Mother 3 Added to Nintendo Switch Online in Japan Only - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 March 2024 / 3,572 Views
Nintendo in the Japan version of the recent Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase announced Mother 3 has been released on Nintendo Switch Online in Japan only.
Mother 3 is an RPG that originally released for the Game Boy Advance in April 2006 in Japan. It never saw a release in the west.
The English translated versions of the first two Mother games, EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings, did release for the Nintendo Switch Online on the NES and SNES apps in February 2022. Mother 3 has yet to get an English translation.
View a trailer of Mother 3 for Nintendo Switch Online in Japan below:
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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This whole Mother 3 situation is getting ridiculous. It's 2024. Just translate the damn thing already. Fuck whathever sensitive topics or sterotypes the game has, those who want to play the game don't care!
It got ridiculous already
It’s been ridiculous for the past twenty years.
yes, but the last few years are by far the worst!
I was wondering what all the fuss was about and did some research on it. The whole mother 3 soundtrack is filled with tons of copyright infringements from movie scores to Beatle hits, pop, rock music. Almost everything musical in the game was copied and used without any permissions from the copyright holders. It would be a legal nightmare.
Earthbound also uses samples of a crap ton of many pop and rock music hits on its soundtrack. I doubt that's the reason.
The lawyer that I was watching also covered that. He mentioned at the time Earthbound was released for the west, some of the soundtracks that were obviously used without permissions were reworked before the release. Not all of them were reworked, but it was at a time when the music industry wasn't where it's at now. Earthbound also didn't have a big release, it developed a cult following way later after it's release. Today every work is put underneath a microscope. And with Mother 3, it's soundtrack is considered more integral to what makes it great compared to the other 2 entries. A complete revamp of the soundtrack could alter the appeal and appears to not be worth the effort.
In Japan they do have copyright law, but it is different than the USA's and the UK's. The artists could challenge it in Japan, but the hurdles and burden of proof are more difficult to meet.
Earthbound has been re-released multiple times over the last 10 years or so on both Virtual Console, SNES Classic Mini and NSO. Zero copyright music problems. I don't think that's the reason Mother 3 has yet to be launched on the west.
With people like Chaya "Libs of TikTok" Raichik running around loose in this world, Nintendo isn't going to take the chance of her screaming on Twitter about the Magypsies and having Ron DeSantis and the GOP Congressional caucus demanding they be investigated for "grooming." It's easy for you to say since you're not the one that would be under the gun on that one.
Nintendo is just mocking those who have been begging for a Western release at this point lol. Translated the first game after 26 years in 2015, but refuses to translate the 3rd???
C'mon if people really to play this, they just have to go play the unofficial English translation release. It's been sitting on the internet for years.
But I'm still mindboggled that Nintendo has done nothing with it still
Looks like I'm gonna have to change my region on Settings and on my Nintendo Account.
respectfully…you would have to know how to read Japanese.
Or google translate. Both work rather well actually. :)
fair enough. I’d opt to just pirate the fan-translation of the game, but to each their own.
I like to show my support to the developers. Even one second hand games (I buy them at really good prices lol).
How can you show support to devs with second hand games?
The game is discontinued. Physical > digital. Yes, it doesnt support them when its discontinued but thats the next best. And I purchase their active games from them (whenever possible).
I don’t think the devs care you use Nintendo Online or pirate lol. Lead director of Mother 3 Ito literally has stated opposition to Nintendo’s practice of gatekeeping the experience from US audience. If anything, you’d be showing your support by simply playing a modded version in English. So as to play the game as the devs would’ve wanted.
Haha, I can't believe they seriously did that! They gotta know how much goodwill it would have earned them to finally release a translated version, exactly the sort of thing they could have used in a slow year! I've played it anyways but damn that is a brutally dumb move.
Oh, real surprise. Not.
I knew this would happen.
Cool. Does anyone know if you can access the Japanese Nintendo online on a Western console if you create a Japanese player account?
Now they’re just being mean
At least nintendo is consistent
