"It was actually much easier than you would expect. They were receptive to our inquiry from the very start. We approached them once it looked pretty certain that it wasn't coming over. I was in Japan for Tokyo Game Show and I picked up a copy of The Last Story, cause a lot of us in the office would want to play it anyways. Once we started playing it, we just figured, 'Wow, this would be nice if this came over—let's talk to Nintendo!'

[Nintendo was] like 'Well, no one's asked us yet, but it may be possible. Let us take a look.' Perhaps people just assumed that if Nintendo wasn't gonna do it, it wasn't coming over, but yeah, they were very receptive from the start." - Director of Publishing Ken Berry

Berry was asked about whether Operation Rainfall had any impact on the localization, to which he gave an answer many won't be happy to hear.

"No, I don't believe so. Nintendo, they have their own set of rules that they go by. And as for us, it didn't really affect us either—cause we have our own requirements that we look for on potential titles. And, you know, it just met all [our] prerequisites."

Following that, Reggie was asked why Nintendo holds some games back, to which Reggie said that's not the case at all.

"Nintendo of America does not quote unquote hold games back. Our process, with every game, is to assess its potential and if we judge a game as having significant potential or the potential is there to warrant the the localization cost, then we will localize it and bring it to the market—that is our philosophy."

So...Nintendo checks to see if they can make some bank, then decide to...hold games back. It's a business, I understand this. Doesn't make it any less painful to see games hit Europe and Japan, but not North America.