Reason why games and movies are delayed coming over here?
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Soldato
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To create artificial demand, and therefore more money.
Slightly related to the digital cinema thread. I dunno about games, but for films it can be because they can't actually make enough prints quickly enough. Piracy is also a worry; they have to protect the future revenue of the film. Therefore if they hold off releasing a film in the States because they havent got enough prints to get around the world simultaneously, and the film gets leaked -- they'd lose the potential revenue from the States as well as the rest of the world. They generally dont want to risk that, so they get the revenue from the States then worry about the rest of the world.
The problem for the UK in terms of game releases is pretty much caused by mainland Europe and the need for a lot of translations 
Take a game like Pokemon (yeah I know, but it's the best example
), the only difference in the American and UK release of say the GBA ones would be the details on the packaging, game cart and manual. Yet it took absolutely ages to get released here because of all the text to be translated into the many languages of mainland Europe.
Take a game like Pokemon (yeah I know, but it's the best example
), the only difference in the American and UK release of say the GBA ones would be the details on the packaging, game cart and manual. Yet it took absolutely ages to get released here because of all the text to be translated into the many languages of mainland Europe.Fillado said:The problem for the UK in terms of game releases is pretty much caused by mainland Europe and the need for a lot of translations
Take a game like Pokemon (yeah I know, but it's the best example
I am no expert on games development but one would assume they have the scripts and details for all the text in the game before they start programming. Why don't they do all the translation work then?
SiriusB
With regards films & DVD's the length of time we wait these days is really not that long.
Many of the major films tend to get a worldwide release these days and even the smaller releases are usually out within 3-4 weeks.
Only the really quite low budget films take any length of time and that is usually an issue in finding a distributor.
The same goes for DVD's.
Gone are the days where you had to wait months for a UK release over a US one.
If it's a film that had a worldwide release then the DVD usually has the same.
We are then on average 3-4 weeks behind on the DVD releases as well.
Once again low budget films tend to have distribution issues so maybe delayed.
Where there is usually a delay is in the release of DVD's of US television programs here in the UK on DVD.
However that makes sense - if a UK network has spent a lot of money on a series they have to try and make their money back from it - so you have to wait for it's run to finish on UK TV before it has a release on DVD.
That can of course mean that in the case of say a 20 episode US series you could be looking at 6+ months of wait as you wait a month for the program to start being aired here and then the 5 months it takes to show it.
Many of the major films tend to get a worldwide release these days and even the smaller releases are usually out within 3-4 weeks.
Only the really quite low budget films take any length of time and that is usually an issue in finding a distributor.
The same goes for DVD's.
Gone are the days where you had to wait months for a UK release over a US one.
If it's a film that had a worldwide release then the DVD usually has the same.
We are then on average 3-4 weeks behind on the DVD releases as well.
Once again low budget films tend to have distribution issues so maybe delayed.
Where there is usually a delay is in the release of DVD's of US television programs here in the UK on DVD.
However that makes sense - if a UK network has spent a lot of money on a series they have to try and make their money back from it - so you have to wait for it's run to finish on UK TV before it has a release on DVD.
That can of course mean that in the case of say a 20 episode US series you could be looking at 6+ months of wait as you wait a month for the program to start being aired here and then the 5 months it takes to show it.
carvegio said:
Western Europe as a whole is more important than Japan - the UK on its own being the third biggest video games market worldwide (after the USA and Japan).
US/Canada £5.6bn
Western Europe £4.2bn
Japan £2.8bn
Source: ELSPA 2002
Good question. I guess they probably start doing translations alongside the rest of the game being developed but it still takes time to get those translations into the game code. With modern games with voice acting, it's even more difficult since you have to get the dubbing right. Although that only applies to games originally in japanese being translated to english, since they just subtitle it for other languages usually.SiriusB said:
Actually the UK is often a testbed for DVD's, we got scrubs, futurama and family guy long before the US did, futurama we had a good 6 months headstart.
It also depends on TV schedules, someone buys the rights to air the show so the DVD is delayed to generate them viewing figures, that could be in the UK or US. That was the case with LOST, C4 spent a lot of money buying the rights and would be peeved if the DVD was released halfway through.
It also depends on TV schedules, someone buys the rights to air the show so the DVD is delayed to generate them viewing figures, that could be in the UK or US. That was the case with LOST, C4 spent a lot of money buying the rights and would be peeved if the DVD was released halfway through.
With games, sometimes the NTSC to PAL translation can take sometime to do. It's something like 6 months between MGS games and often more for Final Fantasy games. It can also give devlopers time to add in region specific content as well as region specific special features.