So it turns out that Mother 3 did get released outside of Japan, just only in Hong Kong and Taiwan on NSO.
@beardalaxy I think one of the Starmen.net people actually went to Japan and saw Itoi himself, and he openly gave approval to the fan translation. Nintendo doesn't care because they don't actually own the Mother series. Itoi still owns the entire Mother IP.
I completely understand why NoA doesn't want to localize it. That game is full of implied sociopolitical commentary that may be alienating and seemingly contradictory to Nintendo's perceived values. Not to mention the drag-queen like characters who were openly stated to be based off of Itoi's LGBT friends.
Westerners also don't realize that Mother 3's reception was actually lukewarm in Japan. Not only did it ditch the modern setting that the first two games were known for, it also had an implied message that it was evil (though Itoi openly said that it's all up to interpretation).
@xianc78 iirc, reggie said something to the tune of "you guys already have it" or something like that. not outright telling people about the fan translation, but sort of insinuating that if the fans wanted to play mother 3 in english, the fan translation was the way to do it.