Earthbound coming to the Wii U Virtual Console was quite an event — fans had been asking for the game since the days of the original Wii.
Given the tremendous exposure surrounding the launch of the game, you might assume that Nintendo would want to explore the possibly of bringing other titles in the Mother series to the west — specifically the Game Boy Advance sequel Mother 3 — but sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case.
When asked by IGN if the positive reception given to Earthbound would change the way Nintendo views the franchise, Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime replied:
To answer your specific question, I would have to say no. We knew the response to EarthBound was going to be strong. Believe me, I’ve met those fans. The first question out of their mouth is, ‘Reggie, when is EarthBound coming? Mother 3!’ I’ve met, I think, all of them. So we’re always looking at our rich history to identify those opportunities of games we could bring back and have consumers experience.
For me, it was Chrono Trigger. That was a key game in my early video-game-playing days, and I love when we made that game available. So we’re constantly looking at opportunities to bring back some of our great legacy content, reintroduce that to consumers, and have them enjoy it the way many of us did years and years ago.
I have nothing to announce regarding Mother 3 at this time.
It's a shame that Nintendo doesn't seem to be interested in releasing more Mother games outside of Japan, but the cost of translating all of that text is considerable — would the company really see a return on its investment, given the small install base of the Wii U? Let us know what you think by posting a comment.
[source uk.ign.com]
Comments 52
But of course they want the goodies to stay in Japan, wasn't there people actually willing to translate the games for free?
Given it was a GBA game, I would prefer a 3DS eShop release
@Undead_terror yeah there was, its technically already done as a patch for a rom of mother 3. he wrote to nintendo offering to do it all for free.
Yep. "Here, use our translation, which is perfectly fine" - No, that would be 'uncool'.
I didn't interpret that interview as saying "no" to Mother 3 at all. Read these lines:
"So we’re always looking at our rich history to identify those opportunities of games we could bring back and have consumers experience."
"So we’re constantly looking at opportunities to bring back some of our great legacy content, reintroduce that to consumers, and have them enjoy it the way many of us did years and years ago."
"I have nothing to announce regarding Mother 3 at this time."
All of that spells a definite "maybe" to me. Oh & of course they aren't going to announce Mother 3 in a single interview with IGN, they'd announce it in a Nintendo direct. I really don't know how anyone could interpret what he said as "we're not interested". Also, given their announcement earlier this year of GBA games coming to Wii U VC & the success of the EarthBound VC release, it seems to me that Mother 3 is a shoe-in for translation & re-release I've gotta finish EarthBound first though
Did Reggie ever confirm Earthbound for Wii U VC? No. We got denied over and over again, then it just happened.
@SMW Silently..
<shrug> I got bored with it halfway through and stopped playing. It didn't seem to have the same magic that the other two had.
I understand he didn't say no, he said maybe and I wouldn't tell you if it was a Yes.
I think it will eventually get to the west. I'm far more interested in new games. Specially in new IPs.
What have we learnt over the past 3 years, and also the past 2 days, Nintendo do not announce ANYTHING to reporters,
At E3 2012
Reporter: Is there a new version of the 3DS coming out anytime in the future?
Iwata: No we are happy with the Orignal 3DS as it is and there will be no other iterations or versions of the 3DS for the forseeable future!
A week after that e3, the XL was announced
Same with the 3DS price cut, no price coming, august 2011, BAM, price cut.
Same with the WiiU price cut, of course it was coming, they are hardly gonna say yes hold on for a few months and there will be a price cut, duh.
How come people cant understand that Ninty lie ALL the time about products and prices?
So yes, Earthbound/Mother will come to the west VC in the future, we just dont know when, but there is money to be made here.
What is the point of that special MiiVerse announcement community then? There must be something in the works.
This is what Reggie was talking about when he called gamers insatiable — and the term wasn't used in a complimentary manner. They give us the game we've been requesting for years and the immediate response is, "Where is the sequel?" Maybe just sit back and give them a chance to get to it?
But Nintendo wouldn't have to translate all the text because the Mother 3 Fan translation group can just give their translations to them. If anything, Nintendo would just have to edit any text as they please.
