Nintendo and Europe

Does anyone else feel like Nintendo's relationship towards their European fans is getting rather awful?
European fans nowadays gets the short end of the stick when it comes down to newly released games. I remember how it's usually approximately between one and four months before new games are in stock in your nearby stores, if we're lucky nowadays we've to wait six months to get new games on the consoles, worse case senario it even takes YEARS before we can get to enjoy a game we've been waiting for patiently while mostly the USA are laughing at us. If it was region-free that would change the whole matter, but sadly it's not.

(Quite ironic, though. 3DS: Region locked - Awesome ton of games.
PS Vita: Region Free - Only a few good titles worth mentioning for.)

Your thoughts?

I think you've been living under a rock for a while, Nintendo games in Europe actually improved in release schemes.
Most major 3DS and Wii U games get released on the same date, 2 days before America, or a week after America.
We even got games like Mario & Luigi first.

The only problem is the price.
Something what costs $ 40 USD in America, costs € 40,- in Europe.
Same digits, different currency.
$ 40 USD = € 29,58.
€ 40,- = $ 54,08 USD.

Sorry but I don't really care about the major games at all. To be accurate it's mostly the niche games that's getting the short end of the stick for european fans each year and most people are already aware of that. And Nintendo bringing their major games earlier to Europe isn't really a big surprise at all, it wasn't really that different from years ago.

Australia is often treated as part of Europe (PAL I suppose), but also gets the short end of the stick, if not worse. Going on the price thing, we get 3DS games up to $70 here for instance, and that was even when our dollar was better than the US's (and it's not much worse rn either). And we seem to be getting less stuff that Europe too, overall.

Some are on the same day now like X and Y and other people in the thread have commented points I agree with.

Decimosoma, you mean the Independent (Indie) games?
In that case, I can answer it even better.

Smaller games have more to struggle than the bigger ones.
In the American Region, we have to deal 1 Age Rating System (ESRB) and up to 4 languages (English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese).
Here in Europe, we have to deal with 3 Age Rating Systems (PEGI, USK, and ACB) and up to 8 languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Russian).
Which languages you want to use is up to the Developers, all Age Rating Systems are required, and they cost between € 250,- and € 2000,- per rating, per System.
If you want to use a language you don't speak, you'll need to get a professional Translator, which costs a lot too.
Beside that, Nintendo sends you many Contracts over per game you want to release, it doesn't cost anything, but it still delays a bit.
Other than these costs, think of rental of the office/building, one time costs like DevKits and PCs, electricity, other bills, these simple stuff can horribly delay releases too.

Indie Developers are simply low on budget, we just can't effort to release a game everywhere on the globe.
The reason why I can is, because I've been saving money before I even started anything.
It really isn't Nintendo who screws it up, as the Developer decides when to release anything per Region, and there are up to 6 Regions Nintendo supports: Japan, America, Europe/Australia (seriously, that's how it's called), Korea, Taiwan, and China.

Edit:
I forgot to talk about one more thing: Lot Check.
If you screw it up on at least one thing, you need to re-check it, causing delay again.

The only problem I'm seeing between Nintendo and Europe is the struggle to sell the Wii U over there. I've read that the popular UK supermarket, Tesco, was severely decreasing Nintendo shelves, making sales really limited: http://mynintendonews.com/2013/09/2...reduced-in-tesco-the-uks-largest-supermarket/

Part of this could be blamed on Europe's economy.

Getting that way? It's been that way for years and years now. Several Gamecube games never made it to EU shores, and the hassle involved in getting the original Animal Crossing to come to the UK...well. Nintendo are frequently forgetting that there is, actually, a world outside of the US and Japan, and on the whole, I don't see a huge improvement in Nintendo in terms of release date gaps. Unless it's something major, the gap between the US and EU release date will be at least a month most of the time, if not longer.

I will give Nintendo their due, though: they have improved in bringing games to EU shores, if not necessarily doing so quickly. At least, it makes a nice change for America to have to campaign for something - the games of Operation Rainfall, to name the most prominent - and have them released over here with barely any fuss whatsoever.

