Mother 3 is one of those “fan desires” that has yet to be fulfilled. But to be clear here, it’s not for lack of trying. In fact, fans and journalists were so infamous about the title that they would ask Reggie Fils-Aime all the freaking time about when it was coming out. And he grinned and beared it like a boss.
But now, via his book “Disrupting The Game“, we learn why Nintendo was so hesitant to bring the game to modern gamers, and how Reggie did push for it. He cited the fans “passion” for the game as his main motivator, but noted that Nintendo wasn’t high on Earthbound (the English title for the series) as a whole after what happened with the now cult-classic game on the SNES. But as time went on, moves were made…
“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.
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.”
Despite him, fans, and those on the original dev team wanting the game in the West, it hasn’t happened yet. But that doesn’t mean it WON’T happen one day.
