This is probably old news to some people, but I never knew about it until recently: http://n4g.com/news/11941/twilight-princess-gc-online-only-in-japan I've only come across articles making this claim before the release of Twilight Princess, so I was just wondering if anyone knew for certain whether any Gamecube copies actually hit store shelves in Japan. It seems odd that Nintendo would release it in decent numbers for North America, but not for the Japanese market. Somebody on a forum said that they were also limited to 5000 copies. If this was the case, then I suppose it explains why the NTSC-J Gamecube version seems so rare online. I've had my NTSC copy since the Christmas it was released, but there was a time when I wanted the Japanese version just for the sake of collecting (and seeing if there were any regional differences). Anyway, I definitely have no interest in paying an outlandish price for it. Somebody has one on ebay right now for $300+. Granted, it is sealed, but I'd much rather track down a used copy for my purposes.
5000 copies seems unlikely to me. It can be had for $50-70 on Japanese auction sites, but that seemingly high price is rather normal given that it's the last GameCube-game that was released in Japan AND one of the best titles for the system with a rather low print-run (for a Nintendo-title). There are rarer GC-games in Japan, but like many other of the really good GC games, it became really rare once all the Wii owners around 2006-2008 noticed that the only good titles for their system were released for the GameCube, and subsequently started attacking the used game market for good GC titles.
Yeah, like I say, I only read the "5000" claim from one poster on a forum, so it's very possibly untrue. Anyway, I just thought it would be interesting to know whether or not any copies actually made it to retail.
It says on the Japanese Wikipedia page that the GC-version was only sold online, actually! Interesting.
That really sucked for some Japanese gamers, I'm sure. At least there was still some way to get it for Gamecube. From what I've read, Wind Waker sold better in North America than in Japan, so maybe Nintendo thought it would be more profitable to release the Gamecube version in western stores? I always thought it was pretty ridiculous for Nintendo to promote the Wii version as aggressively as they did. Afterall, it was always slated to be a Gamecube game. Nothing wrong with a future port (after all, Ocarina of Time was released on Gamecube... twice), but bringing it out before the original console it was developed for, and to not even have a retail release for the Gamecube version in Japan... well, that's just madness. Anyway... interesting to know, for sure! Thanks for the help.
I think the reason was that the GameCube was pretty much dead at the time of release, whereas games were still coming out in the West. Zelda:TP came out in December in Japan, and the last new release before that was all the way back in July. I did not know that it never got a retail release in Japan, that's some interesting info for sure... especially because it was a major Zelda title.
One would assume it was because they were trying to push the Wii version, sure its mirrored and used the waggle controls but it was the same game. and no doubt helped push the sales of the unknown Wii for Nintendo
I remember that in japan you could only get it online through them. But I don't remember if you could buy it from them or you had to have a certain number of club nintendo points.
No points. It could be ordered online on the Nintendo website. 6800 Yen + shipping. The information is still there: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ngc/index.html
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ngc/specific/index.html At the time Nintendo was not shy of specs Even has numbers for synthetic benchmark (Dhrystone2.1).
Man, that's harsh. Though, this thread did let me know that apparently the last Wii game was released already.
I was going to say the same thing sonicsean89. Basically according to ave there are no good Wii games.
