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As a whole, the United Kingdom - consisting of England, Scotland, Wales and NORTHERN Ireland - is the biggest single area in Europe, with no other country or European regions coming close to it, in terms of its sheer size. Nope, not even Spain or France are anywhere near as big as the good old UK. So when a new product is on its way to the EU, in PAL, form (perhaps a new video game, or games console...), the United Kingdom is one section that no-one could ever afford to miss-out on, or see sales 'slump' in, if they were intent on making this new 'product' a European success, overall. But like with many things today, Europeans are, in most cases, the last to get anything that arises from the Middle East - especially the latest video games from the likes of Nintendo, Konami, and SEGA. And as European gamers, boy are we not happy having to wait for a PAL version of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - SIX-MONTHS-AFTER it originally appeared in Japan!
And now with the technology emerging (just take Datel's FreeLoader for the Nintendo GameCube, as an example), we are beginning to give up on waiting for "our own" regional copies of the latest games, and instead turning towards the ways of importing from the US, and even Japan, just to save ourselves a few-months-too-many of nail-biting and hair-loss-related, anticipation.
And I believe it is also only a matter of time before we see FreeLoader-style packagaes released for both the Microsoft X-Box, and SONY's PlayStation2, along with the consoles of the future - destroying the need for us to suffer these never-ending 'PAL-conversion delays'. At a time when almost NO European gamer will perpared to wait a while longer for the PAL release, when he can just get it from the US-of-A -- 'NOW'.
It's a possibillity that I believe could quite easily become real.
There could one-day be no-need for so-many European releases, at all!
But if the big-name firms of today don't like the sound of that, then obviously, they're going to have to start doing something about it. And the sooner games are released over here after hitting Japan; the better!
Now then, one idea that recently came to my attention - and really got me thinking about it - was the idea of treating the United Kingdom, as a whole (and perhaps the Republic of Ireland, also, just for this...), as an entirely different region to that of Europe, in-hope of at least getting us Brit's a few releases much-sooner, if not the majority of Europe, in general.
Just look at Australia - another region for `PAL` games... But they're absolutley nowhere near us! Yet, they recieve the same 'coding' in their games, a little while sooner in so-many cases. How can that be fair when we have to suffer intial delays of 6-months-after the Japanese get theirs - and even those dates are prone to "slippage"!?
I bet we'd get a similar kind of treatment if we were seen as "seperate" to that of all the EU countries, in general...! And also that the "Aussies" don't JUST get their's sooner, plainly because of their "closeness" with Japan....
Just think about how it must be for the likes of Nintendo and co. now, when only the mere 'thought' of releasing a new game across Europe, comes to mind...
By plainly 'looking' at the immense size of Europe, with all those individual little countries scattered around the Mediterranian, they know they've got one-heck-of-job coming up to fill their time and hands...! They know it's gonna be hard-enough to produce enough units AND to ship-them-off to all-areas, within good time; let alone creating a new game, or console, that'll satisfy ever-last-one of those Europeans -- right down to the very-last Scandinavian and Czech'!
We all say we'd love to work in 'gaming' in the future, but this sounds like nothing-but week-after-week of 7-day 'all-nighters', if they are to get everything done on-time!
It's no wonder we have to face-up to so-many delays, time-and-time-again!!
So, why not try and relieve that intense stress, and all those possible caffine-related illnesses Japanese developers and publishers must, by breaking-up part of the European Market as it is seen, and turning the United Kingdom (and perhaps Ireland...) into anoter market, in its own right?
And, you know what...? They could even consider linking both the UK and Australia together, as one whole PAL region, seeing that we all speak more-or-less the exact same language (only with accents added ontop). And while we're on that note... - what is it exactly that makes the Americans that-much-different to us, even though we both say "Hello" when answering the telephone?!?
We've heard it all before about how translating into all those different European languages can be a daunting task that takes up perhaps too-much time, and it's something that helped defat the cause for the likes of Animal Crossing to gain a European release, with a seqel already on-the-way. But with the UK out-of-the-way, they'll all only really have a bit of Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and perhaps Russian to add into each-and-every new game. OK, so that still may sound like a lot of work, but on a different time-scale, it's still less-work for them.
