Let's talk about this [NA] Designation. It is obvious that it is "North America" but there are some cases where it isn't good enough. I'd rather it actually be used as [US] for United States, which is actually used sparingly for some "console" such as Vita and Steam, etc. So I've been doing some research into hockey games and we run into this problem. Take this item for example:
http://vgcollect.com/item/29690That is the Canadian release of NHL 2K6 on Xbox. Canada got Mats Sundin on the cover while the US release got Marty Turco:
http://vgcollect.com/item/302However, the main difference in the packaging is that it is bi-lingual with English and French. And even this title isn't proper to call it the "Maple Leafs Cover" as if it was some variation. It isn't because the bi-lingual Canadian release only got Mats Sundin. The problem now lies that there is a German release of this game, in single-language German text only that also features Mats Sundin.
So we need a CA (or is it CN as I see on some things like PSP?) "console" for Xbox added so that this version can be moved to the proper location. And in addition a German XBox console for the other one.
However it may come down to being a problem concerning how games are localised and released and how they are displayed in the database. So if we stay on the Xbox example, let's look at NHL 2K3 for PS2. NHL 2K3 has (at least) these different versions:
- NHL 2K3 (US)
- NHL 2K3 (Finland/Norway)
- NHL 2K3 (Denmark)
- NHL 2K3 (Sweden)
- NHL 2K3 (Australia)
- NHL 2K3 (Germany)
This illustrates a problem of having the all-encompassing [EU] category as this game had 4 different versions in 5 European County. And the same game for Xbox has the same 4 different versions in the 5 countries. Then PC games also have this problem, which brings up (maybe) a little mystery...
- NHL 2000 (US)
- NHL 2000 Classics (US)
- NHL 2000 Naslund (Germany)
- NHL 2000 Naslund Tandem-verlag (Germany)
- NHL 2000 Naslund Green Pepper (Germany)
- NHL 2000 Naslund (UK)
- NHL 2000 Naslund (UK/Netherlands)
- NHL 2000 Naslund (Portugal)
- NHL 2000 Naslund (Finland/Sweden)
This is an incomplete list. This shows NHL 2000 has at least 9 releases for Windows. The US version has Chris Pronger on the cover but the European ones got Markus Naslund instead. The two possible issues here are...
1. Portugal. This isn't the only game where Portugal got its own release. According to my list, they only got their own PC games but that doesn't mean they didn't get their own versions for console games.
2. The two different UK versions. One that was released in the UK only and the other that was released in the UK and in the Netherlands. You probably could just say it is a Netherlands game and get away with it.
So from this example, you can see how release countries could end up being a pain, especially how it is currently set up to use categories with the country on them.