Reggie Fils-Aime Explains Why Localizing Mother 3 Didn't Make Business Sense

In a new interview, former Nintendo President Reggie Fils-Aime has revealed more details on why the game was never localized for North America

Speaking to Bloomberg while promoting his new book, Fils-Aime explained that when the game arrived in 2006 on the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo was already making a transition to the Nintendo DS handheld console. It simply didn't make good business sense to spend money on a game for an older platform at the time, according to Fils-Aime, and it had nothing to do with fan rumors about the game having provocative content.

"That is not at all the issue why Mother 3 in particular never made it to the West," Fils-Aime explained. "It was all based on the business needs and the business situation at the time."

A cult classic game series, the original Mother game--or Earthbound as it was known in the West--first arrived on the Famicom in 1989 and told the story of the psychically-powered Ninten who used psychic powers to battle against sinister aliens. Earthbound and Earthbound Beginnings was eventually released on the Switch back in February.

Earthbound Beginnings is a retitled version of Mother that did receive an English translation from Nintendo, although this version of the game was originally only available on the Wii U Virtual Console when it was released in 2015.

As part of the press tour for his book, Disrupting the Game, Fils-Aime has touched on a number of gaming-related topics such as his thoughts on Elden Ring, the best-selling game in the US during February and March 2022. Fils-Aime officially retired from Nintendo in 2019 and then briefly served on GameStop's board of directors until he quit due to what he said was a rudderless outlook. For more, check out GameSpot's rundown of the best things we learned from Fils-Aime's new book.