2006. It included stuff like "would you be interested in buying a game with Tingle in it", "do you like tingle" and the internet proved it doesn't understand how to answer marketing polls. They said no to the game and they hated Tingle. In large numbers too :(

You're supposed to answer yes to everything and the lowest option for price

FE 7 had Roy in it.

>.>

<.<

....What? It did.

Technically that scene never happens in the European copies of the game :(

Huh, that makes me wish I could see the EU script, the better the American version is

Knock yourself out

And Berserkah2DaBladah please show me this "Let's bag us a dinosaur!" scene.

My personal view on the advance wars is you shouldn't care the script differences are minimal (oh no messhall is canteen, oh no Lili doesn't have *boom* at the end of every sentance). Now unit names and COs etc...the Europe translation is from before NOAs creativity department changed all the names so are literal translations of the Japanese.

What I do care about is NOAs betrayal. You could have given NOA the final script rather than a first draft, but no you decide to show how much better you are and get the game out 4 days earlier.

I didn't mind Mechs being called Bazookas and all the other names (well shipplane is a bit shitty) as it is new Advance Wars :) Plus Fire Emblem has gotten me used to inconsist names.

[Super Mecha Death Christ]

I'm in a bit of hurry now so sorry for being brief...

Enix America went bust. Their swansong was King Arthur and the Knights of Justice. An poor RPG based off a saturday mrning cartoon nobody had heared off

Hey, everyone knows the show had a kick ass theme song!

Oh, and you European folks got Disaster: Day of Crisis and rumors of Birdo's Vagina coming to your territory.

[General Spoon]

Well, Europe got Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland while America isn't getting it at all... Europe doesn't have it all bad. Whatever, at least we will be getting Shadow Dragon. (not too far away, but I still don't understand why we didn't get Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland)

This. Nintendo thinks they can be lazy dumb-fucking-shits and not release it here. Screw that, we'll play it anyways, they just won't get our money.