But obviously, the French, the Italians, the Spaniards, and all the others getting "left-behind" would have a fair few moans-and-groans to make in the direction of the men who can make it all happen. But for the sake of the future of European gaming; they need to start thinking about this, and how any obstacles can be overcome.
Seperating Great Britain away from the rest of Europe may not be the 'ideal' solution, but something needs to be done to at least break-down the mighty-size of the EU.
But unfortunately, I don't think George W. Bush and the rest of the US "nuking" Iraq and its surrounding neighbours is gonna do us any help (....not that it has anything to do with gaming, at all, or anything...).
I believe that our 'Kingdom' deserves the chance to stand 'United', on its own...!
And now with the technology emerging (just take Datel's FreeLoader for the Nintendo GameCube, as an example), we are beginning to give up on waiting for "our own" regional copies of the latest games, and instead turning towards the ways of importing from the US, and even Japan, just to save ourselves a few-months-too-many of nail-biting and hair-loss-related, anticipation.
And I believe it is also only a matter of time before we see FreeLoader-style packagaes released for both the Microsoft X-Box, and SONY's PlayStation2, along with the consoles of the future - destroying the need for us to suffer these never-ending 'PAL-conversion delays'. At a time when almost NO European gamer will perpared to wait a while longer for the PAL release, when he can just get it from the US-of-A -- 'NOW'.
It's a possibillity that I believe could quite easily become real.
There could one-day be no-need for so-many European releases, at all!
But if the big-name firms of today don't like the sound of that, then obviously, they're going to have to start doing something about it. And the sooner games are released over here after hitting Japan; the better!
Now then, one idea that recently came to my attention - and really got me thinking about it - was the idea of treating the United Kingdom, as a whole (and perhaps the Republic of Ireland, also, just for this...), as an entirely different region to that of Europe, in-hope of at least getting us Brit's a few releases much-sooner, if not the majority of Europe, in general.
Just look at Australia - another region for `PAL` games... But they're absolutley nowhere near us! Yet, they recieve the same 'coding' in their games, a little while sooner in so-many cases. How can that be fair when we have to suffer intial delays of 6-months-after the Japanese get theirs - and even those dates are prone to "slippage"!?
I bet we'd get a similar kind of treatment if we were seen as "seperate" to that of all the EU countries, in general...! And also that the "Aussies" don't JUST get their's sooner, plainly because of their "closeness" with Japan....
Just think about how it must be for the likes of Nintendo and co. now, when only the mere 'thought' of releasing a new game across Europe, comes to mind...
By plainly 'looking' at the immense size of Europe, with all those individual little countries scattered around the Mediterranian, they know they've got one-heck-of-job coming up to fill their time and hands...! They know it's gonna be hard-enough to produce enough units AND to ship-them-off to all-areas, within good time; let alone creating a new game, or console, that'll satisfy ever-last-one of those Europeans -- right down to the very-last Scandinavian and Czech'!
We all say we'd love to work in 'gaming' in the future, but this sounds like nothing-but week-after-week of 7-day 'all-nighters', if they are to get everything done on-time!
It's no wonder we have to face-up to so-many delays, time-and-time-again!!
So, why not try and relieve that intense stress, and all those possible caffine-related illnesses Japanese developers and publishers must, by breaking-up part of the European Market as it is seen, and turning the United Kingdom (and perhaps Ireland...) into anoter market, in its own right?
And, you know what...? They could even consider linking both the UK and Australia together, as one whole PAL region, seeing that we all speak more-or-less the exact same language (only with accents added ontop). And while we're on that note... - what is it exactly that makes the Americans that-much-different to us, even though we both say "Hello" when answering the telephone?!?
We've heard it all before about how translating into all those different European languages can be a daunting task that takes up perhaps too-much time, and it's something that helped defat the cause for the likes of Animal Crossing to gain a European release, with a seqel already on-the-way. But with the UK out-of-the-way, they'll all only really have a bit of Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and perhaps Russian to add into each-and-every new game. OK, so that still may sound like a lot of work, but on a different time-scale, it's still less-work for them.
