Template:Release

{{#if:|[[File:Flag of {{{17}}}.png|25px|{{{17}}}]] This is a template for slotting in the release dates for the various countries and regions of the world, which are represented by their flags. If no date is available for a specific region, do not insert that region into the template. As an example, to insert the release date from the United States of America into the template, simply put the name of the region (in this case, abbreviated as "USA") to employ the American flag, and then type the release date:

{{releasedate|USA|Release date here}}

This creates:

Template:Releasedate

For any other region to be inserted, put that region's name in the flag slot. Multiple regions can go into a single template, with the regions with the earliest release dates coming first. For example, to have both the American and Japanese release dates represented, in a situation where the game was released in the USA before Japan, type in:

{{releasedate|USA|American release date here|Japan|Japanese release date here}}

This creates:

Template:Releasedate

If multiple regions have the same release date, the earliest to latest order is maintained using time zones. Generally, this means the order will be "Australia -> Japan -> Europe -> North America", however other time zones may be needed for specific circumstances. For countries that span multiple time zones, use the earliest zone as the determinant, so if there is overlap, whichever country has an earlier zone is listed first (i.e. Canada would be listed before the United States, because its earliest time zone is earlier than the USA's). If the earliest (or only) time zone is the same for multiple countries, use alphabetical order. Standard time, not daylight savings time, should be used, and only the time zones of the main area of a country should be used to determine the order (i.e. the USA would go by Eastern Standard Time, UTC-5:00, not UTC-4:00 for Puerto Rico, UTC+10:00 for Guam, or UTC+12:00 for the McMurdo Station in Antarctica). The time zone order can also be used when the exact release dates and relative release times are not known, just that the release occurred in multiple areas in the same year, season, month or other non-specific timeframe.

The regions (and their abbreviations, if applicable) that are available for this template are as follows:

• Australia
• Belgium
• Brazil
• Canada
• China
• Republic of China (type "ROC")
• Hong Kong (type "HK")
• Europe
• France
• Germany
• Italy
• Japan
• Mexico
• The Netherlands (type "Netherlands")
• South Africa
• South Korea
• United Kingdom (type "UK")
• United States of America (type "USA")