why are european release dates so late?

Retr0gamer

Syferus wrote: »

Apart from, err, the US?

I'd actually say it's bigger than the US. It's got EA and Ubisoft the two biggest third party publishers and a rake of other smaller developers and off shoots from the likes of Rockstar and Sony taking advantage of the tax breaks. Name some companies bigger than those based primarily in the US? You won't be able to.

mayordenis

It's a mish mash of things,

localisation - People think only the game/manual have to be localised but really all the marketing and PR and well everything public part of the product has to be localised for the plethora of countries in the EU.

Consumer Trends - I won't claim to know too much about this but no question consumer trends point companies in the direction of when to cash in their chips.

Reception - now and then releasing in a single territory is necessary, obviously not with the big titles like Gears of War etc. but it has it's benefits.

As someone points out above disribution - getting the games across many borders boats, planes, trains, lorries, yada yada.

And then you have to look at the developer - Epic in this case - where are they from? Yup, America. How does anyone have the right to dictate where a company launches a product?

Fair, it doesn't make sense but even if it did it doesn't enter the equation.

Syferus

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd actually say it's bigger than the US. It's got EA and Ubisoft the two biggest third party publishers and a rake of other smaller developers and off shoots from the likes of Rockstar and Sony taking advantage of the tax breaks. Name some companies bigger than those based primarily in the US? You won't be able to.

Sony Computer Entertainment America, Microsoft, Nintendo of America and Apple? While both Sony and Nintendo are Japanese companies, their American headquarters are hubs for their US development teams/partners and their publishing arms are massive.

That's not even mentioning Activision Blizzard, Take 2, THQ, Valve or companies like Epic Games and nVIDIA who play a huge role in the games industry on the technological side, be it software or hardware.

EA is actually headquartered in Redwood, California - it only has development offices in Canada while the majority of its development done in the US in Redwood itself and studios like EA Tiburon in Orlando. Ubisoft is even headquartered in Paris, although a majority of its prolific development is coming from the Montreal and Toronto studios.

On that, Activision Blizzard has been bigger than EA for years now and Ubisoft's status as third largest third party publisher is quite murky as well - THQ's net income was around four times that of Ubisoft's last year and Take 2 regularly out-performs it as well.

I honestly thought you had just forgot about the US because - without trying to sound condescending - there is no argument that the brain trust and centre of the video games industry lays in US. Ask yourself where a majority of the games industry press is based, the west coast of the US. It's for a simple logistical reason. It was only last year that Canada was shown to have became the third biggest player in the industry behind Japan and the US - which had long since displaced Japan at the top of the pile.

Oh and yes, I do know a little too much about the industry!

Helix

titan18 wrote: »

I'd presume the 3 day delay is to do with distributing over Europe being harder to distribute than America.

no, thats just when stuff is released in euope. movies and music are the same

over here everything is out on a tuesday

seraphimvc

tbh tho,everything is slower to gets into europe :pac: especially when we are talking about technology, i am not sure it is because of the strict regulation of this kinda stuffs or european has the conservation attitude or whatever other reason, europe = old school:P

Retr0gamer

When it comes to technology it's slower to launch in europe because initial launch shipments are so small that it's best to launch in one territory. It's also less risky for the company launching their product because if it bombs in the launch territories then it will bomb in europe more than likely so they can cut their losses without investing in a european launch.

VinLieger

Unless its over a month difference its not really that bad, dont mind having to wait an extra few days and in some cases its beneficial, example red dead redemption where the americans were plagued with 2-3 specific online bugs that were patched in time for our release

sean corcoran

Helix wrote: »

gears 3 is a worldwide simu-release

no its not. tuesday in america, thursday in japan and friday in europe

Helix

sean corcoran wrote: »

no its not. tuesday in america, thursday in japan and friday in europe

no, its not

its going to be out the same day everywhere

wait and see

VinLieger

Helix wrote: »

no, its not

its going to be out the same day everywhere

wait and see

nope

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/13/gears-of-war-3-dated-april-5-2011/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+weblogsinc%2Fjoystiq+%28Joystiq%29

sean corcoran

Helix wrote: »

no, its not

its going to be out the same day everywhere

wait and see

i dont want to argue with you but you are wrong, cliff blezinsky said tuesday america thursday japan and friday europe

VinLieger wrote: »

nope

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/13/gears-of-war-3-dated-april-5-2011/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+weblogsinc%2Fjoystiq+%28Joystiq%29

thank you, you proved my point

Helix

as i said:

Helix wrote: »

its going to be out the same day everywhere

wait and see

sean corcoran

Helix wrote: »

as i said:

helix im sorry but i trust the lead designer of the game, it was the same way for gears 1 and 2, so im positive it will be the same way.

mayordenis

sean corcoran wrote: »

helix im sorry but i trust the lead designer of the game, it was the same way for gears 1 and 2, so im positive it will be the same way.

No Gears 2 came out everywhere at the same time - I'm pretty sure.

gizmo

mayordenis wrote: »

No Gears 2 came out everywhere at the same time - I'm pretty sure.

Well Gears 1 had the staggered release date, Gears 2 had the same day so who knows with Gears 3. To be honest though, I'd say it's gona be another staggered one based on what Epic have said.