But obviously, the French, the Italians, the Spaniards, and all the others getting "left-behind" would have a fair few moans-and-groans to make in the direction of the men who can make it all happen. But for the sake of the future of European gaming; they need to start thinking about this, and how any obstacles can be overcome.
Seperating Great Britain away from the rest of Europe may not be the 'ideal' solution, but something needs to be done to at least break-down the mighty-size of the EU.
But unfortunately, I don't think George W. Bush and the rest of the US "nuking" Iraq and its surrounding neighbours is gonna do us any help (....not that it has anything to do with gaming, at all, or anything...).
I believe that our 'Kingdom' deserves the chance to stand 'United', on its own...!
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As a whole, the United Kingdom - consisting of England, Scotland, Wales and NORTHERN Ireland - is the biggest single area in Europe, with no other country or European regions coming close to it, in terms of its sheer size. Nope, not even Spain or France are anywhere near as big as the good old UK. So when a new product is on its way to the EU, in PAL, form (perhaps a new video game, or games console...), the United Kingdom is one section that no-one could ever afford to miss-out on, or see sales 'slump' in, if they were intent on making this new 'product' a European success, overall. But like with many things today, Europeans are, in most cases, the last to get anything that arises from the Middle East - especially the latest video games from the likes of Nintendo, Konami, and SEGA. And as European gamers, boy are we not happy having to wait for a PAL version of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - SIX-MONTHS-AFTER it originally appeared in Japan!
And now with the technology emerging (just take Datel's FreeLoader for the Nintendo GameCube, as an example), we are beginning to give up on waiting for "our own" regional copies of the latest games, and instead turning towards the ways of importing from the US, and even Japan, just to save ourselves a few-months-too-many of nail-biting and hair-loss-related, anticipation.
And I believe it is also only a matter of time before we see FreeLoader-style packagaes released for both the Microsoft X-Box, and SONY's PlayStation2, along with the consoles of the future - destroying the need for us to suffer these never-ending 'PAL-conversion delays'. At a time when almost NO European gamer will perpared to wait a while longer for the PAL release, when he can just get it from the US-of-A -- 'NOW'.
It's a possibillity that I believe could quite easily become real.
There could one-day be no-need for so-many European releases, at all!
But if the big-name firms of today don't like the sound of that, then obviously, they're going to have to start doing something about it. And the sooner games are released over here after hitting Japan; the better!
Now then, one idea that recently came to my attention - and really got me thinking about it - was the idea of treating the United Kingdom, as a whole (and perhaps the Republic of Ireland, also, just for this...), as an entirely different region to that of Europe, in-hope of at least getting us Brit's a few releases much-sooner, if not the majority of Europe, in general.
Just look at Australia - another region for `PAL` games... But they're absolutley nowhere near us! Yet, they recieve the same 'coding' in their games, a little while sooner in so-many cases. How can that be fair when we have to suffer intial delays of 6-months-after the Japanese get theirs - and even those dates are prone to "slippage"!?
I bet we'd get a similar kind of treatment if we were seen as "seperate" to that of all the EU countries, in general...! And also that the "Aussies" don't JUST get their's sooner, plainly because of their "closeness" with Japan....
Just think about how it must be for the likes of Nintendo and co. now, when only the mere 'thought' of releasing a new game across Europe, comes to mind...
By plainly 'looking' at the immense size of Europe, with all those individual little countries scattered around the Mediterranian, they know they've got one-heck-of-job coming up to fill their time and hands...! They know it's gonna be hard-enough to produce enough units AND to ship-them-off to all-areas, within good time; let alone creating a new game, or console, that'll satisfy ever-last-one of those Europeans -- right down to the very-last Scandinavian and Czech'!
We all say we'd love to work in 'gaming' in the future, but this sounds like nothing-but week-after-week of 7-day 'all-nighters', if they are to get everything done on-time!
It's no wonder we have to face-up to so-many delays, time-and-time-again!!
So, why not try and relieve that intense stress, and all those possible caffine-related illnesses Japanese developers and publishers must, by breaking-up part of the European Market as it is seen, and turning the United Kingdom (and perhaps Ireland...) into anoter market, in its own right?