Seems to me he said they wouldn't be viewing the Mother franchise differently (which means no new titles, probably). Regarding Mother 3, he merely said they have nothing to announce at this time - you know, like they had nothing to announce regarding a Wii U price cut. It's deliberately vague, and I feel (and really really hope) we might get it in the near future.
Still a bummer about no new titles in the franchise, though.
@ricklongo Does this get rid of that bummer at all? http://www.mother4game.com/
It seems like they might revisit the possibility after they get other things done, like Chrono Trigger on VC.
Mother 3 won't sell Wii Us to anyone who didn't get one for Earthbound, bit Chrono Trigger is a different matter.
And expecting Nintendo to take up the free offer for an amateur translation is like McDonalds accepting my offer for free hamburgers...
The specific question was "Will the earthbound popularity change the way you view the series?" and specific answer was "no, we knew exactly how popular it was going to be, so we didn't change anything."
@WiiLovePeace was just about to post the same thing! To me I interpret"we have nothing to announce regarding mother 3 at this time" as "we are considering bringing mother 3 to wiiu vc but want it as a surprise to our fans so...no comment!"
They have the already translated NES one in a vault somewhere.
Chrono Trigger is already readily available (iOS / DS / Android and the WIi VC).
I don't expect we will ever get the uncensored SNES one.
If they do mother 3 they will likely do it as a retail full price release because it will cost so much.
@ricklongo I think it is fine. (He didn't want to do mother 3 but gave into the hassle.)
I think franchises should be let go.
Doesn´t matter I´ve played the fan translation I and suggest others to do so too.
how in the world did you get Mother 3 wont be coming to Wii U out of his comments.
His exact quote is "I have nothing to announce regarding Mother 3 at this time."
How is that being interpreted as never going to come... good god games journalism is just as bad as NBC/ABC/CBS/CNN/MSNBC.... spin spin spin spin for one side.
I'm sure that they will release Mother 3 outside of Japan someday, but today is not that day. I haven't even had the opportunity to play Earthbound yet so I can at least look forward to that. Some games aren't destined to become massive selling franchises no matter how good they actually are, and in this case that would be Earthbound.
@MadAdam81 Clyde Mandelin is a professional translator,the word amateur isn't really appropriate in this situation, they're still extremely unlikely to use an unofficial translation though.
@Dpullam Massive seller or not, Mother 3 would be incredibly cheap to port to Virtual Console, especially if they used that free translation from Mato. Basically it would be free money for Nintendo, since there would be virtually no development costs involved.
Nintendo is the stupidest bunch of people. We all want Mother 3, badly, and they are offered a free translation that Nintendo themselves couldn't do a better job with. We keep asking Nintendo to let us pay them for this game, but since they won't hear it I see nothing wrong emulating it.
Hey, this pretty much confirms MOTHER 3 will come eventually! Reggie didn't outright deny it being localized, and clearly he knows there's a lot of demand for it (since he said the Earthbound rerelease's positive feedback didn't change Nintendo's opinion of the franchise.)
Anyways, it would be a bad business move to announce a U.S. MOTHER 3 mere months after its predecessor's release. Give it a year or two, and I'm sure they will announce something.
I think wording they're not interested is a bit strong. I think they're just not disinterested or interested, it's provisional limbo, but I do strongly feel it's the least likely.
Let's face facts back in 1990 they had finished, setup up marketing, packaging and the rest of the real Earthbound (ie: MOTHER 1) for the NES and along with the likes of Final Fantasy 2(not 2 on SNES that's 4) both got put to death because the assumed 1990 (not later 91) release of the SNES. IT would have been a battle of AAA games suffering due to a new beast of a system while warring with Sega's smear falsehood campaigns and head start.
Mother 1 is and has been done. They own it outright, they made it, and back then they very well went over it with a legal fine tooth comb knowing how uptight NOA can be. The effort to put that up on the 3DS or WiiU virtual console would be amazingly minimal, no more than uploading it to the server, applying their emulator to it, doing some digital marketing and PR to the websites, and that's it. NO real cost, all benefit, and finally earning cash on a game they put big bucks into and sunk. That would make the most sense, not MOther 3. Sure there is that fanboy translation from Tomato who works for Funimation as a translator of anime, but they can't seriously be expected to license that or buy it off him, so it would be at their cost and time. Mother 3 could only be expected if and ONLY IF I'd think Earthbound(Mother 2) sells into the million download area proving itself finally (sold 160K back in the day on SNES which was a failure), and then they'd put out Mother 1(Earthbound Zero to rom hacker/patcher people) and it did some very strong numbers too. Nintendo is a corporation and unless the bean counters can see where they'd earn their money back and a strong profit they won't pay a team to translate, patch, localize things, and the rest if it isn't an easy win for them.