Professey Chin

Couldnt you at least be excited over a good game?

sean corcoran

Ultimate Chin wrote: »

Couldnt you at least be excited over a good game?

i am excited

degrassinoel

Julia Hardy (she's awesome) from gameface had a similar rant about this a few weeks back, unfortunetly i cant find it anywere.. ahh if ye seen it ye'd be nodding in agreement

mayordenis

gizmo wrote: »

Well Gears 1 had the staggered release date, Gears 2 had the same day so who knows with Gears 3. To be honest though, I'd say it's gona be another staggered one based on what Epic have said.

Of course Gears 1 was a staggered release date - nobody new it was going to be as big as it was in the end. The same day thing is only for huge releases, Halo, Call of Duty, Gears etc. I would trust Helix on this.

gizmo

mayordenis wrote: »

Of course Gears 1 was a staggered release date - nobody new it was going to be as big as it was in the end. The same day thing is only for huge releases, Halo, Call of Duty, Gears etc. I would trust Helix on this.

Heh, the idea that both Epic and MS didn't know what they had on their hands in the leadup to its release is quite amusing to be honest.

Anyway, what people seem to forget is that despite the staggered release dates, the actual physical copies will be in European retailers in or around then same time. Anyone who has some mates who work in the game stores will be painfully aware of this unfortunately.

sean corcoran

gizmo wrote: »

Heh, the idea that both Epic and MS didn't know what they had on their hands in the leadup to its release is quite amusing to be honest.

Anyway, what people seem to forget is that despite the staggered release dates, the actual physical copies will be in European retailers in or around then same time. Anyone who has some mates who work in the game stores will be painfully aware of this unfortunately.

i have a few freinds who work in gamestop and smyths and i could get my hands on it easily, problem is if i played online i would be banned from xbox live

Helix

sean corcoran wrote: »

i have a few freinds who work in gamestop and smyths and i could get my hands on it easily, problem is if i played online i would be banned from xbox live

no, you wouldnt

not entirely sure where that nonsense originated, but you do realise that if that was the case every games journo on the planet would be banned from xbox live on a daily basis?

degrassinoel

ye can also just.. ye know.. unplug the cable before ye put the disk in

Helix

degrassinoel wrote: »

ye can also just.. ye know.. unplug the cable before ye put the disk in

why go to that bother? you dont get banned for playing games pre release

VinLieger

Helix wrote: »

why go to that bother? you dont get banned for playing games pre release

Exactly. Gta 4 arrived in stores 2-3 days before it was released, i know for a fact that the employees were playing it the minute they got home. MS will only ban you if its suspected you obtained the copy illegally, like those fench dudes who robbed copies of Halo 3

jaykhunter

I don't play that many games so release dates don't bug me that much; but it's annoying as i have a few weeks free now but Mario isn't around for the best part of two weeks; i wish it was out now here like it is in the states.

I don't understand why games have different release dates in Europe. Is it that they don't print enough copies? No....is it that celebs come over to promote the release? No....I can't think of a good reason why.

I can somewhat understand big films, if they want different premiere dates and people are coming over to open/promote the film, but not games. Just laziness tbh.

sean corcoran

jaykhunter wrote: »

I don't play that many games so release dates don't bug me that much; but it's annoying as i have a few weeks free now but Mario isn't around for the best part of two weeks; i wish it was out now here like it is in the states.

I don't understand why games have different release dates in Europe. Is it that they don't print enough copies? No....is it that celebs come over to promote the release? No....I can't think of a good reason why.

I can somewhat understand big films, if they want different premiere dates and people are coming over to open/promote the film, but not games. Just laziness tbh.

exactly, i can understand games from japan (like most old games n64 atari etc.) being late because they have to be translated but why is it we speak english (like the americans) and get the game after the japs who have to get the translated version?

Retr0gamer

Sometimes it's also a case that the developer of the game doesn't have a publisher presence in certain parts of the world (Atlus games) or are just stupid (Sony with Demon's Souls). Unfortunately some small companies put region locking on their games in the hope that a foreign publisher will pick up the license from them such as with Deadly Premonition being unplayable to anyone in Europe and some of the japanese shmups for the 360. It's really annoying because I'd love to play deadly premonition.

jaykhunter

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd love to play deadly premonition.

That game has gotten ripped out of it, IGN gave it a 2.0 and every video review i've seen tears it to shreds. Metacritic gave it a better score saying it's so broken it's hilarious.

Maybe it is a distribution in different continents problem for smaller games. Still doesn't explain why SMG2 is a few weeks late :mad:

Retr0gamer

jaykhunter wrote: »

That game has gotten ripped out of it, IGN gave it a 2.0 and every video review i've seen tears it to shreds. Metacritic gave it a better score saying it's so broken it's hilarious.

Well this is the same IGN that gave Godhand 3.0 despite it being regarded as one of the finest games of last generation. IGN really are a poor site so don't trust them. On metacritic the game has only 4 bad reviews one of which is IGN and the other 3 are no name sites or ones I wouldn't trust because of poor journalism. I'm guessing they couldn't get over the poor visuals and didn't give the game a chance because every other review says that while the game is flawed it's well worth playing because of how bizzare and interesting the concept is and how unique the gameplay is. It's not actually so broken and bad that it's hilarious, it's more that the whole premise of the story is so crazy that you'll be laughing. Everyone says the gameplays fine, it's just not exceptional. The main character is off his face on drugs, talks to his imaginary friend in front of people, fights zombies that maybe might just all be in his head, can read the future by looking in his coffee and is the biggest asshole ever. I for one would love to try it out and a low budget game game never put me off enjoying Global Defence Force!