1. Im in Australia, with previous consoles (because we're both PAL) our launch dates were very similar to that of Europe's. Not anymore though (thank GOODNESS) we've had Twisted and Pinball for ages now.

Posted at 7:38PM on Apr 3rd 2006 by Pete.

2. Europe almost always gets screwed over by release dates, all because of those damn translations!

This is why I import from the US, sheesh, almost ALL of my games are imported! 18 of them!

Posted at 8:28PM on Apr 3rd 2006 by RupeeClock

3. yes they resoundly suck. thank christ somebody has begun to pay attention to this. i dont ever see nintendo giving a shit about europe. they make the money in the east.
and the wifi site! the animal crossing hub is about as useful as a hemmorage.
i mean if you look at the uk carts youll see nintendo... nowhere in the top twenty. maybe theyll break it this week with resident evil and animal crossing but itll only last about a fortnight at the most. plus the whole friend code online thing is a waste of time for me cause i know nobody with a ds.
it honestly seems like they dont care. good business model NOE. i think something i ate and later coughed up could do better.
man im feeling mean... with a smile on my face!

Posted at 12:26AM on Apr 4th 2006 by JaSoN!

4. Yup, as has been said: we lag >_<

I don't import, but I know shops who do. So, when I'm dying to get a game, I might decide to go there, but I'm ready to wait... as long as it doesn't take 8 months on the really promising games such as TP...

or the "Revolution"... I hope they release it worldwide and that we don't have to wait for it while you're having a blast on it -_-

anyhoo, just got myself a copy of ACWW, so there's a lot of time to be consumed by it ^_^

Posted at 2:41AM on Apr 4th 2006 by _Matthew_

5. Actually, I'm so delighted that US and Japanese content works perfectly on my DS with no problem, it really rather makes up for the delay. But it does mean that I am mostly importing -- or rather, that I'm buying from one of the numerous small UK businesses that import in bulk and sell on eBay.

Posted at 2:57AM on Apr 4th 2006 by Alison Scott

6. I bought Animal Crossing and Nanostray imported well before their UK release dates, both were at least £10 cheaper than their UK RRP even after postage/duty. One thing that concerned me was that by the time the games came out in the UK they would be so old for everyone else that it would be harder to find online players, and of course the US/Asia players would have a 6 month head start with which to 'pwn' us brits.

Posted at 4:46AM on Apr 4th 2006 by IndieWhore

7. It's better than Brazil, where nothing is ever launched :/

Posted at 8:30AM on Apr 4th 2006 by Diwrnach

8. Re: Warioware, it's surely not a localization issue - the WW demo has been shown everywhere here and it's fully localized into Italian!

Posted at 12:22PM on Apr 4th 2006 by l0ne

9. A lot of the reason for the significant delays is the localization and translation testing. Games made for the European market usually contain up to 7 different language options (English, Spanish, French, German, etc.) and each one of those has to be properly translated to make sure any game dialogue flows smoothly regardless of the selected language.

Of course, localization time could be reduced if developers actually did all the localization for each language during initial development, but that's rarely seen since the American and Japanese markets are primary targets for most releases.

Posted at 12:56PM on Apr 4th 2006 by Tobey Cook

10. I remember reading somewhere that the reason they had problems with the warioware:twisted european release is beacuse of the mercury tilt switches used in the cartridge!

Apparently theres some laws in europe that prevent these devices from going on sale to children. I can't really imagine them slapping an 18 certificate on warioware, can you? Hopefully they have found a way around it though.

Posted at 7:29AM on Apr 10th 2006 by Olly