Editorial: Nintendo's Release Date Quirks in North America and Europe are Harmful to the Holiday Season

I don't know if it's "harmful" for them to do this but I don't really care ...
Just be patient ? It's not the end of the world to wait a few months.

does not make much difference really

I agree - it's confusing, if anything. I'm never quite sure if a game is out here in the UK or if it's just out State-side. Take Twitter for example - on the one hand NOA are promoting Yokai Watch and Yoshi's Wooly World, while NOE are promoting Chibi Robo and Tri Force Heroes on the other.

I always assumed that UK and US games were off-foot due to regulations; or some type of exclusive procedure? Now that I've read your article, it is daunting to find no explanation as to why Western Games come out so un-synchronized.
What was that, Pokemon Z-D comes out 2016? Sorry, Europe gets it Winter '16:. America in Spring '17

And yes, both sides could just simply wait for the games release; however, what is the True Reason for such delays?

@Splatburst Yes, we get it, Reggie is an idiot.

Indeed for gamers it could be better to get the same games in the same period, but maybe there is some Marketing behind those decisions.

Yokai watch is a peculiar case, Europe have different regions with different individuals that will have to buy the rights for the anime and toys; releasing it in America first will help proving the franchise strenght and push it here too (and on the other side I doubt those holding the rights in America were willing to wait to sell what they pubblically defined they're new unbeatable money-maker XD).

The other franchises are most likely more free to get released whenever NoE and NoA want, so it's very likely they really worked as separate beings with their own regional surveys and ignoring the global factor.
Then again having half of the west-world talking of a game can be free advertisment towards the other half and games are easier to patch when they still didn't get released somewhere.

Overall, for us gamer it would be surely better to have unified west releases (and even unified global releases when possible), but I'm afraid that on a business perspective all options have their pro and con and it's pretty obvious that on a marketing perspective and for certain titles Nintendo don't see enough potential in the "gamers will interact online about it" thing.

That said... where is my EU copy of Yokay Watch NOE?!?!?! >O<

I think the issue is a frustrating one. In today's world, with modern communications, and digital content on the rise, one would expect to be able to play a game in the EU, at the same time friends in the U.S. do /and vice-versa/ ... with about the same content, and at roughly the same cost, but alas, that is not the case.
One could argue, that small or niche developers/publishers like Atlus, could have a hard time to make sure such a unified approach can be established, but Nintendo is not small or niche (not yet at least).
This whole problem is further aggravated by the fact, that Nintendo insists on region-locking it's products (even handhelds these days), thus making it impossible for customers, with the will to spare some extra effort and cost, to overcome their arbitrary release "strategy" by way of importing those games.
I mean Microsoft and Sony, not to mention basically all PC-based publishers, manage to uphold a more or less unified release schedule as well, don't they?
It's just frustrating to spend months reading about a game, you literally cannot play, despite it being already done, and localized, simply because Nintendo cannot be bothered to make it available to you. It's hard not to feel offended, or at least neglected. A couple of days, or even like 2 weeks, are one thing, but months on end ... that's a different story.
By that time the game is finally available, chances are you will already have been utterly spoiled as far as the story of the game goes, or any eastereggs or such, if it is a game like Devils Third, chances are your friends in different parts of the world, will have moved on from the MP already (is the MP region-free? not sure tbh) .. leaving you wondering: WTF?
The fact that Nintendo's release schedule has been rather thin for some time now, does not help either. If there are rather few games to play, it would feel all the more pertinent, to have access to as much of the available content as possible - without arbitrary borders of time and place.
Again, it was a weird practice a decade ago, but now, with the internet, and digital games, it's simply annoying.
I remember the hype around FE:A, people agonizing about every bit of information and praise out of Japan ... and then the Europeans going on to agonize about the substantial amount of information and praise out of the U.S.. If you didn't want to get spoiled and if you did not want to feel annoyance that this amazing game was just out of reach by design, you basically had to stop reading online publications concerend with gaming, and cutting yourself of from most of the english speaking discussion online.
As a European with an imported 3DS it was kind of ... weird, with people being torn between taking my 3DS and giving the game a go, or being like "DON'T talk to me about this, it's still 2.5 months away!".
The worst part though, is that it seems to me that this source of frustation is an aritifical one, created by Nintendo themselves, for no apparent reason I can fathom.
I understand that seperate efforts with specific demands go into game releases in different region .. sure, but again, every other major developer/publisher manages to sort this out just fine 99% of the time.