And, you know what...? They could even consider linking both the UK and Australia together, as one whole PAL region, seeing that we all speak more-or-less the exact same language (only with accents added ontop). And while we're on that note... - what is it exactly that makes the Americans that-much-different to us, even though we both say "Hello" when answering the telephone?!?
We've heard it all before about how translating into all those different European languages can be a daunting task that takes up perhaps too-much time, and it's something that helped defat the cause for the likes of Animal Crossing to gain a European release, with a seqel already on-the-way. But with the UK out-of-the-way, they'll all only really have a bit of Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and perhaps Russian to add into each-and-every new game. OK, so that still may sound like a lot of work, but on a different time-scale, it's still less-work for them.
But obviously, the French, the Italians, the Spaniards, and all the others getting "left-behind" would have a fair few moans-and-groans to make in the direction of the men who can make it all happen. But for the sake of the future of European gaming; they need to start thinking about this, and how any obstacles can be overcome.
Seperating Great Britain away from the rest of Europe may not be the 'ideal' solution, but something needs to be done to at least break-down the mighty-size of the EU.
But unfortunately, I don't think George W. Bush and the rest of the US "nuking" Iraq and its surrounding neighbours is gonna do us any help (....not that it has anything to do with gaming, at all, or anything...).
I believe that our 'Kingdom' deserves the chance to stand 'United', on its own...!
And now with the technology emerging (just take Datel's FreeLoader for the Nintendo GameCube, as an example), we are beginning to give up on waiting for "our own" regional copies of the latest games, and instead turning towards the ways of importing from the US, and even Japan, just to save ourselves a few-months-too-many of nail-biting and hair-loss-related, anticipation.
And I believe it is also only a matter of time before we see FreeLoader-style packagaes released for both the Microsoft X-Box, and SONY's PlayStation2, along with the consoles of the future - destroying the need for us to suffer these never-ending 'PAL-conversion delays'. At a time when almost NO European gamer will perpared to wait a while longer for the PAL release, when he can just get it from the US-of-A -- 'NOW'.
It's a possibillity that I believe could quite easily become real.
There could one-day be no-need for so-many European releases, at all!
But if the big-name firms of today don't like the sound of that, then obviously, they're going to have to start doing something about it. And the sooner games are released over here after hitting Japan; the better!
Now then, one idea that recently came to my attention - and really got me thinking about it - was the idea of treating the United Kingdom, as a whole (and perhaps the Republic of Ireland, also, just for this...), as an entirely different region to that of Europe, in-hope of at least getting us Brit's a few releases much-sooner, if not the majority of Europe, in general.
Just look at Australia - another region for `PAL` games... But they're absolutley nowhere near us! Yet, they recieve the same 'coding' in their games, a little while sooner in so-many cases. How can that be fair when we have to suffer intial delays of 6-months-after the Japanese get theirs - and even those dates are prone to "slippage"!?
I bet we'd get a similar kind of treatment if we were seen as "seperate" to that of all the EU countries, in general...! And also that the "Aussies" don't JUST get their's sooner, plainly because of their "closeness" with Japan....
Just think about how it must be for the likes of Nintendo and co. now, when only the mere 'thought' of releasing a new game across Europe, comes to mind...
By plainly 'looking' at the immense size of Europe, with all those individual little countries scattered around the Mediterranian, they know they've got one-heck-of-job coming up to fill their time and hands...! They know it's gonna be hard-enough to produce enough units AND to ship-them-off to all-areas, within good time; let alone creating a new game, or console, that'll satisfy ever-last-one of those Europeans -- right down to the very-last Scandinavian and Czech'!
We all say we'd love to work in 'gaming' in the future, but this sounds like nothing-but week-after-week of 7-day 'all-nighters', if they are to get everything done on-time!
It's no wonder we have to face-up to so-many delays, time-and-time-again!!
So, why not try and relieve that intense stress, and all those possible caffine-related illnesses Japanese developers and publishers must, by breaking-up part of the European Market as it is seen, and turning the United Kingdom (and perhaps Ireland...) into anoter market, in its own right?
And, you know what...? They could even consider linking both the UK and Australia together, as one whole PAL region, seeing that we all speak more-or-less the exact same language (only with accents added ontop). And while we're on that note... - what is it exactly that makes the Americans that-much-different to us, even though we both say "Hello" when answering the telephone?!?
