Best sites for PAL imports? I NEED to get Animal Crossing!

[Querjek]

(Well, for the 3rd region, at least)

Searching on Froogle was useless, as I only got the US version of Animal Crossing... can any UKers help me out here?

[Mayhem]

Well it isn't out here yet.. later this month. It's been out in Australia for quite a while though.

[Ikari Warrior]

The UK is just getting it now? That's crazy, the game is two years old, TWO YEARS! Nintendo needs to show the UK some more respect, that's unbelievable.

[Cauterize]

The UK is just getting it now? That's crazy, the game is two years old, TWO YEARS! Nintendo needs to show the UK some more respect, that's unbelievable.

Thank you! its about time nintendo treated us like "humans" just cause we dont speak japanese! well wait neither do you usa'ers... damn ive confused myself!

probably coz sega own3d their ass in the 80s-90s in the UK!!!!!! (watch me get flamed for this statement now! but you know its true!)

[Querjek]

Oh... really? I tohught it came out on September 3rd. Well, I guess that's good as I don't have to pay for it right now.

[Mayhem]

Hmmm maybe it was Friday... it's this month for sure.

Reason for the delay? Having to convert to PAL is not so bad, having to translate everything in the game into 3-4 other languages takes a LOT of time and effort...

[SoulBlazer]

No reason to hold up the release, then.

Studies have shown that England, Germany, and Italy are the largest gaming markets in Europe, with France, Spain, and the Lowlands and Scandanavia countries as being second.

So release the game first in England and then translate it to German and Italian. If the game is popular enough and sells well, translate it into those secondary countries.

It takes about 6 months for a Japanese RPG to get translated into English, so it should take less then a year for most games to go from a North American release to out in most of Europe. :hmm:

[davidleeroth]

Yeah, and it was already translated to French when it came out in Canada. Didn't take two years for that one to arrive.

Anyways, the choice for NOE in 2002 was between Pikmin and Animal Crossing and we got the vegetables.

[hydr0x]

So release the game first in England and then translate it to German and Italian. If the game is popular enough and sells well, translate it into those secondary countries.

that's a very bad idea! i'm not saying that because i'm german, but because i know how people would think about something like that...

if a (good) game would come out in the UK before it reaches Germany, everyone who has internet would import it, it's PAL, so it works and there are shops who don't charge shipping from uk to germany (www.play.com)

and it would just piss all germans off, germanys game market is exactly as big as the uk market, it even has the bigger expo, releasing it later in germany than in the uk (all the time) would be considered as discrimination (as is the fact that everyone says "UK" instead of "Europe" when in reality UK is by far not the most important country in the EU, they do not even have the Euro and have less inhabitants than Germany)

[Mayhem]

Erm Canadian releases just have French packaging and manuals, I've not come across a game that is also in French like that (from Nintendo at least).

@Soulblazer - no such thing as staggered releases, because that's the same almost as the whole "release at different times in Japan, US and Europe" malarky to begin with (and why I import). People in the rest of Europe would probably just get supplies from England cos they wouldn't want to wait :P

[davidleeroth]

Erm Canadian releases just have French packaging and manuals, I've not come across a game that is also in French like that (from Nintendo at least).

Oh, I thought... Sorry, my bad.

[SoulBlazer]

I only said England first due to the fact they speak the same language (well, for the most part LOL ). No need to delay a release of a game there.

The latest figures I saw from 2003 indicated England still has a SLIGHT lead on the German market. But they also consider PC games. Take those out and just focus on consoles and I suspect Germany is bigger.

[tededfred]

Link (http://www.play.com/play247.asp?searchtype=GC&searchstring=animal+crossing&page=search&Go.x=17&Go.y=12)

[Querjek]

Link (http://www.play.com/play247.asp?searchtype=GC&searchstring=animal+crossing&page=search&Go.x=17&Go.y=12)
Thanks, but that site won't ship outside of Europe it seems.


BTW, to everyone else: I'm pretty sure that this version of Animal Crossing will be in English, German, Italian, and French... I think... and considering that it took Nintendo multiple years to translate the N64 version (and add a few small things), I would say that the wait is justified (for this game at least).

[tededfred]

I ordered from there before. But, I guess they don't ship to here anymore.

[Querjek]

I ordered from there before. But, I guess they don't ship to here anymore.
Oh, really? THat would really suck if theu just recently stopped sending overseas... their list is:


Andorra
Austria
Belgium
Cyprus
Denmark
England
Finland
France
Germany
Gibraltar
Greece
Greenland
Guernsey
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Jersey
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malta
Monaco
Netherlands
Northern Ireland
Norway
San Marino
Scotland
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom
Vatican
Wales

[Mayhem]

Play stopped shipping outside Europe (and set up Play.com) when the authorities did their whole "clamp down on companies inside the EU importing stuff and selling it for cheaper than the actual EU release, and threatening the nice people who actually operate inside the EU and charge us extortionate amounts of money for the same product".

You could always just win a copy from eBay...

[hydr0x]

Greenland
Vatican
[/quote]

yeah, those countries have got so many gamers, you wouldn't believe it :p

[Querjek]

Play stopped shipping outside Europe (and set up Play.com) when the authorities did their whole "clamp down on companies inside the EU importing stuff and selling it for cheaper than the actual EU release, and threatening the nice people who actually operate inside the EU and charge us extortionate amounts of money for the same product".

