I'm from the UK, where there is, in my opinion, a terrible selection of games to choose from. They all appear to be the same. So I was wondering, what has caused this to happen? Last weekend I was recommended to and subsequently bought a game for my PS2 called "We Love Katamari". Now I never buy strange Japanese titles, but it is fantastic, and the most original game I have played in the last 5 years. Our friends in Japan may have some silly ideas, but at least they are trying something different. Why does the UK not have access to more of their games? I appreciate cultural differences are a factor, but surely not all of their releases are so full of Japanese peculiarities as to render them unplayable. My belief is the bargain bin culture that has risen in the UK, is to blame. Why would a publisher choose to release a game over here, if nobody is willing to 1) try something a little different, 2) pay release price for it? My post therfore is for two reasons: 1) Surely I can't be the only games player in the UK tired with crappy release schedules? What do you think are the reasons? What are your opinions? 2) To implore you to buy "We love Katamari" or other games of this ilk, at full release price, in an attempt to show overseas publishers that us UK dwellers are prepare to take on something a little different.

Psychonauts came out last Friday.

A year after it came out in the US.

The four stores that I tried didn't even have the PC version, they only had Xbox and PS2.

I ended up buying it online. Play just emailed me to say they've shipped it.

Fantastic! Psychonauts is made by the much loved Grim Fandango team I believe. Yet another genre of game that seems to have disappeared, or evolved into the monotonous glut of CSI/Law&Order games. (They're not bad games, just not good!)

Quote:Original post by phantom

Quote:Original post by superpig
Psychonauts came out last Friday.

A year after it came out in the US.

and people wonder why there is so much software piracy around for games?

why does it take a year for the UK release of a US game? Its not like we get things converted from American English to English anyways, so what? The 60hz => 50hz swap takes them a year to figure out?

*nods* The whole region encoding thing is just utter bullsh*t. The X360 stuff really doesn't have any excuses because it's got hardware that swaps between different frequencies anyways - right?

In anycase, how many of us have NTSC capable TVs? I know I always switch up to the higher frequency anyway when I play PAL games if it's available. I can't believe it takes THAT much effort to drop a few frames and put a border on them.

It's like that whole Sony rootkit thing - some companies treat every single customer as the enemy. And ignore others. Ninetendo GameCube strategy in the UK was laughable, if it ever existed.

If MS keep to their word and don't release games over here without stupid amounts of release lag for the X360, I may well jump on that bandwagon rather then Sony's when the time comes to buy in to the next gen on from the PS2.