In the end, it's just another instance where Nintendo sets itself apart from the rest, not with creativity, or polish, or design, but with failure on an issue, that may not be 1st order important, but that matters, and that should NOT be an issue AT ALL.

So, what you're saying is that Nintendo should rush their releases, and have their games unfinished and buggy, just to prepare for a deadline?

That's the sort of thing Sega would do.

Add to that, NOE and NOA often use separate English translations. Just look at Splatoon and Triforce Heroes, they're very different. Why not save the time and money and use ONE unified English translation? (Of course taking British and American English spelling into account)

Unfortunately Nintendo likes to keep Europe and US in their own separate bubbles, rarely allowing them to "play" with each other.

@TheHumbleFellow Did you even read past the headline? He wants the release dates to be closer together in Europe and America, like every other gaming company does it.

It's more of an issue when NoA starts giving up on everything non-Mario and non-Zelda related at the end of a generation.

Yeah, it's a bit unorthodox. Why should one non-Japan region wait months to play a game after said game's already released in another (non-Japan) region? A week or two would suffice, but definitely not months. I guess is just because Nintendo doesn't have much to offer for the holidays.
I really do wonder what will be in the next Direct... or if there'll even be one at all.

@whodatninja For a particularly text-heavy game like Animal Crossing, beyond some minor revisions for the European release, they generally will use the exact same translation in both regions; but for smaller games or games with less text to go at, they'll generally re-translate the entire thing and beyond some minor differences in wording, come out with the exact same end-result.

However, I'd rather not have a singular translation for -every- game. You can argue the work is redundant, but NoA has been doing a lot of questionable things with localisation in recent years in a bid to seemingly "Culturalise", instead of just localise; and as somebody who finds such practices insulting to the audience; I'm just glad NoE are refraining from that nonsense to make a product that makes the same amount of sense to an English speaker in the UK and an English speaker in, say, the Netherlands or one of the other countries they do not provide a specific localisation for.

@TheHumbleFellow The point is that the games are finished, if they're released on one continent, they're ready (Well, they better be ready, anyway), yet they're published in one area, delayed in the other (Can't be translating-trouble in Europe, since some games come out sooner here).

With the advent of the Internet, hype is a global thing, if a game can ride one big hype-wave that's better for sales than having a few disparate hype-bumps, couple this with the baffling about-face on region locking Nintendo did with 3DS, and you end up with a lot of unnecessary frustration, just the thing we need at the end of the 3DS lifecycle...

Nintendo make a lot of dumb decisions, but each region deciding their own release schedule isn't really one of them. Just look at the huge gaps between Disney and Pixar movies releasing in different markets. They know exactly when each type of movie will have the best chance of success and exploit that. Other companies don't do it so much because their target audience is older and has more flexibility with the money. Disney and Nintendo need to focus their efforts on the periods where kids are going to be having money spent on them.

Having Yoshi to fill out the Q4 line-up makes perfect sense. Delaying Toad a few weeks and releasing it when everyone had spent all their money was dumb, especially when the game was done, manufactured and packed up in warehouses.

It creates unnecessary bad blood, for sure. There is no pulling of wool over anyone's eyes as to the differences between release schedules and pricing anymore. It is right there for everyone to see and it's completely ridiculous.

Not only do we need more cohesion, WE NEED MORE GAMES!!!

@Peach64 That Pixar/Disney European delay thing is also stupid and you know it. It's 2015, they can't stop people from viewing movies across the world anymore, thanks to the internet. When the movie finally does arrive across the pond, months later, fans won't care because they most likely will have already seen it, online or otherwise.

You can say it's a dubbing thing, but what about Britain? And Dreamworks don't delay their animated films, even though they also have to be translated and dubbed. There is no excuse.

