The Last Story's 2010 US trademark receives 'Notice of Allowance'

@shabby329 No More Heroes didn't do too badly. But the only Rainfall game I see having any real shot of selling "decently" is Zenoblade.

@shabby329

in the case of xenoblade, it's already translated/dubbed. there's no other reason not to release it in NA except to give the bird to Nintendo loyalists in America.

@dscuber9000 - Really? I see this one being a big deal, considering that it's Hironobu Sakaguchi's first directorial role since Final Fantasy V. If a new game from one of the gaming industry's legends isn't enough to get people to buy this game, then... I would be real sad.

Bonus: Nobuo Uematsu.

@shabby329: Yeah, most of the people whining will not buy these games even if they do get American releases. Many of them don't even own Wii systems. They're just whining because whining about the Wii is all the rage and makes them seem like hardcore gamers, instead of the casual, ignorant we-only-buy-the-most-popular-games assholes that they are.

When cool third-party games DO get released -- like Zack & Wiki, Muramasa, Kororinpa et cetera -- they completely ignore them. Publishers see that, realize that nobody ACTUALLY cares -- a lot of people just like to PRETEND they care -- and stop releasing cool games. What happens then? The pretenders post something along the lines of "this is all Nintendo's fault and my Wii is going to stay on the attic where it's been since launch".

No, assholes. It's not Nintendo's fault. It's YOUR goddamn fault. It's because YOU refuse to plug in your Wii no matter how many cool games are released that the number of cool games is going down, NOT the other way around.

@shabby329 or i guess let's look at it this way, rainfall actually probably is making nintendo really happy because, assuming they had always planned to release them all along as is seeming more and more the case, there will now be a ton of publicity for all 3 of them that they didn't have to pay for. And nintendo won't even seem like bad guys because, hooray!, they bowed to consumer demand and gave the people what they wanted

@Icemael this is one of the best comments i've ever read on joystiq. bravo sir

@shabby329
I recall watching a video from a smooth talking fella that laid out some good points on why Nintendo should release the games. Don't have the link but no doubt someone will come up with it.

Basically, most Wii games Nintendo released here did just as well, if not BETTER, than their Japanese release.

Remember kids, it's not about selling blockbusters all the time. It's about making a profit and when you already localized some of the games for English, you're simply an idiot not to release it elsewhere to further pad your coffers.

For the other "dream" games not localized, well I don't know how much it costs but you certainly don't need to worry about hiring new voice actors since most don't care for them outside the original language anyway. So that just leaves text and some programming that's fairly straightforward.

So, there really isn't much of an argument because the games would almost make money regardless of how they do since they should have already broken even in Japan.

@shabby329

....... I'm not sure its the kind of publicity they want.

I was really looking forward to Xenoblade and to some extent Last Story. But at this point if they release them with all the jerking around NOA has pulled .... I'd probably buy them used out of spite.

When had they just said "Yes we are planning on releasing these awesome games!" in the first place they would have fallen between day and week one purchases.

In short if they do plan on releasing them (likley holding out for a Wii/Wii U simultaniouse release like TP for no good reason because everyone who buys them for the Wii U will bitch that they have Wii graphics...) all they had to do was be forthcoming and honest with their customers.

@Mmmmz
Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-_yZvmzLOQ

Refute away, hopefully with links.

@Icemael You do realize that those on Project Rainfall actually do have a Wii and have actually pre-ordered Monado (Xenoblade) on Amazon right?
...while I won't account for the rest, we're (as I am a part of it) sure at least 50% of us are actually sticking with the preorder and not going to pull out of it.

...we do admit that it's sad that many of the others are planning to pull their preorder before the game comes out...

@shabby329

"personally i'm interested in playing all 3 but even that interest and my nintendo fandom would not translate into day 1 purchases"

Your loss. What would you buy over The Last Story? It's a game that got high scores, lots of good player reaction, etc.

We need The Last Story.

@Icemael

lol, wtf? Way to talk out of your ass.

@MatthewBlackwell

both Nobuo and Hironobu are attached to Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon on the Xbox 360 as well, and i absolutely love Lost Odyssey. i believe it is, sadly enough, one of the most overlooked (and best) exclusive titles the system has to offer. Blue Dragon was also pretty good, but i'm not a very big fan of Akira Toriyama's art, so i didn't finish it.

@Icemae

Zack & Wiki, Muramasa, Kororinpa.

These games are neat (not great) games, but good luck getting anybody (wii, xbox or ps3 owners) to play them. I literally couldn't force my friends to try them. Hell I bought them all and barley played them (couple hours each).

It doesn't matter what system they are on. They really don't have wide appeal.

@EatSleepChuck: No, I'm just not blind. Every once in a while people will come out and collectively whine about the Wii. It's "why isn't this game getting localized" this and "if only there were more than casual games" that. Then, if the game people are whining about does get localized or a good non-casual game comes out, nobody cares and it sells like shit. A couple of months later people have forgotten about the last time and repeat the process again.

Anyone who's part of any substantial gaming communities should have seen this happen multiple times.

@TwEE: Forget about your friends. Similar games are successful all the time on other platforms.

@Icemael


"Forget about your friends. Similar games are successful all the time on other platforms."

Oh yeah? Big demand for marble rolling games on the xbox? Or point and click puzzle games on the ps3?

No icemael, Dont make things up.

@TwEE: Telltale's point & click games sell plenty, and those don't even have good puzzles. Zack & Wiki could've sold gangbusters if they released it piece by piece à la Telltale on Xbox Live, with each world being an "episode".

And "marble rolling" is not a genre, but small, quirky puzzle games are very popular these days if you haven't noticed.

@Icemael

So it sounds like what your saying is the reason those games are not selling is not because they are on the wii, but that they are full priced retail games instead of small digitally distributed games for under 10 bucks.

Which is to say these genres are no longer popular enough to share physical shelf space with big popular Hollywood type games and thus would not sell on any system.

And yes marble rolling games are their own genre, with very old arcade roots (not to mention table top). Marble madness being the best of the bunch.

@TwEE: Zack & Wiki would still cost just as much on Xbox Live. It would just be sold piece by piece instead of all at once.

And no, them being Wii games is still a major factor. If they were WiiWare games they would still have sold like shit. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they would've sold WORSE. Most gamers pay close attention to Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network. The exact opposite is true of WiiWare: gamers care less about that even than retail Wii releases.

Marble rolling, by the way, is no more a genre than "3D gravity-manipulating puzzle games" (see games like Kula World and Ilomilo) or "portal games" (see Portal and its sequel). It's covered by the action-puzzle genre.

What sort of crazy world do you live in where companies say "we could make a lot of money from that but we don't feel like it"

@TwEE The never stopped me from making my Wii region free.

@TheStickFullofJoy Already modded mine last week. No coercive system updates from both WiiConnect24 or Discs. That's right, even games I decide to buy from an import store! Heck, I can play any game I want without annoying update prompts! Suck that NOA.