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The recent announcement of Glory of Heracles' North American release date after months of silence prompted some unhappiness. After all, the game had been dropped as a surprise at E3 six months ago and then seemingly forgotten about by Nintendo. The same seems to have happened with the new Golden Sun and Monado, with quick trailers at E3 and then nothing afterward. Nintendo also released almost nothing regarding The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks until a month before the game's release. This is nothing new from the company, however. See if this editorial excerpt from the winter of 2002 sounds familiar:
"EGM: We need screenshots of your new and exciting games, please.
Nintendo: We're working on it.
EGM: We need playable versions of your new and exciting games to preview and review. Please.
Nintendo: We're working on it.
Note: 'We're working on it' = 'You're not getting squat.')...
Why are they stiffing us? The Japanese parent company is so protective of its assets, they're willing to hide almost everything from the press in exchange for the warm, fuzzy feeling that their unfinished products are not being judged by the public."
Except for a couple of lines I didn't include that specifically referenced the GameCube, Nintendo's overly protective policies haven't changed much. To augment my argument, I turned to RPGamer's Editor-in-Chief Michael Cunningham (Macstorm), who said "they play things close to the chest" "and do little to promote their RPGs to the niche crowd." That much is definitely true: Fossil Fighters is an enjoyable game, but Nintendo barely supported the game's English release. Glory of Heracles may be a victim of the same treatment; the jury is still out but Nintendo's lack of further information alongside its release date is a bad sign. Monado has been given even less information, and there's no way to guess when news on it will surface.
Nintendo of America can't really go against the policies Nintendo of Japan follows, so the solution cannot come from the western hemisphere. Someday Nintendo will hopefully realize that keeping a tight rein on all the information about its upcoming games is not the best form of public relations. When that day comes, we can all look forward to regular updates on the games Nintendo is publishing that are of interest. For now though, Nintendo keeps things away from the public eye consistently, and information about its upcoming titles remains hard to come by.
Incidentally, the quote is from the March 2002 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, in Dan Hsu's editorial.
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