At least for me it is a sign of terrible communication between NoA and NoE. If a game needs more time to have more languages in NoE, it is fine, but the difference of dates with Yoshi's Wolly World is seriously weird. NoA had a complete game sitting in boxes for what, 3 months? They better get a decent release schedule for next year!

Is Luigi shooting Toadballs at paper Mario?

@whodatninja I think they used to do that, but ever since the Mario Party 8 incident happen, I think that's when I noticed that NoA and NoE decided to have totally different translations. I think before that there were minor things between Europe and America's translation/localization, IE making sure that words are spelled the right way in their respective English tongues. However, it does feel like ever since MP8 came out, that's when things changed. Splatoon is probably the main game where I notice how different things were between how NoE and NoA handle translations. DJ Octavio's fight being the prime example. NoE= A faithful translation of the Japanese NoA= Fish and DJ puns galore!

Though I am kinda curious as to why I don't have Paper Jam to look forward to, A part of me can understand why Yo-Kai Watch is taking it's sweet time to enter Europe, all those Yo-Kai puns probably need to be localized into something that works over in the other governing regions as well. I mean, Pokémon did the same thing before Gen VI, and since YW is a new IP in the west, I can see Nintendo taking it's time to pick up steam. Well, at least Super Mystery Dungeon is something I can look forward to this holiday season.

@DiscoGentleman Personally, I feel like culturalisation is a necessary evil in localisation - sometimes, humour just doesn't translate over, and I get that to keep the intent of the original text, some degree of rewriting or rewording will be required to maintain certain aspects of a story or character. On the other hand, seeing instances where a perfectly innocuous line gets changed into a reference to an Internet meme or a slang term like "adorbs" is used instead of the more timeless and accepted "adorable" or "cute" both heavily dates a game's localisation and, in my opinion at least, feels too much like the translation team is there to write their own script instead of just translating the original.

As for why I find this insulting to audiences - largely just personal preference. A straighter, more "dry" translation isn't to everybody's taste, granted, but I've seen the extreme other end of the scale with some of the work of localisation teams like Working Designs, where entire segments of the original Japanese script were sometimes outright ignored when writing the more "cursory" elements such as minor NPC dialogue, or item descriptions, in favour of letting the writers largely just ad-lib what they felt was funny at the time. Now, those RPGs are very good games, and they're games I'd like to go back and play again; but I cringe at the references to stuff and slang terms that just hasn't been relevant for at least 20 years now; and can only see the same future for more modern examples of culturalised scripts in games. The only real exception to this for myself is a game on the PS4/3/Vita called Akiba's Trip - where the protagonists are a bunch of otaku who frequently make references to memes and in-jokes from 2ch's VIP board in the Japanese version; and these are changed to equivalent references to 4chan in the English localisation. That makes sense. It'll make sense 20 years from now, even if the actual humour makes me cringe 20 years from now. Hell, the humour makes me cringe -now-, but at least it makes sense in the context of the game, and I therefore find it more excusable than an entirely out-of-context inclusion of similar humour.

To put my views into a nice little soundbite for people to take out of context - I understand the intent behind culturalisation, but find certain specific examples to go a little too far for my personal comfort zone, and would prefer a more "dry" localisation that keeps rewrites and changes to a minimum. I, also, acknowledge that I'm in the minority here, and I'm perfectly okay with that; the world doesn't revolve around my standards, and I don't expect it to.

This is probably a quantity of writing language issue more than anything else. While not all games are like this NoE tend to have to translate the games into more languages than NoA do.

Its no big surprise that the games that do get released simultaneously or nearby have less writing or incredibly high budget(see Pokemon X/Y), Mario Party 10 was one of the games to be released simultaneously and in the Interview with Nintendo life stated:

"We also got rid of a lot of the explanatory texts in order to improve the flow. For example, before a minigame starts, instead of a long text, you now just watch a short movie to understand the rules. When playing on the boards, you can tell what's going on simply by looking at the reaction of the characters without the need for any text to spell it out for you. As a result, the messages are kept to the minimum, and I think you'll find the game flows quite smoothly."

