Actually, NoA is -not- localizing the most recent fire emblem game that has been out for over a year now. Which is really surprising actually since it’s a sequel to the last DS game…which sold more in the US than in Japan. Only sold around 250,000 copies, but for a Nintendo second party game with an already niche market, that is about what they expect to sell. At least, I would think that’s about what they expect to sell or they would not have even made the sequel
And as another interesting thing to note, both the previously released DS game and the one NoA refuses to release are remakes of third game, which was in turn a remake of the first game with an added section and they happened because the younger developers wished to develop older style games. So, they ditched the dialogue heavy nature of the GBA and console FE releases to focus on the gameplay. Though no Fire Emblem game has ever sold what I would call ‘well’, at the very least these DS releases have eclipsed the previous games in sales. I just wish I could find that interview again…but it was really funny because all of the veteran developers in it wanted to ‘make something new’ or ‘remake or re-release one of the more current releases’ while the younger developers wanted to remake FE1-5, the NES and SNES era games.
Interesting. I tried Fire Emblem on the Gamecube, and I think I lost it with all the dialogue coming out.
The younger developers were once actual customers. They actually have more information than the ‘veteran developers’. But in Japan, like many Asian societies, old age trumps everything.
I can’t find it, but there was a quote by Shigeru Miyamoto in 2006. He was saying that the young developers of Nintendo were wanting to make games they grew up with like Super Mario Brothers. Miyamoto instead told them to get inside the head of forty year old women and elderly people since Nintendo’s mission was to make games for everyone. And then Miyamoto said something like, “I told them, ‘I’ve made those games before. I don’t want to make them again!'”
People like Shigeru Miyamoto are completely in the dark about the consumer experience of some of the games. When people say, “Mario was my childhood!”, Miyamoto cannot understand that. He cannot comprehend that.
I can understand veteran developers wanting to ‘make something new’. What I cannot understand is why these veteran developers say that and then go on to make the same exact game over and over and over and over again. Zelda used to have formula changes from game to game. After Ocarina of Time, every Zelda shares the same gameplay skeleton of Ocarina of Time. Even Four Swords shares the same gameplay skeleton.
“And here’s more Kirby!” Nintendo says. Who are these Kirby fans? I’ve never seen them. “Here’s another Animal Crossing that is exactly identical to the previous one!”
What we’re not seeing coming out of Nintendo are new explorations of imagination. There are no new game series. No new content.