Region locking has affected all English speaking territories I think, as a lot of good 3DS games haven't even made it out of Japan, never mind the US. Nintendo have really shot themselves in the foot with that one, especially since Sony and Microsoft both have abandoned it...

Decimosoma said:

Sorry but I don't really care about the major games at all. To be accurate it's mostly the niche games that's getting the short end of the stick for european fans each year and most people are already aware of that. And Nintendo bringing their major games earlier to Europe isn't really a big surprise at all, it wasn't really that different from years ago.

Click to expand...

Niche games aren't what bring in the big bucks that Nintendo wants. This is why they're typically promoted in Japan and the US, if at all. I mean, I only found out about some interesting 3DS niche games very recently and I'm from the States. So, it's not just Europe getting the short end of the stick.

MKGirlism said:

I think you've been living under a rock for a while, Nintendo games in Europe actually improved in release schemes.
Most major 3DS and Wii U games get released on the same date, 2 days before America, or a week after America.
We even got games like Mario & Luigi first.

The only problem is the price.
Something what costs $ 40 USD in America, costs € 40,- in Europe.
Same digits, different currency.
$ 40 USD = € 29,58.
€ 40,- = $ 54,08 USD.

Click to expand...

Yeah but the people in Europe also earn money in euro so this is not a fair comparison. The adequate comparison would be between the cost of life, which is much higher in Europe from what I know.

Other than solidarizing with the lack of games I'm not supposed to care about the European market, though, as we in Brazil (luckily) don't have an own standard so we are included in the American region by default, which is a big advantage. With the advent of Blu-Ray all the major media releases are being translated to Portuguese as standard which is a huge improvement since before we only had the option of English and Spanish. The problem is that in Brazil the minimum wage is something like $300 in US currency and a game costs around $70, so it's impracticable to buy too many games. I'm still waiting to buy MK7 and OoT 3D because of this, and there are more 3DS games I want, but I can't go on a spree because it would break me.

So in a nutshell, every place apart from USA and Japan have their problems. We get the games but we can't buy them, you can buy the games but you don't get them. And region locks are a *****.

I'm flattered that you mentioned Portuguese language, though. Never thought we Portuguese speakers were too relevant. ^^

Actually, when submitting a game to Nintendo of America, we must set the price in the USA, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil only, so you're not really an 'own standard' Region, in terms of Nintendo.

I'm glad they acknowledge our market. ^^ But our prices are too expensive!

The only thing that sucks about buying games in Europe and Australia is that the price for games is extremely overpriced. I feel sorry for you guys.

That's what I already explained.
However, if you think games in West-Europe are overpriced, then you never were in East-Europe.
Although they're still in a cheaper position than Australia, or even New-Zealand.

We also have to understand that European prices include VAT, something American ones don't (because there isn't a federal equivalent), meaning actual prices can be higher in some States. Although well, the average VAT in Europe is close to 20-something % while the average US sales tax is about 7%. But if you take the taxes out of European prices, the difference is much smaller than it seems at a first glance.

Not really.
Ireland has 15% VAT, Germany has 19% VAT, and Netherlands has 21% VAT.
Game prices in all 3 countries are equally € 40,- for, let's say, Pokémon X.

I mean, not that I can counter the high price issue, but doesn't Europe get more exclusive consoles and a wayyy better Club Nintendo selection?

DavidtheDeadPhilosopher said:

I mean, not that I can counter the high price issue, but doesn't Europe get more exclusive consoles and a wayyy better Club Nintendo selection?

Click to expand...

This I can confirm to not be the case.

DavidtheDeadPhilosopher said:

I mean, not that I can counter the high price issue, but doesn't Europe get more exclusive consoles and a wayyy better Club Nintendo selection?

Click to expand...

Wait, we have Consoles that don't exist in any other Regions?
Wow, I didn't know that...Good to know...

Bruce Banner said:

The only thing that sucks about buying games in Europe and Australia is that the price for games is extremely overpriced. I feel sorry for you guys.

Click to expand...

Europe, overpriced? Europe is chip change compared to Brazil. Here the games are simply unobtainable to a lot of people.