The more text is in a game the longer it takes to translate, the longer it takes to translate into more languages and the greater the gap between released will be between NoA and NoE. It's not like they can put more money into NoE for more translators/faster translation because its also their worst selling region it probably effects their priority for games hence how Mario & Luigi is coming sooner than Pokemon Mystery Dungeon in Europe.

No one has told Nintendo about the interwebz.

I love how everyone hates on Reggie, when North America gets games cheaper and gets games first most of the time.

There's no real reason for Nintendo's overall inanity. Their hairbrained, nonsensical decisions that cause us to both love and hate them. It always strikes me as if Nintendo flatly refuses to see what everyone else in the industry is doing or trying

I prefer games localised for Europe, it's usually closer to the source material, and much less edgy.
But yeah, I don't understand why there is such a big gap between releasing the same game in different regions. Particularly if you factor in that Americans speak English too...
To be honest, I think they just tactically hold certain games back to fill in HUGE empty spaces where game releases should be. But why can't they just use the same schedule?
I think we'll have things more 'in line' with each other when the NX comes out. I hope.

"consider the consequences if major triple-A games on other platforms - you know, Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed etc - had a few months between EU and NA releases? There'd be petitions out before you could say hashtag."

That's a fair point. With that said, Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed are sure to top the charts nomatter what region they release in. Whereas many of Nintendo's releases will have a dramatic difference in popularity and sales from region to region.

What serves as a hefty fall release in NA may be an overlooked flop in the EU. This must be taken into account.

@amiiboacid
Yeah...meanwhile we don't get preorders bonuses on anything (and if we do, they're retailer specific, mainly Gamestop who has a history of screwing over customers i.e. Jibanyan Pin debacle), we get memey translations, we get garbage "events" or events that are only available at Nintendo's single Store all the way in New York, and let's not forget random crap like making Fatal Frame download only meanwhile Devil's Third, a game that is getting 3's in reviews, is getting a physical version.

Let's not even talk about the amiibo situation, where it took them 8 months to finally stabilize stock of new amiibos and 5 months to confirm that rare ones were not being retired and yet common ones such as Smash Kirby, Yoshi, DK and others are now starting to become rare in the US...

@AJDarkstar Also it wasn't after Xmas 2014, it was before (19th December).

I lost my excitement for The Wonderful 101 last year. It was launched later in America, and SO many websites (including this one) were already posting many articles about cool stuff in the game (like some easter eggs that were better to discover when playing the game) since the European release. It just didn't feel right.

For Yoshi's Woolly World, they (the media sites) were at least more reserved and I didn't see that many articles of it more than the amiibo, before the NA release.

That's the reason I've not gotten The Wonderful 101 yet, and the reason I already got Yoshi's Woolly World first day.

I wish I could get away from the Internet when games I like get released on some other regions before mine, but that's unfortunately not possible.

@Dr_Lugae NoE does all the translations simultaneously. It doesn't take more time to translate a game in five different languages by five different translation teams at the same time than doing only one translation by one team.

Besides, Europe often enough got text heavy games months before the US, like the last Prof. Layton game (and the spin-off) or Bravely Default.

@scamander So right about that. And even like that, none of the 3DS Layton games were released here in America in other language than English.

They could have added the European Spanish and French translations (that were already done). But just no. This is just me complaining about not having Layton in the language I prefer.

@tudsworth
"I, also, acknowledge that I'm in the minority here, and I'm perfectly okay with that; the world doesn't revolve around my standards, and I don't expect it to."

Naw, I feel the same way. As much as I like the Yokai Watch anime seeing them do things like remove japanese text instead of translating it and referring to a curry bun as a whoopie pie kind of irks me.

@Olmectron
I feel the same way about the Japanese games I follow. While English websites aren't dumping anything and everything about the game that isn't major clickbait title worthy the fandom on the other hand will be doing things like pointing out "X and Y dies!!!" "Secret character is my favorite character!!!!" "SPOILERS BUT [revealing entire story of the game for a meme]".

Excellent article. Couldn't agree more.

@Splatburst Pretty much.

