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This is an open letter to Nintendo Europe, to which I welcome their comments and feedback.

Dear Nintendo Europe,

Todays announcement of delays to Mario Party 8 in Europe is the last straw. It is my opinion (and shared by many of my European Brothers) that you now have a decision to make in Europe, one that you have been holding back on for too long. You must now “shit” or get off the “European Region Locking Pot”.

It is, quite frankly, insulting, the complete disregard you have for the European region when releases games for the Wii and the drought of the last 7 months has fractured our tentative relationship beyond the realms of belief, showing you quite frankly have not regard for the opinions or well being of European gamers. I thought Sony were bad for turning their backs on the EU, but you have now taken their place as King Hater of Europe.

Super Paper Mario was the first in what became a deluge of major disappointments within the EU, with releases dropping and rescheduling and no-one even flinching. It feels like developers are laughing at us behind our backs, saying “oh, Europe don’t mind… lets just delay it 9 months there and get on with something new” whilst some outsourcing team does translations into a whole host of languages at the cheapest possible price.

How is it taking 6-9 months on average to translate games? Trauma Centre, one of the only launch titles I wanted is still not out, due for release in late July! Its taken Microsoft all of 5 months to translate Blue Dragon into English and a further 3 to Europeanise it; a game boasting 3 DVDs of RPG goodness and many many hours of story to translate. I hardly see how some of the titles in your backlog of non-releases compare to the translation process of this Epic Title (greatness, not the company).

Microsofts console IS region free however, and the decision lies with the developers to lock or not to lock, so maybe thats where the incentive to get games translated in the fastest possible time lies. You have no incentive to get games out in Europe so maybe you need a kick up the arse to get you going.

And that is what I’m here to give you. I have no intentions of waiting for any more games in Europe. My Wii is going to the Highest Bidder soon enough, and I will be purchasing a US console thereafter. You show nothing but contempt for me and my fellow Europeans so I will return the compliment by doing everything I can to ween people off your European nipple and onto that of your American or Japanese sisters. Whether they’re modding their consoles to play imports, or buying direct from the US or Japan, I really don’t care, just as long as they’re not directly supporting your faction of hate on my Mother Land.

You hate us that much you even try to fob us off by feeding us morsels on the Virtual Console, gimped PAL releases of crappy old NES, SNES and TurboGrafx titles that are barely worth remembering and want us to buy them! Games that don’t even work properly on our consoles when emulated (Mario Kart 64). Games with insanely large borders (Super Probotector). Games not worth farting on.

Once again Nintendo Europe, Shit or get off the European Region Locking Pot… all we want is games. Games for a console we bought for more than in the US and Japan in good faith. Games we don’t expect to have to wait 9 months for. Shit or get off the European Region Locking Pot Nintendo, Shit or get off the European Region Locking Pot.