We've heard it all before about how translating into all those different European languages can be a daunting task that takes up perhaps too-much time, and it's something that helped defat the cause for the likes of Animal Crossing to gain a European release, with a seqel already on-the-way. But with the UK out-of-the-way, they'll all only really have a bit of Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and perhaps Russian to add into each-and-every new game. OK, so that still may sound like a lot of work, but on a different time-scale, it's still less-work for them.
But obviously, the French, the Italians, the Spaniards, and all the others getting "left-behind" would have a fair few moans-and-groans to make in the direction of the men who can make it all happen. But for the sake of the future of European gaming; they need to start thinking about this, and how any obstacles can be overcome.
Seperating Great Britain away from the rest of Europe may not be the 'ideal' solution, but something needs to be done to at least break-down the mighty-size of the EU.
But unfortunately, I don't think George W. Bush and the rest of the US "nuking" Iraq and its surrounding neighbours is gonna do us any help (....not that it has anything to do with gaming, at all, or anything...).
I believe that our 'Kingdom' deserves the chance to stand 'United', on its own...!
FreeLoader could have multiple plus points for UK gamers; first of all they can use the FreeLoader and get games months before release, leading to poorer sales figures for the official PAL version when it is released (i.e. Metroid Prime won't sell as well in the UK due to FreeLoader owners already owning the US version). And as you mention, sales figures for Animal Crossing will be greatly affected if it ever sees UK shores as so many people already own the US version.
So hopefully the powers-that-be will see sales for big games slumping due to imports and will then be forced to do something about it: release gamers sooner.
When Legend of the Mystical Ninja was finally released on the SNES in the UK all those years ago it didn't sell very well, mainly due to the fact that the US version had been available for about a year already, so people who wanted it got an easy to use convertor and the US version instead of waiting. The sales of the game in the UK weren't great as a result, so similar Japanese-esque games and other Mystical Ninja games weren't released or were very low-key as the companies thought they didn't have appeal. But they did have appeal, they were just released too late to capitalise on it.
The same sort of thing could be said about dvds. American region 1 versions still come out way ahead of UK region 2 versions, so people like me mainly buy region 1 versions, thus affecting UK sales figures. The remake of The Ring, Resident Evil, Ocean's Eleven are just three of the many examples of how a dvd comes out in the US and then arrives months and months later in the UK, by which time loads of people already own the region 1 version anyway. I'm sure that, like games, sales of dvds would be much higher in the UK if they came out closer to the American versions.
I've often thought about how cool it would be if the UK market could be treated as part of the US with games and dvds. We're both predominantly English speaking nations, so why should the UK have to wait for months and months for bloody French, Spanish, Italian, German, Sweedish, Polish, Albanian blah blah blah languages to be included in the UK versions. It sucks.
So hopefully the powers-that-be will see sales for big games slumping due to imports and will then be forced to do something about it: release gamers sooner.
When Legend of the Mystical Ninja was finally released on the SNES in the UK all those years ago it didn't sell very well, mainly due to the fact that the US version had been available for about a year already, so people who wanted it got an easy to use convertor and the US version instead of waiting. The sales of the game in the UK weren't great as a result, so similar Japanese-esque games and other Mystical Ninja games weren't released or were very low-key as the companies thought they didn't have appeal. But they did have appeal, they were just released too late to capitalise on it.
The same sort of thing could be said about dvds. American region 1 versions still come out way ahead of UK region 2 versions, so people like me mainly buy region 1 versions, thus affecting UK sales figures. The remake of The Ring, Resident Evil, Ocean's Eleven are just three of the many examples of how a dvd comes out in the US and then arrives months and months later in the UK, by which time loads of people already own the region 1 version anyway. I'm sure that, like games, sales of dvds would be much higher in the UK if they came out closer to the American versions.
I've often thought about how cool it would be if the UK market could be treated as part of the US with games and dvds. We're both predominantly English speaking nations, so why should the UK have to wait for months and months for bloody French, Spanish, Italian, German, Sweedish, Polish, Albanian blah blah blah languages to be included in the UK versions. It sucks.