I tdoesn' treally mak eany sense. And the fact that there is no consistnecy - som ecome out in th eEU first, some in NA - means it isn' ta matte rof taing longer to tranlate in on eplac eor naothr, otherwise theywould always com eout later in that one region.

While I'v ealways understood JRPG taking longer to release in the West than Japan - lots to translate and sometimes lots of vocie over work as well, NoE adn NoA really should b eon th esame page. And Nintneod needs to find out a way to make enough amiibo stock if that's the problem w/ amiibo intensive games like Yoshi's Wooly World, or making enough new 3DS consoles ot release in NA at the sam etime.

Nintnedo has lost 90% of its Wii you base (100m to 10m) and 66% of it's DS base (150m to 50m) it needs to do a lot to win back consumrs whenver the Wii U adn 3DS successors launch. Unifiyin gNoE adnNoA release schules would help. An dmatchign up Club Nintendo - why di d1 have stars and 1 have coins? And the awards so different?

Nintendo needs to pull itself together literally. It's called the "World wide web" for a reason. I'm ok w/ price differences, I understand there VAT charges and currency exchange rates to consider, But a date is a date. One swell advertising push for games the western world over. Japan can do what it wants, always does, always will. I think most of us are used to that and simply take it as a given. Need time to cover up all the underage under-dressed females.

@Bagels Yeah. That's the kind of thing that puts me down with a game.

And, in the case of media sites, I try to avoid knowing so I don't enter the articles when I don't want to read about them. But many times the thing is spoiled, said, in the title or subtitle! Not much to do in those cases.

About the fandom, I simply don't talk to anyone or enter any forum/chat who likes or own the Japanese game. That's happening right now, for example, with Fire Emblem: Fates. I don't known a single thing, and I'm happy not entering forums nor chats. And fortunately (yes, I said that), I don't have any local friend who likes the series.

Lift the region lock. Problem solved for those who care about release dates or titles not released in their region. Institute one world, one price policy: no MSRP price differences between regions, except maybe in poorer nations, and allowing local areas to determine their own pricing if the MSRP isn't a good fit. Don't monitor the firmware to authenticate games, and don't lock game updates into the console hardware updates, so that version differences aren't a problem. Boom, all done, all is well in the world. That was easy...

Nintendo is their own worst enemy.

whispers Flipnote Studio 3D

@Bagels Triforce Heros made a small reference to doge by using it's speaking patterns once. It's not like they shown the picture of doge. And your using that one incident as a reason Reggie is bad?

It seems intuitive that each release could be better directed towards local markets, but releasing everywhere at once is just the way to go now if it is possible. Too many benefits to ignore.

That said, it would also be nice to have more voice in Nintendo games and that's just going to make the translating and voiceover work more expensive and complicated.

Not easy, just necessary.

To be honest I'm much happier with how things are than they were years ago. I've found NoE to be more in tune with its area than NoA. Without them we probably wouldn't have Xenoblade, Last Story, Pandoras Tower...games NoA had no intention of even touching until NoE did most of the translation work.

Sure there were a few games since the Wii era that the US had but we didn't but nothing on the level of say Earthbound. I can't say my heart aches for Excitebots...but on the whole since the Wii U and 3DS have hit has there been any Nintendo published titles that we've actually yet to have and there aren't release dates for?

Yes we could do with release dates to be more in sync but if it means better, far more faithful localisations than I'll lump the delays.

As for Project Zero...I have no idea why it's called that hear. I was talking about it to a colleague who hadn't heard of it at all and then she said it sounded a lot like this new Fatal Frame game she heard of...I know past games were called PZ but us fans know what it is whereas others dont so the name can do with being the same internationally.

The "Bros." suffix on the latest two Mario & Luigi games is so unnecessary and embarrassing; what on Earth was NoE thinking with that?

I actually like the way Nintendo of Europe/Aus and America do their own thing, its unique. All games get released everywhere eventually. Nintendo of South Korea are sometimes years behind other releases, so waiting a few months or weeks isn't all that bad compared to them. If NX is eventually 'region free' like Iwata-san was looking into, then it impatient games can import that games they can't wait for, that is if NX is eventually region free, but I don't think it really matters.

