OpRainfall Isn’t Nintendo’s Fault: My Responses to Your Comments

I have no idea how long I have until I have to leave again, so I may have to stop this post short and come back to it later. Sorry! To read the original article and read the comments I am replying to, click here.

Anyway, let me start off by reiterating a point I made at the beginning of the article, though clearly not strongly enough: I’m in support of OpRainfall. I want these games to come here as badly as you all do, and I’m very sad Nintendo has decided (at least for the time being) to forgo their publication in North America. If anything, they could take any number of alternate sales routes to minimize risk- limiting quantities or selling it on a demand basis like Demon’s Souls- and so really, one could just jump to the conclusions that Nintendo is either lazy, mean, or doesn’t care about us at all.

The purpose of this article was not so much to question the validity of arguments against Nintendo because I do not believe they are valid. The purpose is to say “Hey you guys, I know this sucks and it shouldn’t be this way, but let’s take a look from Nintendo’s perspective for a second.” Their behavior in this situation, while unfortunate, I don’t think is nearly as unfair and people are making it out to be. If people are making it out to be, say, a 10 on the unfairness scale, I’d like to say it should really only be a 6 or a 7. We aren’t being treated horribly and unfairly; we just haven’t given Nintendo a reason to trust us with “core” titles on Wii.

I also want to respond to a few select posts in the comments that I think I’ll have time to right now:

@bob: Fragile is horribly, horribly underrated. I realize that upon release, everyone focused just on the tangible gameplay aspects, but looking at the meaning, atmosphere, and story, one could easily say it ranks in the best games of all time. Perhaps if people actually read reviews instead of just looking at the numbered score, the game would’ve done a little better…

@nekoknight: I recall once a developer saying that they needed to sell around 400K of a game for it to make a significant profit. Not sure what “significant” means, but I’m guessing it has to do with whether they’d be allowed to make a sequel or not, and whether the publisher considers it a success. Also, I agree with Pandora’s Tower on box art. I do like Xenoblade’s as well though…

@Captain N: I honestly do not think, in the slightest, that Nintendo is going to market any of these games in any of the countries that they’re being released. MAYBE Japan, but I’d have to look into it. Also, I get frustrated when people say we haven’t gotten a new IP since Pikmin. What about the entire “Wii” series, Nintendogs, Steel Diver, and then the tens of games that they co-developed with other guys like the Art Style games? These may not be Zelda quality, but they are certainly great games in their own right, and at the top of their respective genres.

@Millah: I do agree with your first sentence. Why we’re not getting Xenoblade is beyond me, but again, I was just trying to look at it from Nintendo’s perspective. I disagree though. Remember that many titles that are very hyped and get great reviews in Japan come to America and totally flop, if only because “we” have such a vast difference in interests. Again, I point to the Famitsu scores, high hype, and decent Japanese sales of all the games I listed.

@thomas: It’s also worth nothing that Nintendo probably doesn’t look at the “Nintendo Effect”, because they believe their games sell well based on quality- not based on name. Again, I’m trying to look at it from their perspective and get people so be a little more objective in their bashing of the company.

@orenn: But what about Nintendo’s investors? They’re already in massively hot water after this 3DS fiasco, so they probably don’t want to take any unnecessary risks. At least not for the time being.

@guttertalk: I have a bit of an issue with people bringing up the whole “LOOK, IT SOLD TWICE AS MUCH IN AMERICA.” bit. We also have more than twice as many people as Japan and Nintendo has to manufacture twice as many copies of their games to cover the massive difference in area compared to Japan, so I think it’s understandable that they’d be hesitant.

As far as “chastizing Wii owners”, I didn’t mean to chastise as much as say “Hey, you don’t have to buy these games if you don’t want to, but doing so does have consequences, so don’t complain when it comes back around.”

I suppose that’s still sort of chastising, isn’t it? =P

@Millah: I really don’t think many of you bought any of the games I mentioned new OR at full price…

@Lele: I totally and completely agree with this post. I think, even if they KNOW they would take a bit of a loss on these games, they should just put them out so their customers appreciate the work that they put in- even if only like 50,000 people end up buying them.

Okay, I think that’s everything I can suitably respond to. If I didn’t respond to your post, it just means I didn’t have much to say. Either I agree with you, or it wasn’t really a disputable statement! I hope this clears things up for a lot of you, and starts yet another great discussion on the comments/forum.

Thanks for reading my stuff, you guys! It’s quite appreciated. Now, let the debate rage onward!