Reggie just released his new book, "Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo" and in an audio version of the book Reggie has an interview with Geoff Keighley, where he opens up about releasing Mother 3 in the Wii U era of Nintendo.
During the DS era:
On distributing the Japanese version on non-JP 3DS eshops:
On releasing Mother 3 on the Wii U had the stars aligned:
Source
So there we have it, multiple conversations happened about releasing Mother 3 during the 3DS/Wii U era and sadly it didn't materialise.
This is the most Reggie has talked about the behind the scenes biz on Mother 3 so I really appreciate him opening up about it.
10 years on from the Wii U, do you think it'll eventually be localised for Switch?
Cancel my localisation if old.
During the DS era:
I had many conversations with Mr. Iwata about this game, about the fan passion, and certainly the perspective was the first game on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System had not sold all that well. Certainly as I've gone back to look at it, the marketing wasn't great. […] it hadn't sold well, because yes there's a lot of time and financial investment in localizing this type of content, it just really wasn't a priority. And then when it's at the point where we're putting all of our effort on Nintendo DS and games like Metroid Prime Hunters and Mario Kart for DS and Pokemon for DS, it really just was not a strong business priority. But boy, the game journalists had to ask me every single time.
On distributing the Japanese version on non-JP 3DS eshops:
There was a serious conversation during the Nintendo 3DS days, and as we launched the Wii U, that we should look at making the game available digitally through our digital storefront, because at that point the production and distribution costs are the minimus. We had already had conversations about having a group of games that were not localized, that it was the pure Japanese game made available. And we did that for a number of titles. They did okay. Mr. Iwata and I had that conversation about Mother 3.
On releasing Mother 3 on the Wii U had the stars aligned:
What ended up happening is that we launched the first Mother game called EarthBound Beginnings on the Wii U eShop. That's a sense of the conversations that were happening and the thought process. And who knows? If Mr. Iwata had not passed away, if maybe the Wii U had done better in the marketplace, maybe the Mother 3 game would have made it at that point. So there were certainly conversations, but it would have needed to have been done the right way.
Source
So there we have it, multiple conversations happened about releasing Mother 3 during the 3DS/Wii U era and sadly it didn't materialise.
This is the most Reggie has talked about the behind the scenes biz on Mother 3 so I really appreciate him opening up about it.
10 years on from the Wii U, do you think it'll eventually be localised for Switch?
Cancel my localisation if old.