I was expecting people here to be complaining that anyone complaining about this issue is whining about things being unfair, so it's great to see that the word 'whining' doesn't appear at all in these comments. (Whoops, it now appears twice due to me, sorry about that)

Due to the global nature of websites, if a game is releasing soon in the US, then I'll hear lots about it even though I'm in Europe. I start to lose some excitement for a game if I hear a lot of release day hype months before the release date here due to it being released elsewhere earlier.

Plus, I know some people in the US. It can be annoying if they're playing a game together, but I can't get in on the action due to different release dates or using different servers in different regions like in the case of Triforce Heroes.

There's always things that can cause difficulties in releasing games simultaneously in different regions, such as translations and regulations. However, I think that Nintendo should aim try to at least release all games in the same month for both the US and Europe. Sometimes, like in the case of Yoshi's Wooly World, Nintendo seems to be arbitarily delaying games in some regions to fill in the gaps between release dates.

On a more minor note which still bugs me, I love to get limited editions for games I really care about. NoE have been starting to get better at limited editions. Yet there's plenty of 3rd party games that have limited editions in the US but not here in Europe such as Etrian Odyssey and Zero Escape. Plus, I know people in the US that really wanted the Fatal Frame LE. This would be a bit trickier to sort out though since it could be costly if Nintendo overproduces LE in a specific region which doesn't sell there.

These issues could be reduced if there wasn't any region locking. This is a backwards practice that's anti-consumer and should have been stopped a long time ago. I really hope that the NX won't have it, though I'll likely only buy a very few games from a different region if that option was available.

If I had to guess... I honestly think Yoshi's Woolly World was pushed back in NA to ensure ample supply of Yarn Yoshi amiibos.

I miss Iwata .

What they should have done for US Yoshi was add an extra level, or make the unlockable ones available from the get go (some of them are actually the very best). They delayed the N64 iteration to increase the difficulty, which at least gives an explanation - it seems this time it was to have it 'hatch' at a time where sales should be higher (which they would probably get some respect for if they just admitted to).

On the other side (as it were), you have Devil's Third - there are so many rubbish kiddy stuff on the Wii U, it just seems so over the top to have this game down as the worst thing that's ever happened (in a week where new releases in Europe include Hello Kitty, Snoopy and Adventure Time, I'd happily have a dated, flawed slasher that does at least have some ambition to it).

Maybe all will change with NX

The inconsistency is annoying as a gamer, but it must be really frustrating when you run an internationally viewed gaming website like Nintendolife. Do you cover games at the EU relaese, NA release or whatever comes first? Plus, you kinda feel like your rubbing readers noses in games they dont have yet. I frequent your sister site Pushsquare.com as well(those guys are great also) and they only have to worry about different sales between the EU and NA PlayStation stores. I hope with Nintendo's new approach they update their communication as well.

@rjejr Someone was in a hurry...

I've always wondered why games had such large delays in specific regions. Don't get me wrong, I understand there is marketing around it. It just seems weird that each country releases some games at such different times, even when they are clearly complete.

I bought Captain Toad even before Christmas last year here in Germany

@DiscoGentleman Which English translation of Splatoon do you mean? There are two.

I suppose it is harder to hype or advertise a game with distinct release dates based on region.

Super Mario Maker was launched over the course of a bit over two days, taking time zones into account. The advertisements, social media hype, and reviews meant for one region of the world also applied to the rest of the world.

With Yoshi's Woolly World, you had a June release in Europe, a July release in Japan, and an American release three months later. You need three distinct marketing pushes that will do little to overlap. And things like reviews become less useful for Nintendo, especially since many people in the Americas and Europe share a common language (usually English, but also French and Spanish). If I am a potential buyer in Europe who usually checks reviews from an American website, I am less likely to buy the game near launch and at full price. If I am an American, I am less likely to buy the game because less hype can be built up for it and I am less likely to remember it exists by the time it is released.

I can understand long delays in some cases. Games with massive stories or lots of cultural context, like Xenoblade or Animal Crossing, can take time to tackle. But Yoshi and Kirby do not seem like those sorts of games.

