• Anonymous User (Deleted)

http://digg.com/xbox_360/Halo_3_s_communication_breakdown

TOKYO -- Gamers across Asia are unhappy at the lack of an English voice track for Microsoft's Xbox 360 title "Halo 3," one of the most eagerly expected games of the year, released Wednesday in most of the region and in Japan on Thursday.

The majority of Asian versions of games, including "Halo" and "Halo 2," are equipped with Chinese- and English-language audio tracks, allowing gamers to choose the one they want. "Halo 3," however, has only Mandarin audio and English subtitles, much to the displeasure of non-Mandarin speaking fans of the series.

The cover of the game states "Language: English/Chinese," and gamers assumed that the setup would be the same as the previous games. Many Xbox owners in Japan preorder big games from Hong Kong-based sites like Play-Asia.com because they're cheaper and the games are region-free.

"My copy has already been shipped, and before it arrived I found out that I can only listen to the game in Mandarin. I don't want to be reading subtitles while I'm playing the game. Microsoft should tell people if they were going to do things differently (than) all the previous games," a Japan-based gamer who had preordered "Halo 3" from Hong Kong said in a phone interview.

Gamers in Hong Kong who had lined up outside stores for the midnight release Tuesday night were particularly displeased as the language used is Mandarin Chinese and not the local Cantonese dialect. Xbox online forums are full of Hong Kong gamers complaining they would rather hear English audio than Mandarin.

"I just had my team try it out, and the Japanese version has only Japanese audio and English subtitles, but no English voices," a an Xbox Japan spokesperson said.

This has got to be the worst thing that Microsoft has done. The Halo 3 launch was highly anticipated by several Asians, even those who belong to the gray areas and unsupported countries. Several of us have pre-ordered months in advance in order to get a copy of this game on launch. We pre-ordered from sites like Play-Asia.com and even opted for the expensive FedEx shipping for this game, only to be disappointed that we cannot understand the dialog! The default response is to turn on the English Subtitles but having played this game in English for its last two iterations, the Mandarin language sounds so alien! It's ABSOLUTELY STUPID FOR MICROSOFT NOT TO INCLUDE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TRACK FOR THIS GAME!!! And now Play-Asia is taking a long time to respond to our requests for returns while our credit cards have already been billed for a product that we didn't order! We ordered the ENGLISH version not the CHINESE version! And Microsoft is keeping on quiet regarding the returns from all around the world and will honor only those with their special pre-order package in Hong Kong!!!

FYI before anyone here asks Mandarin isn't the language being used in Hong Kong! Microsoft please do your research!!!