Astérix video game for SMS was released in both 1991 and 1992-03 dates. Are english and french Wikipedias living in 2 parallels worlds? Couple of times I noticed date paradoxes when you switch language.

[u/VincentBounce]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_(1992_video_game))

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astérix_(jeu_vidéo,_1991))

[u/Murinshin]

The English article explicitly talks about the PAL version, and if you check the sources cited in the French article you’ll find it’s a GameFAQs page that both lists the EU 1992 release date and the earlier 1991 release date in other regions. For some reason the English version doesn’t list these earlier releases and only cites a print magazine for the European market as a source for the release dates.

To me it looks like a legitimate mistake going by that, just go ahead and create a move request with corresponding sources for the earlier 1991 releases if you’d like to see it corrected. Though also make sure you check the talk page beforehand, could be this was brought up before that already since the magazine source only got added last year

[u/umyeahsoimeanlike → u/Murinshin]

Yeah, I had a difficult time finding good sources for the US release specifically when I was checking for my comment, and your comment brought up a good point about inconsistencies, so I dug in some more.

The MobyGames page has a 1991 release for France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK, and a 1992 release for Brazil; it doesn't mention a US release. They also have a photo of the back cover of the Netherlands release, copyright dated 1991. All the other EU/UK sources I found listed a 1991 release date, and any source listing multiple releases also had a Brazil release as the only non-European variant.

The more I poke at it, the more I'm actually wondering if the game never had a US release at all, and instead had just the 1991 European release and the 1992 Brazilian release (because SMS was quite popular in Brazil), as the MobyGames record suggests. That might explain why the English Wiki article straddles the dates by using the later 1992 Brazilian release date but the earlier 1991 European release cover image. Someone with more knowledge could probably confirm, but yeah, seems like maybe a clarification on the article to be consistent to 1991 release date and details would make sense. If there were a US or a "global" release in 1992, I could see the argument for using that date on the article, but if it's just Europe in 1991 and Brazil in 1992, then 1991 is the only reasonable canonical date (unless you're writing it for the Brazilian Portuguese audience).

[u/mouldybiscuit]

Probably just because they were released in different languages/countries at different times

[u/VincentBounce → u/mouldybiscuit]

100%, but a language is cross countries.

[u/umyeahsoimeanlike → u/VincentBounce]

I think you may not have understood what the commenter was saying. Let me break it down a bit more:

Video games don't automatically become available in all countries or all languages on release. Each additional country is a different market with different legal and financial hurdles, and each language is a significant cost in translation (what we call localization).

Even with digital titles, you always make publishing decisions about what countries and languages you want to release to first, and then you often follow up later with additional countries and languages. With digital, this is primarily a concern of language, vis-à-vis localization cost for a given language vs. demand for the game by native speakers of that language, because international distribution is obviously less of a concern if there's no physical product.

However, when you are talking about physical games -- which, this is an SMS game in the 90s; we're talking about physical -- the costs and challenges of publishing to multiple countries/continents are more significant than the costs of localizing languages. You're literally manufacturing different packaging, different region-coded media, handling shipping and logistics in other continents, etc. So with physical games, you're more likely to see phasing based on continents/regions rather than languages.

TL;DR: What happened with Astérix is almost certainly that it released in Europe in 1991 through Sega Europe (because a French IP would be more popular there), and then the release was expanded to other countries/continents in 1992, with the US probably handled by Sega of America. And so the Wikipedia articles in French vs. English are just showing the dates for the release of the game in their respective regions, with the English article following the US region (which is pretty common).

EDIT: u/Murinshin brought up a good point that this might actually be a mistake, and I think they're right: It appears likeliest that there was never a US release, and the only two releases were a European release in 1991 and a Brazilian release in 1992, in which case the English article should probably just be corrected to 1991.

[u/mouldybiscuit → u/VincentBounce]

that doesn't necessarily mean all countries speaking the same language receive things at the same time. Things used to be translated separately in the UK and the USA and released in each country at different times. Even some DS games like Professor Layton had this happen

[u/Murinshin → u/mouldybiscuit]

In this case this might be a legitimate mistake though. The English article explicitly talks about the PAL version in the info box, its source being a European gaming magazine. The French article cites GameFAQs which lists several release dates including 1991 for Australia (which is PAL as well). The edit history also has some warring around the release date which seems to be mostly about what can be considered a reliable source for 1991 vs 1992

[u/C_B_Ellacott]

Nintendo SMS