Simultaneous worldwide releases are cool, confirm/deny

[CidOwnz]

Square Enix president, Yoichi Wada, has stated once again that he wishes that simultaneous releases of Square Enix games to become standard to strengthen their businesses overseas. The western market is much more interested in the Japanese style games Square Enix are famous for and now provides them more business than Japan alone, so instead of creating and releasing the Japanese copy then going back and translating it, he wishes to join the development of the two stages.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is managing a worldwide simultaneous release, launching in Japan, North America and the UK & Europe on the same day, so Final Fantasy XIII using this strategy is not too far fetched.

Nice if it's true cause i live in Europe. :p

oh and P.S i love owning a PS3

[Azure Chrysanthemum]

I'd say this is more of a General Gaming topic.

[Bolivar]

their new next gen project the Last Remnant is supposed to have a simlutaneous release in north america and japan... be nicer if it was worldwide, but i don't live there so it doesn't matter. I think if that does well we'll possibly see FFXIII with a simultaneous release also.

[Madame Adequate]

There's no excuse NOT to these days. And yes, it's cool. How a company expects to avoid piracy when all us Europeans have to listen to Americans bang on about how great something is for four months before we can play it will not lead to good outcomes. That's one reason PC games tend to come out within days worldwide.

[edczxcvbnm]

Worldwide releases are good for companies and can be good for the consumer sometimes. The consumer has a double edged sword on that one.

If the game is complete :skull::skull::skull::skull: then knowing about it 4 months ahead of time saves you the impulse hype purchase. While if the game is a God send then I guess you will have to wait like a jumping monkey on crack XD

[Markus. D]

pleeeease yes.

[Madame Adequate]

Worldwide releases are good for companies and can be good for the consumer sometimes. The consumer has a double edged sword on that one.

If the game is complete :skull::skull::skull::skull: then knowing about it 4 months ahead of time saves you the impulse hype purchase. While if the game is a God send then I guess you will have to wait like a jumping monkey on crack XD

Trust me, that minor benefit you can easily avoid does not outweigh the months of waiting.

[Vivisteiner]

Yoichi Wada is a fool of a Took. He listens to fortune tellers, so I wouldnt bank on anything with him.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

Simultaneous releases are only a good thing if the localization is directly tied to the development of the game itself, as with Metal Gear Solid 4. Otherwise, we'll end up with rushed, unpolished products.

[Northcrest]

That would be awesome.

[Vermachtnis]

Is the Tales of studio doing something like this with one of their game?

[XxSephirothxX]

I don't really care much about simultaneous worldwide releases because I don't live in Europe. :p

[Dreddz]

Simultanious releases are a win win for both the customer and the publisher. If a game sucks then why let the Europeans know it sucks before they have a chance to buy it. By the time it arrives on our shores people already know not to buy it.

I think Microsoft and Nintendo should allow their consoles to be region free. I usually order my games online anyway so buying PS3 games from the US is fine with me.

[Madame Adequate]

A reasonable chunk of 360 games are region free, actually. Then again, Microsoft tend not to treat Europe too badly when it comes to release dates, rendering the issue mostly moot on that console.

[Bolivar]

Simultaneous releases are only a good thing if the localization is directly tied to the development of the game itself, as with Metal Gear Solid 4. Otherwise, we'll end up with rushed, unpolished products.

I've played plenty of great games with bad localizations, and the latter has never really seemed to detriment my overall views of the game, so I'm not sure how that could be the only way simultaneous releases would be good.

I wouldn't worry about knowing if a game sucks or not before hand as you can get a pretty good idea of it through reviews and metacritic, and especially these days mass internet opinion seems to be irrelevant as to what my own opinion will be.

[Breine]

I'm European as well, and it's always such a pain when you have to wait up to 6 months for a game that's already been released in either the US or in Japan.

[Old Manus]

This means we get stuck with the equilvalent of the NTSC Final Fantasy X, ie. with a huge amount of content missing.

[Madame Adequate]

This means we get stuck with the equilvalent of the NTSC Final Fantasy X, ie. with a huge amount of content missing.

No we don't. NTSC isn't missing content; PAL gets extra content to make up for the insanely long wait.