Solskjær wrote:
> As a whole, the United Kingdom - consisting of England, Scotland,
> Wales and NORTHERN Ireland - is the biggest single area in Europe,
> with no other country or European regions coming close to it, in terms
> of its sheer size. Nope, not even Spain or France are anywhere near as
> big as the good old UK.
UK
total area: 244,820 sq km
population: 59,778,002 (July 2002 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $25,300 (2002 est.)
Germany
total area: 357,021 sq km
Population: 83,251,851 (July 2002 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $26,600 (2002 est.)
France
total area: 547,030 sq km
population: 59,765,983 (July 2002 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $25,700 (2002 est.)
Source: CIA World Fact Book.
I see your point, I think if a game has been released in Australia, which uses the same language and TV system, then it is ready to be released over here unless some regionalisation work needs to be done. It loses a game sales if it is delayed for such a long time.
But to say that the UK is the biggest country in Europe, and to intimate that it is the most important is wrong. True it is a bigger market for games than other European countries at present, but when you consider that there are 100's of millions more people in Europe then you see that it is quite important for a company to sell shed loads of games there.
I do understand what you are getting at, but it would be very stupid for anywhere to ignore Europe as it is such a large and rich market.
> As a whole, the United Kingdom - consisting of England, Scotland,
> Wales and NORTHERN Ireland - is the biggest single area in Europe,
> with no other country or European regions coming close to it, in terms
> of its sheer size. Nope, not even Spain or France are anywhere near as
> big as the good old UK.
UK
total area: 244,820 sq km
population: 59,778,002 (July 2002 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $25,300 (2002 est.)
Germany
total area: 357,021 sq km
Population: 83,251,851 (July 2002 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $26,600 (2002 est.)
France
total area: 547,030 sq km
population: 59,765,983 (July 2002 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $25,700 (2002 est.)
Source: CIA World Fact Book.
I see your point, I think if a game has been released in Australia, which uses the same language and TV system, then it is ready to be released over here unless some regionalisation work needs to be done. It loses a game sales if it is delayed for such a long time.
But to say that the UK is the biggest country in Europe, and to intimate that it is the most important is wrong. True it is a bigger market for games than other European countries at present, but when you consider that there are 100's of millions more people in Europe then you see that it is quite important for a company to sell shed loads of games there.
I do understand what you are getting at, but it would be very stupid for anywhere to ignore Europe as it is such a large and rich market.
So let me get this right, you want to seperate the UK from Europe just so we can get games earlier.
Thats what it appears to amount to. I really like games, but Im not prepared to risk other things to get games faster. Can you imagine what could happen if Britain seperated itself from Europe? Tariffs on imports to Britain would rise, tariffs on our exports to Europe would rise. Imagine not being able to get French wine, or Belgian beer. Our faactories going out of business because our single largest export market would be lost.
some nice euro developers release their games here first.
Rare, ubisoft, another french one (can't remember). there are others but they elude me (another britsh one i think)
oh and of course ALL nfl games comeout here first.... since the beginning of time. and we get all butter everywhere first
Rare, ubisoft, another french one (can't remember). there are others but they elude me (another britsh one i think)
oh and of course ALL nfl games comeout here first.... since the beginning of time. and we get all butter everywhere first
Oh why oh why do we Britains have to be diffrent to the rest of the world?
Solskjær wrote:
> I believe that our 'Kingdom' deserves the chance to stand 'United', on
> its own...!
...by this i seem to pick up the point you want Britain to make all of its own games, thefore missing out on most games. Doesn't sound like a good idea to me.
Why the hell does it take six months to translate a few pages of writing? It probabaly takes less to translate a book.
> I believe that our 'Kingdom' deserves the chance to stand 'United', on
> its own...!
...by this i seem to pick up the point you want Britain to make all of its own games, thefore missing out on most games. Doesn't sound like a good idea to me.
Why the hell does it take six months to translate a few pages of writing? It probabaly takes less to translate a book.
Blurb wrote:
> Oh why oh why do we Britains have to be diffrent to the rest of the
> world?
Because were better than them of course! ;)
> Oh why oh why do we Britains have to be diffrent to the rest of the
> world?
Because were better than them of course! ;)
:)
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