You could always just win a copy from eBay...
Well, see, the problem with that is that I don't have Paypal (the two of us had a bit of a "disagreement" I guess you could say) and I feel weird about sending a money order overseas. It's not that I'm worried that it would get lost... but it seems like it would take too long.

Greenland
Vatican

Well, they also have so many people in them to begin with...

[SoulBlazer]

Mayhem, I honestly can't tell -- are you being sarcastic? :)

I'm sure many other companies will ship outside Europe.

[Mayhem]

Sadly I'm not being sarcastic SoulBlazer.

Here's how it used to work. Play operate out of Jersey, a small island just off the French coast (but still a British territory). It is known as a tax haven because items there (I believe) are exempt from VAT for example. So they would bring in their own items from outside the EU (quite often from Canada when it came to CDs) and then ship these items to us customers from within the EU. They could get away with most of the regulations and payments governing this because online merchants aren't wholly covered by the "based in a certain country" principle yet, and as I said, Jersey happens to be exempt from many taxes. Because the item was being shipped to us within the EU, we the consumer were not liable for VAT or import duty on the items, and this is part of the way Play were able to have lower prices for us to get the items at, instead the rip off prices being charged in shops.

Except the RIAA and the shops got pissy over this and pretty much attempted to shut it down. The edict now is that if the item is available from within the EU, then all sellers must source that item from within the EU and not from external grey sources. The RIAA were not getting any money from the imports because they only get income from EU sales. The shops and record companies were getting pissy because they didn't want to reduce the ripoff prices we have to pay instead. Sod fucking piracy, most people copy because the prices are TOO GODDAMN HIGH! Not because we actually want the stuff for free in the first place (well some people do regardless), we just don't want to pay £13-15 ($22-27) for a new album from a shop when we can get the same thing online for 40% less.

So Play and other similar online merchants setup external US based operations to get around this edict somewhat. Prices have gone up overall since then and quite often many of them won't ships CDs from the US site to Europe, but overall prices are still lower than shops. So the RIAA get their bit of money but the record companies and shops are still losers in the scheme of things.

[TheRedEye]

Nintendo Official Magazine UK says it comes out September 27th.

EDIT: And if you have that issue, read my four page Wario Ware review!

[Mayhem]

Curious they got a Yank to do it there then ;)

Still, I've been proclaiming Wario Ware goodness for almost a year now... got party? Get Wario Ware GC :D

[TheRedEye]

You'd be surprised how many European videogame mags have American freelancers.

[Lady Jaye]

BTW, Mayhem and the others, Nintendo did release at least one title localized in French for the Canadian market: Zelda: A Link to the Past for the SNES (and no, we didn't get the French localization for the GBA re-release).

There's a Quebec law that forces stores here to have bilingual packaging and manuals for games. Therefore, when you buy games here, you usually have 2 layers of shrinkwrap to undo: the original shrinkwrap and the second layer, which contains the bilingual sleeve (usually loose) and the manual. However, that law doesn't go so far as to force game makers to include French localization... and because of the NTSC/PAL-SECAM differences, we can't just import the French version from France (with the exception of Game Boy games, and even those are rarely seen in French here).

As for localization in French itself, the only other game, aside from A Link to the Past, that I've seen, is Looney Tunes: Sheep Raiders for the PSX, but that game has several languages available, so I guess that it was released in Europe first.

[Mayhem]

The games that came out from Ubisoft Montreal last year (such as Beyond Good and Evil) had several languages to choose from in the US release too. That's about the only time I've come across language choice in a US release.

Oh I know about the Quebec law, though I've only seen Nintendo and Capcom do the dual language thing for GC games packaging.

[TheRedEye]

The NES had a French-Canadian release of Kirby's Adventure, too.

[Lady Jaye]

I haven't played Ubisoft Montreal's titles (shame on me... I oughta correct that soon and support local products!

It's not just Nintendo and Capcom that do the bilingual packaging (or loose sleeve that's shrinkwrapped over the English-only packaging) and the bilingual manuals for all 4 current platforms. All the major game makers do it, however smaller companies (such as Koei) currently don't distribute their games here because of non-compliance to that law. Of course, it's always possible to still get these games via mail-order, but they're not supposed to be available here locally.

[Mayhem]

Ah... just to quantify what I said, I didn't mean it was only Nintendo and Capcom, but they are the only two publishers I've seen doing it from the GC. I've ordered bundles of stuff from places such as DVDBO and VG+ over the years and only those two publishers have done the dual language thing on the games I've received. Even more slightly bizarre, I've not seen the dual language thing on any GBA game.

Sadly being a bit of a "snob", I just want the original US packaging and hence I don't order Nintendo/Capcom GC games from Canada now.

[Disconnected]

You could try ukgames.com or videogameimports.com for PAL games. The 1st one won't ship hardware international though. Hope this helps.

[Querjek]

You could try ukgames.com or videogameimports.com for PAL games. The 1st one won't ship hardware international though. Hope this helps.
Thanks, I found it on that "UKGames" site and will order from there. Just to make sure: are they reliable?

[Disconnected]

You could try ukgames.com or videogameimports.com for PAL games. The 1st one won't ship hardware international though. Hope this helps.
Thanks, I found it on that "UKGames" site and will order from there. Just to make sure: are they reliable?

I have ordered from them before and I haven't had any problems.

[devilman]

Special Reserve (UKGames.com) have been going for years (back to the Amiga/ST days if not before) so yup, they're reliable - I've bought from them a good few times in the past.

[devilman]

Out of interest, why do you want the PAL version? Is it just for completeness?