For years, fans of Nintendo’s Mother series have been waiting for the third and final installment in the trilogy to release outside of Japan, but Nintendo has been far from eager. Now, nearly ten years after the game’s release, the timing is perfect for the beloved classic to release in Western territories.

This is one of the subjects we cover on

this week’s episode of Nintendo Week, our Nintendo podcast here at Gamnesia. If you’d like to learn more about it, you can either watch the discussion video above, or keep reading!

To begin, Nintendo knows that

Mother 3 has a strong fan demand in Western territories. Ten years of campaigning has led Nintendo to reference it numerous times, including at last year’s E3. Game Boy Advance games are now available on the Wii U Virtual Console, audiences are more familiar than ever with the series thanks to EarthBound‘s digital re-release, and its starring character is making his triumphant return as a playable fighter in Super Smash Bros.

The timing is perfect for audiences to embrace

Mother 3 in larger numbers than ever before, especially if they release it as a cross-promotional campaign alongside Lucas’ Smash DLC. And considering the creator of the popular fan translation is offering Nintendo his work completely free of charge, Nintendo no longer has any reason to hold it back. It would be the cheapest, easiest software launch they could possibly schedule while still treating it as a major new game release on Wii U.

In the past, Nintendo had reasons not to release it: it was finished two years after the DS launched, they would have to spend time and money localizing it,

EarthBound was extremely rare and therefore unlikely for modern gamers to appreciate, and the list goes on. But every one of these reasons has been destroyed in recent years, and Nintendo now has the opportunity to unleash it on a whole new set of fans that are eager to see what all the love is about. They no longer have a single deterrence from releasing it—they now have active incentives. The only question remaining is whether they’re willing to see that.

If you like this video, you can

subscribe to Nintendo Week on iTunes, where we release new episodes every Wednesday. If you don’t like long-form podcasts, you can subscribe to us on YouTube, where our discussion segments are uploaded on Thursdays, and these select snippets from the rest of the podcast—which we call NWC—are uploaded throughout the week. If you like what you hear, we’d love it if you leave us a review on iTunes, or send us your feedback! We’d love to know what you think of the show, and how you think we can improve it.

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