Wednesday, February 20, 2008

GDC 08: Mario Kart Wii Dated

Yeah, it's dated. But the 40% of you guys of who go on this site, who are American, may be a bit disappointed and confused by this post.

But first, let's get straight down to the facts: Mario Kart Wii will be releasing on April 10, 2008 in Japan and April 11, 2008 in Europe. But after the time change, they are both being released at the same time. However, in America Nintendo continues to say Spring 2008. Now, while more info may be revealed in the two press conferences that are left for Nintendo on Friday, right now. It's a bit confusing.

You see, usually Japan gets everything 1st because that's where Nintendo's global headquarters are, and then the US gets it shortly afterwards. Why? Because not only does the US, have one of the biggest gaming population in the world, but it's also a bit easier considering both Japan and the US use NTSC. While the rest of the world uses PAL. So, typically NTSC is made first, as that is what Japan uses, and the US is able to get it quickly afterwards. But now, they're releasing both the NTSC and PAL version at the same time, without an American release in site. So, my guess is, they want to make sure they can meet the demand by having more time to produce more copies (as is the case with Brawl) since Japan is 26 times smaller than the US and some intense localization. But that's just my 2-cents on the matter. For all I know, the American date could be announced on Friday. But I thought that a little food-for-thought would be nice....

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