@Sam_Loser2 You're being selfish, read my post. Also retroquest games which you can google sells the game on real gameboy advance parts (not a solder and hack ghetto job) reproduction cart for the GBA. I have it, it's solid. Just go that route if you have to have it on your real system and not as a downloaded emulated rom image.
@tanookisuit Ethical gray areas granted, I don't think you can consider the translation to Mother 3 a "soldier and hack ghetto job". It's an amazing well done localization. And while I would like nothing more than to have the game in pure GBA cartridge form, if it's not in English I'm losing 70% of what I want the game for.
Ya know I really don't get Nintendo anymore. It's almost like they don't care about the fans opinions and still think that there instincts will pull them out of everything. I hate those types of people and Nintendo is turning into one of those kinds. I hate to say it but if Nintendo doesn't get their sh*t together they're going to be dragging they're *sses behind Sony and Microsoft forever. Not to mention that there lack in game support lately would never warrant a "free gaming" service like PS+ or Microsoft Gold have ever.
@thesilverbrick That's why I'm sure they will release it eventually. I have to get into the first Earthbound to see if I should be looking forward to it myself.
Thanks Reggie
;__;
Maybe the Earthbound series would sell well on the 3DS....
@Electricmastro I had seen it before, and yes, it looks way better than I could expect.
Stupid on Nintendo's part to deny us what would obviously be a cash cow.
@Ignatius_Cheese You KNOW it's being released to the Wii U VC (if it's ever released), the 3DS VC doesn't even support SNES games :S
Reggie, I hate you.
They could release the all Mother games on a compilation for 3DS and it would probably be called game of the year.
@Sam_Loser2 I don't, the point was that one company uses new parts, but almost all bootlegs (aka: reproductions) use original boards like on the NES and people buy added chips and use a pile of wires and solder to chop shop up another game into it. I was speaking to the quality of the construction and it does use the Tomato translation on a new parts board built to last.
They can at least do Mother 1, though. They already have a translation that's been sitting in a vault forever.
I didn't see a denial at all. You have to realized that for a living people like Reggie have to be mindful of what they say, and they know what they are saying. All he had said was that Nintendo has nothing to announce on it. Not a No or even a maybe, just nothing to say now. I sincerely hope though that will change in the near future though.
If they announce MOTHER 3 for localization I'll be so happy that I'll
here, ill skip everyones comments and say they can use the fan translation from tomato, or do it themselves. theres quality english carts out there. i have at least one myself
@MonocledMetroid I was thinking in between amateur and unofficial, as NOA will want story control, and would decide to throw out what was done as they'd want to do it themselves.
Of course, Nintendo may have decided to have a look and like it, get any changes done to make themselves happy but not be able to announce it yet. I assume they'd want Earthbound 2 before Earthbound 3.
3DS has a much wider install base and it can run VC GBA games.
"at this time" They said the same thing about Xenoblade, Last Story and the original Earthbound...don't think people are going to stop asking now that you've opened the gates.
I'll say it again, most Mother Fans were those who owned HANDHELDS, WHY on earth make your ONLY venue for selling it on your SMALLEST install base (WiiU)? It should have released on the 3ds NOT the WiiU if they really wanted game sales....AND console sales. Expensive to translate? Pft, it's already DONE if you know where to look. Now Reggie tells us something that's NOT a lie.
@readyletsgo Its not that they lie as such more a case not revealing thier cards untill they feel the time is right.
I really want Mother 3! I hope something will happen eventually...
I think it's possible that we could see the first Mother on Wii U and 3DS though. I hope.
Well, he said "at this time"... So maybe they will release mother 3 on Wii U VC one day. That would be Awesome!!
Im one of the guys who played this way back when(earthbound) and didnt like it, bought it again later on in life,loved it. i would buy mother 3 for sure
@Sam_Loser2 It's actually possible to buy the localization on cart on amazon.
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