I just don't get why these long delays between regional (US & EU) releases happens. Outside obvious factors like a different publisher doing the legwork, you would think they'd have the translation and localization done at roughly the same time. I get that the US is considerably larger than the EU in terms of distributing the goods, but surely it can't be that difficult to agree on a single release date for both regions. At the very least within a month at most.

Anything more than that causes frustrations. The world is connected like never before, and it might seem like an exaggeration but even a game can lose its popularity in the span of a month. People move on to the next thing shockingly fast. And considering that both US and EU share languages it makes the gaps all the more infuriating for some people. Region locking the devices certainly didn't help matters.

It does make like very confusing being an American reading a European website. There have been a few times that I thought something was released only to be wrong.

@Mineral A few months? Not too much of problem yes. But in the case of Xenoblade Chronicles, patience can only last for so long. Luckily I got the game when I found out about it (when it was first new), but I can only imagine the horror of my fellow NA players *shudders.

Simultaneous game releases worldwide is the only thing that truly makes sense in our very connected world now. Nintendo has slipped way behind the times lately.

Really, the only way to make it better for everyone (streamlining their costs too, btw) is to get rid of region lock forever. That way, anyone can order a game from everywhere's available, and they'll save money in logistic and admin people. People that could (and should) be used to help with western localization, though, particularly with translations.
This day and age, there's no reason a game should not be available in english (and all the rest of the main european/US languages) from the first release date.

NoE and NoA should also unify the library and release of virtual console and wii digital download

'but except it's a daft thing that happens' accept I think you meant here .

I'd be happy if they just stuck to the same Virtual Console schedule.

It's as much ignorance as anything, Nintendo simply doesn't realise how much communication there is between Europe (UK in particular) and the US. There was a lot of this nonsense with the Wii and people having to petition just to get games released at all outside of Japan, games I might add that would clearly be successful in other territories (not just the weird stuff they keep to themselves). I wonder how many gamers have read a review of a game such as Yoshi and thought I'll go buy that, only to get to the shop and find out that it's not out for 3 months. I personally use multiple game websites and for the most part I don't check which country the website is from. However with Nintendo games I find myself cross referencing between them to ensure the game is actually coming out, I don't recall ever doing this for my other consoles. For anyone suggesting that it's translations delaying this, well in this day and age that's just nonsense for a company this size and I doubt any of the games mentioned have more text than The Witcher or Fallout. It's just another example of how Nintendo is always playing catch up with how the world works

The ability for NoE and NoA to localise games and make their own scheduling decisions is actually a good thing. If NoE didn't have this autonomy it would always defer to NoA, who isn't best placed to make these decisions for Europe. The best examples I can think of are Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story. They wouldn't have been localised at all if it hadn't been for NoE.

Nintendo do usually release the biggest games - such as mainline Mario and Zelda - simultaneously, thankfully, but with smaller games I can see the logic in being able to vary the schedules to give them the best chance of succeeding. NoA may have confidence in Yo-Kai Watch, but in Europe I think the established Mario and Luigi actually has a better chance of selling during the Christmas period, and Yo-Kai Watch will get more chance to shine in the quieter Q1. I remember when the DS was launched; Europe got it later than North America, but Minish Cap was released instead.

Nintendo is having many problems right now, and I really think that they need some new blood into all of their offices. I really hope the NX isn't going to be like this, but I'm thinking it'll be more let downs. Delays, droughts and not caring much about making their fans, consumers or even their sales are starting to get old. Now, we have the holidays coming up, with X-box One and Playstation 4 dropping down to $300 and even less during black friday...where, the Wii U is still $300 and the 3DS going at $200. I saw the 3DS has some good deals, but still, not a big deal. The 3DS will sell and give them some good revenue for the holidays, but their system needs to be priced a lot lower, or it'll be once again, overlooked by consumers...especially when they see that there is barely any games out in stores for it (let's face it, wall shelves are scarce for Wii U). I really hope nintendo gets on the ball, especially in the various countries...quit putting games out that barely get recognized...I had no idea Yoshi's Wooly World was even out over here, until I saw it in Gamestop...what happened to the marketing???

