Import a copy of the game, if you can find one. It’s not cool to brazenly pirate stuff! Itoi, Nintendo, HAL, and Brownie Brown worked hard on this game. Can’t find a copy? Consider buying some official merch (below).

Ignore the can't find a copy bit. Buying official merchandise in no way excuses pirating a copy of the game. Honestly I was hesitant to even mention the project due to such concerns, but now an entire page of my email client is filled with Mother 3 subject lines, so there you go.

The Mother 3 Fan Translation [Official Site - Thanks Everyone]

It's a job I don't envy — my research this year has partially comprised of looking at translations going the other way (from English to Chinese), and it's been very enlightening to look at the various ways titles get translated. They range from near word-for-word translations to titles that have radically different emphases than their American counterparts. Add to that the job of translating everything inside a work, and that's a lot of acculturalization that needs to be done. What games have done it well? What have really fell on their face? And if you had a chance to rename something - or tweak interior translations - what would it be?

Game Design Challenge: Rename Katamari Damacy [GameCareerGuide]

Instead of hiring expensive middlemen, we harness the volunteer efforts of our passionate players. Instead of managing the process manually, we create an automated system of empowering tools and reward systems that encourage players to do the right thing. Above all, we make the process repeatable so that we can run it over and over again at almost zero incremental cost. We are building an engine whose mechanical structure is derived from the physics of human psychology and whose brightly burning fuel is a steady stream of fun seeking players.

The Translation Game [Lost Garden]

London game blogger Guy Cocker over on Gamespot has posted a video of his hapless attempts to use Talkman, the new PSP travel phrasebook. If this video is true to form, the thing is worse than useless:

I've reviewed the game for the site, but I thought I should also put his original design brief to the test. Luckily, I work in a big tourist area of London, and finding a Spanish girl isn't that difficult. Watch my hapless attempts to remain a gentleman as 'how are you today?' is turned into 'do you want to come to my apartment?' by the randy blue bird.

Guy laughs it off, but propositioning strangers is a good way to get your ass kicked. I should know, I live right next to the gay neighborhood, and seeing as all the heterosexual men in Seattle look like the bastard lovechildren of John Romero and Bill Gates (which in a way, they are), I am sometimes forced to disguise myself as a drag queen and go cruising with Florian.

Whether I'm shoving my PSP into their hands or not, it always ends in runny mascara, hurt feelings, and a spike heel embedded in someone's back.

Thanks for the tip, Carrie! Eliza Gauger

See Guy's video here [Gamespot]

In what will surprise nearly no one at all, Sony is now disavowing the €499 to €599 price for the PS3.

They are claiming that Sony Computer Entertainment France's grand fromage Georges Fornay's remarks on the price were mistranslated and taken out of context. The company says the uproar was over "a mistranslation or misunderstanding of the discussion, which was actually focused on the relative value of PS3 as a Bluray Disc player."

In other words, Georges was claiming that if they released at €499 to €599, the PS3 would be an excellent deal compared to the first Blu-Ray players, which are meant to sell at €700. It's one of those wacky hypothetical statements that sensible people try to shy away from, knowing the trouble they cause.

We actually wouldn't be surprised if this was damage control after the overwhelming outcry from yesterday's announcement. We've done the same thing when we screw up at work: blame the wacky foreigner! Anyway, readers, don't count your weasels before they pop — looks like the PS3 price is still up in the air.

Fornay's comments are not an indication of PS3 pricing - Sony [Gameindustry.biz]

You see, my wife mostly grew up in Australia, but was born in Italy and her mother is Swiss, so the two of them have a lot of conversations in French and other languages. While this doesn't typically bother me, I sometimes feel like the family dog. I'll be minding my own business, my wife talking away to her mom on the phone in French, when suddenly I hear "Brian" and then more French. It's most disconcerting when my name is followed by lots of laughter and the word "Oui" repeated like a dozen times.

Talkman Coming to Europe [Gamebrink]