In case you missed it, Nintendo fans have organized an online movement called Operation Rainfall that is hell-bent on bringing three Japanese titles to North America. For one of those games, The Last Story, things are looking up a smidgeon. Nintendo of America has received a trademark for the Mistwalker-developed RPG. They filed for it way back in January of 2010, but it was just issued this past week.
Keep in mind that every company in the industry files loads of trademarks each year that they have no intention of doing anything with, so this is hardly confirmation of anything. Still, this is probably the best news yet for Rainfall members and sympathizers. As I’ve mentioned before when covering the Rainfall Three, they would be a major boon for Wii owners who have nothing to look forward to other than Zelda and Kirby.
Nintendo has stated that they are not bringing the games out here — likely because they don’t think they can recoup the localization, production and marketing costs. But it’s hard to imagine a Hironobu Sakaguchi RPG arriving amidst the dead sea of Wii releases and not making at least a modest splash. No one’s saying it’ll be the next Final Fantasy, but a good strategy would likely be to approach its release with making it extremely popular within the limited hardcore crowd that still buys Wii titles the goal.
[Source: Go Nintendo]
[Image via Game Informer.]
