So why does the Video Game Industry Hate Europe so much?

Isn't that Austria?

 

/facepalm

Thats why I put a (;-)) there.

Is like that simpsons episode where the australian congress says "Austria" and has an a and l added with red paint.

 

True but...

NTSC was developed before PAL was, so it was unlikely they were going to say, oops sorry we developed the wrong system, everyone on to PAL. Also the early NTSC TVs did use the 60Hz frequency of the mains as a timebase...

NTSC comes in one flavour NTSC-M, although the broadcast frequency can be very large (hence US and Japan consoles not being compatable with each others TVs), PAL on the otherhand (and this is only due to Audio encoding on the broadcast bands) does come in a number of flavours... I, B/G, D/K, N (2 types), M, L and up until the 32 bit consoles, most consoles did sport a inbuilt RF encoder.

Localisation is the main reason why games take longer to come out here. Hands up all those that bought Steel Battalion in Europe and noticed that the manual was heavy and thick and looked more like a small catalogue...

 

sarcasm and witty humour don't mesh well with the internet ;-)

 

I know, thats why I used to put [/sarcasm] but I thought it wasnt necesarry anymore (no pun intended).

 

Australia's great. Sun, sand and surf. We shouldn't even be playing games, we should be living them...!!! :icon_bigg

Seeing as they charge $110 for a new release game now (about $100 USD), canny Australians will be buying their games from the US and Japan, and forget about the local shops. PS3s are $700 (about $650 USD) here as well.

One thing we do have going for us is the Australia Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) which regulates competition. These are the mob that brought the court action that made mod chips legal, and have fought to allow the private and commercial importation of foreign games and systems on the grounds that limiting people to just buying software and hardware in Australia is anti-competitive in a country that claims to be all about globalisation. They're taking eBay to task at the moment over the compulsory use of PayPal, saying that it restricts competition. I hope they succeed in that.

Anyway, when I can import US and Japanese games and systems relatively cheaply, I'll continue to buy from overseas. I can't even recall the last time I purchased a game from a retail shop in Australia.

Anyway, lovely place. You're more than welcome to visit...!!!

 

Eh? Rock Band isn't region free for 360 at least, according to Play-Asia. Unless I've completely misunderstood something here.

 

This confusion actually happens. I have proof.

I bought an OST from Austria. It didn't turn up for ages, so I asked the seller what was up. Turns out it had been returned to him, as somewhere along the way it had been redirected to Australia.

Apparently that was the second time it happened to one of his packages!

I think the postal services in many countries must be run by monkeys. :shrug:

 

A brand new PS3 game costs 117 AU$. A brand new PS3 costs 1008 AU$. Those prices aren't that BAD.

 

Europe has like 8+ different major languages. It costs a shit load to translate games into most of those languages.

 

Nah, monkeys are smart...

I dont know whats the minimum wage in australia, but if price-over-wage is such that the average buying capacity of an australian is lower than that of an european then stuff is more expensive down under than in the old continent.

 

According to the Economist, using their Big Mac economics model, an Australian Big Mac costs $3.25 US, and a European Big Mac costs $4.87 US, so I guess we're not so bad off after all, although in theory that would mean you should be paying even more for your gaming hardware and software (?)

 

OK, but whats the minimum wage there and in europe?

Is not only price what determinates how expensive something is in a country, but the capacity of the population in said country to afford the thing.

 

I'm not sure about minimum wage, but the average salary in Australia is $55,700 Aussie Dollars (around $52,000 US dollars).

According to the data contained in http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2005/07/study/tn0507101s.htm the average wage in Spain is around the equivalent of $35,000 US Dollars (calc'd by taking the minimum wage for Spain and multiplying it by the quoted percentage of average wage figure).

So you're right, using those figures the real cost of a PS3 (in Spain at least) is significantly higher than Australia.

 

The minimum wage in Spain is 6230$ per year, I think (330€ per month, 3960€ per month, which is nearly nothing). The average wage is around 22655$ per year (1200€ per month, 14400€ per month, or around that).

Yes, a PS3 costs as the half wage of a lot of people here.

Yummy.

Well, it seems that the minimum wage is around 100€ more, but still, low.

 

I have to agree with the localisation issue. Instead of one language they have to translate them into five (or thereabouts). You almost get the impression that by the time all those languages are done the 'buzz' that might surround a 'new' game is all but gone...There's no quick way of doing translating a game into 5 languages.

Tax - also a very valid point. Most warez groups originated in Northern Europe. Why? Because games are so damned expensive and copying them then becomes a viable prospect. Just think, had games always been cheap the warez/hacking scene would probably have been set back at least 10 years. Instead, it's now a professional industry in itself that has filtered down to all four corners of the world...particularly in Asia, but there it's a little different as it's not an issue of 'cost' but 'availability'. It's not about about taxes. (altho' respective governments to do collect taxes on illegal copies in those countries nowadays.)

That's just reason number 4,532 why it's so shit in England. Don't get me started on the NHS...

"I haven't got anything to do so I'm going to stick around here and watch you for week or two..."

said the 45.000 GBP per annum Manager to the two administrators.

"At the beginning of the new financial year we're already over 1 million pounds in debt on the very first day." He laughed.

Unfortunately, for anyone who was sick or perhaps the child of a mother who was a prostitute addicted to crack, it was quite true...and not very funny.

I wonder why they had so much debt? (/me scratches chin and fails to put 2+2 together and makes 9)

---

Rant over....sorry folks, back on topic:

Hey! we did get an exclusive with the english version of Shenmue 2, it's not all bad!... Hold on, though; Wasn't Ryu dubbed by a corpse with about as much soul as the third reich?

England sucks.

 

Here's an idea, why don't thet start the translations for the other 4 languages when they start the translation for english?

Now that i think about it, do all Canadian games have to have french as stanard? coz if they do thats one less language to worry about. Same could also go for Latin America and spanish.

 

Nintendo has started going bilingual for all Wii games.

 

A game in Spanish Spanish wouldn't sell in Latin America, and a game in Latin Spanish wouldn't sell in Spain. Nowdays, with games with speech, latin american translated games are just ackward for us. First, we don't undesrstand a single word of what they're saying (Spanish Spanish accent is like japanese, plain), and all the jokes are nonsense for us. And the same happpens the other side.

 

i see, i'm sure you can tell I know nothing about language!