XSEED on Last Story localization, Reggie says Nintendo doesn’t “hold back games”
Once Xenoblade Chronicles was confirmed for North America, The Last Story’s localization announcement wasn’t a huge shock. What was surprising, however, was the fact that XSEED would be publishing a Nintendo game.
So, how did this unique publishing opportunity develop? Director of Publishing Ken Berry shared some of the backstory at E3 2012 last week.
Berry told Kotaku:
“It was actually much easier than you would expect. They were receptive to our inquiry from the very start. We approached them once it looked pretty certain that it wasn’t coming over. I was in Japan for Tokyo Game Show and I picked up a copy of The Last Story, cause a lot of us in the office would want to play it anyways. Once we started playing it, we just figured, ‘Wow, this would be nice if this came over—let’s talk to Nintendo!’
[Nintendo was] like ‘Well, no one’s asked us yet, but it may be possible. Let us take a look.’ Perhaps people just assumed that if Nintendo wasn’t gonna do it, it wasn’t coming over, but yeah, they were very receptive from the start.”
Berry followed up the overview with an interesting response regarding Operation Rainfall. Apparently the group’s efforts to bring attention to The Last Story didn’t have much affect on the decision to bring the game stateside – this apply to both Nintendo and XSEED.
Berry explained:
“No, I don’t believe so. Nintendo, they have their own set of rules that they go by. And as for us, it didn’t really affect us either—cause we have our own requirements that we look for on potential titles. And, you know, it just met all [our] prerequisites.”
Berry wasn’t the only man to comment on the North American origins of The Last Story. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime offered a few thoughts as well by discussing the Big N’s policy surrounding localizations. Reggie claims that NOA does not “hold back games”.
“Nintendo of America does not quote unquote hold games back. Our process, with every game, is to assess its potential and if we judge a game as having significant potential or the potential is there to warrant the the localization cost, then we will localize it and bring it to the market—that is our philosophy.”
