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The highly anticipated Zelda DS adventure Phantom Hourglass is expected to launch in Japan as early as June 29 but it looks like those outside of Japan will have to wait until Christmas.
According to the latest issue of Japanese gaming bible Famitsu, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass will land on June 29. The publication also reports that we won't see it English speaking countries until Christmas.
Look out for import reviews in a few months then.
via cvg
So, WHY will it be waiting till Christmas for English folk?
I can think of 3 reasons why us English speaking folk will have to wait until Christmas. (NOTE: Everything I type here is only hearsay that I acquired from gaming articles and could be wrong, feel free to correct me and I hope I do not offend anybody)
1: Since Nintendo is a Japanese company, and its main base is in Japan, programming games in Japanese first would be faster and therefore more logical than programming them in English first. Translating games from Japanese to English takes a lot of time. Considering how much dialogue is in a typical adventure RPG game, simply using a computer based translator will give us poor translations with plenty of dialogue that is messed up or does not sound right.
2: Japan is a well known testing grounds for games and technology, according to people I talk to who have been to Japan (correct me if I am wrong on this) the Japanese are reputed for coveting newer items a lot more than us English speaking folk and disposing of their older merchandise at a much faster rate than us. While we will hold on to a cell phone for years, I have hjeard that many Japanese folk ditch their cell phones in 3 months. Therefore, depending on how successful a game is in Japan, Nintendo would know how many copies of the game to ship across the world. And shipping costs money.
3: Christmas is the time of year when most people who celebrate this holiday let go of their inhibitions and reservations and spend, Spend SPEND! Since more people will purchase a game around December, near the climax of the Christmas season, than during any other month of the year, releasing a highly anticipated game around that time instead of 2 or 3 months earlier would only be logical for any game developer.
Again, I do not claim to be well informed about this stuff, so feel free to correct me.
good points Aryn.
Although the sales point seems a bit irrelevant, i mean, IT'S ZELDA DAMNIT!
Still, we always get stuff after japan, nothing new there.
A bombshell such as zelda is gotta be released at thte right time and i wouldn't eb surprised if the game rates well, that the sales go through the roof.