With regards to the Layton games, who remembers when the final DS game (Layton and the Spectre's Call) was released here in the UK....with the whole 'London Life' RPG completely removed from it? Or the fact that a fair few of the puzzles were completely (and needlessly) changed between regions?

@aaronsullivan " it would also be nice to have more voice in Nintendo games"

I told my wife last night that if Zelda U (NX?) doesn't have more voice work I'm skipping it. I'm ok w/ silent protagonists, Link just needs to nod, I get the feeling that's all he would do in real life anyway, like Silent Bob, but the NPCs need to talk. It's why Starfox Adventures was my favorite game on GameCube. One of my all time favorites that was 12 years ago and it seems like Nintnedo has been going backwards ever since. Yoshi doens't need to talk, it's a 2D platformer, or Kirby, but an open world game like Skyrim needs people to make it interesting. I shouldn't have to read text boxs in an open world adventure in 2016. Kid Icarus came out years ago on 3DS, plenty of voice work in there. Needs a Wii U port. 3DS gets Hyrule Warriors, SSB and XC, Wii U deserves something. We'll probably get a Chibi Robo port.

I admit that I find it annoying that Europe is getting Paper Jam this holiday season and those of us in NA must wait for an unspecified 2016 date. However, the bigger frustration for me is differences if hardware versions and special editions. I get that NA gamers prefer to 3DSXL (as do I) but it ticked a lot of people off when NOA refused to release the smaller size New Nintendo 3DS here because it meant that NA gamers were denies any opportunity to enjoy the swappable face plates.

Modern society really is a global community. People all over the world talk to each other. Gamers in every region know what gamers in other regions are getting so they know when they got the sort end of the deal on something. Nintendo has to stop acting like japan, NA and Europe are three unrelated markets and treating them all differently.

P.S I think the differences often come down to the VPs in each region needing to demonstrate that they actually have some power beyond just managing the local branch office. They like being able to determine their own release schedule and product offerings because then they can make arbitrary choices and say that it was based on their keen understanding of the local market when really it is just them doing something different for the sake of being different.

It might be harmful to small degree, though there are legit reasons why games are staggered around the world with releasees.

Releasing a game in the EU is more difficult than in North America because:
1) You must translate the game and the packaging into every major EU language
2) You must have the game rated at PEGI and USK (Germany's rating board).
3) Your game is checked to make sure it conforms to both EU wide regulation and national regulations
3b) If your game has any content in violation, you must change the content and submit for rerating and approval.
4) You have to work with regional distributors and retailers to get you games and products on the shelves.

For North America:
1) you just go through the ESRB, once the ESRB gives you the rating you are free to release your game
2) There are very few regional distributor and retailers in U.S. and Canada
3) Most games bought in Canada and U.S. are bought at American based stores
4) Your games only have to be localized in English
4b) If you wish to sell in Quebec and Mexico you need French and Spanish added to your game.

With the EU being extremely diverse in culture, languages, distributors, retailers, and regulations it takes longer to localize all products in Europe.
U.S. and Canada are practically homogenized, which makes it quite easy to sell in Canada once you have product available for the U.S.

It's really hard to have global launch in mainland EU and North America for any product.

I've often wondered why Nintendo can't just do just one english release that covers US, UK and Aus/NZ? I understand that american english isn't the same as English english but who here would be terribly offended if they just used the american english version if it meant getting the game at the same time as the other english speaking regions? I know I wouldn't mind given that american english is so pervasive in pop culture anyway. I'm not saying give Nintendo's UK and Australian subsidiaries the axe but if they don't have to translate then they can focus their resources on marketing and distribution and leave the other translations to the other european branches that do actually speak languages other than english.

If NX turns out to be the portable console X home console all in wonder that many hope it will be then I hope that Nintendo will also extend that unified approach to things like putting an end to region locking, better social media integration into miiverse, and more cohesion between regional branches. It's not much use to have people in one territory hyping up a game to people in another territory when they're unable to play it.

It just seems strange to me how some high profile games get cohesive release dates like smash bros and Mario Kart 8 did. while lower profile games like Yoshi's woolly world and Kirby and the rainbow curse get these arbitrarily staggered release dates