Intern's Log: Week 4.2

http://oprainfall.blogspot.com/

I'm sure many of us have had games that we're excited about that hail from another localization, and are then subsequently disappointed when we find out that there's no plan to localize it to our area.  More often than not, this is a business decision and not intended to be a personal affront to our linguistic capabilities.  However, this being an age of technology and specifically the internet, people can and will drum up the masses to believe that it was an affront to them.

Thankfully, Operation Rainfall is not that.  In fact, it is more of a corporate awareness movement if anything.  The three games that it's focused on are Xenoblades, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower.  I know that I would purchase all of those games if they were given an NTSC release, but I also understand that they are very centered around Japanese culture and it may be hard to localize them fully without compromising aspects of the game.  So, as a business decision, you can see why Nintendo had no plans to localize those three games and likely many more in their catalogue.

I bring up Operation Rainfall because they do it right.  They brought the awareness through votes, blogs, and mailings to Nintendo and received a response that was very neutral (indicating neither a promise nor shooting the localization down) reply.  In the last few weeks, there have been posts on the blog that would also seem to indicate that Nintendo has determined positively on that front, and is planning a release of Xenoblade Chronicles in Europe (As posted under the title "August 19th Campaign").  To me, this shows that it was indeed a perception on Nintendo's front that the games did not have much interest outside of their initial localization.  So thanks to Operation Rainfall's respectful methods, these great games (and others) may have a chance at seeing NTSC releases.