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NISA releasing Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana in English (PS4/Vita/Steam) in 2017

Aeana

Member
Wow that's incredibly shitty.

I absolutely feel for XSEED people who wanted to work on the game, but why is it shitty? Companies bid for localization licenses all the time. This doesn't really seem unusual except in the sense that XSEED does not appear to have first dibs anymore.
 
I absolutely feel for XSEED people who wanted to work on the game, but why is it shitty? Companies bid for localization licenses all the time. This doesn't really seem unusual except in the sense that XSEED does not appear to have first dibs anymore.

Pretty much. XSEED helped revitalize the Ys series in the West so I'm sure Falcom is greatful. However, Falcom is also a company that is striving to be as popular in the West just like in Japan so sometimes there are bidding wars for the licenses. NISA won this time.

More importantly, fans of Falcom have won because now more companies are interested in Falcom's output.
 

Nozomi

Banned
Fuck yeah for steam and i had to remember the interview from eurogamer with the CEO of Falcom.

During the Windows XP era the PC was your primary development platform. With the success of Steam as a platform for selling niche titles, and especially with the success of XSEED's localisations, have you considered moving back to the PC as a primary platform? And if not, why not?

TK: I feel that, within Japan, there are many core gamers who want to play on consoles and we must respond to their needs. However, revenue on Steam is very good and putting not only older console titles, but new ones as well is something that we want to consider.

Source

Probably the reason that Xseed lost Tokyo Xanadu and Ys was the lack of steam ports for their newer title.
 

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
I feel for XSEED, but it's hard to argue against a day and date PC port. Good on NISA.
 

Eusis

Member
It's shitty in the same way missing out on a job you wanted is shitty. Especially if you felt you proved yourself for it, but so is life even if it stings.
 
I sure as hell hope whoever's working on this plays the rest of the series' recent English language releases because there are a whole lot of terminology and event call backs in the text that'll far apart without proper continuity/research.
 

Nabae

Unconfirmed Member
Hopefully they'll get to continue working on the Trails series. I can't imagine reading an official localization of CS3 that isn't theirs.
 

Usobuko

Banned
I always buy Ys LE or CE edition and I don't mind double dipping.

But to go through NISA store, man... this strikes me I prefer Xseed.
 

Korigama

Member
Hopefully they'll get to continue working on the Trails series. I can't imagine reading an official localization of CS3 that isn't theirs.
I wouldn't worry about that. The workload of localizing those games is entirely too much for anyone other than XSeed to be bothered with it (far beyond what's typical for a JRPG).
 

Eusis

Member
I wouldn't worry about that. The workload of localizing those games is entirely too much for anyone other than XSeed to be bothered with it.
NISA was nutty enough to tackle a Sakura Wars title. Didn't quite pan out admittedly, but Trails is more firmly established and the Cold Steel games have apparently had saner amounts of text to work with.

EDIT: And I really wish Xseed had the right connections in place for getting PC ports made of some of these games. They're getting a start with stuff like Little King's Story and Sara's been a miracle worker, but I guess Aksys and NIS(A) are still better equipped there despite Marvelous being in charge of Xseed.
 

jackal27

Banned
I absolutely feel for XSEED people who wanted to work on the game, but why is it shitty? Companies bid for localization licenses all the time. This doesn't really seem unusual except in the sense that XSEED does not appear to have first dibs anymore.

It seems weird to me, because I thought that XSeed had exclusive publishing rights for Falcom games?
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Hopefully they'll get to continue working on the Trails series. I can't imagine reading an official localization of CS3 that isn't theirs.

Seems like that will depend on the situation that has caused them to not localize other Falcom games.

If they are just getting outbid because they don't have right of first refusal anymore, they will probably still do CS3 since it's unlikely another company is going to put in the effort to localize it for the returns it will probably get, and it would take more effort for another company to do a decent job with it since XSEED already has the series terminology and lore locked down. An inconsistently localized CS3 would almost certainly need to be a one-off and not an intention to continue picking up further game, because it would probably damage interest in the series.

If XSEED just isn't doing Falcom games anymore, I wouldn't be surprised if we just don't get any more games from that series.
 
I feel for Xseed, but at the same time I think multiple companies handling Falcom releases works in our favor as consumers. I don't think them working exclusively with Xseed as they have in the past would have lead to us playing both Ys VIII and Tokyo Xanadu in the same year. Let alone with Dual Audio and PC ports.

I sure as hell hope whoever's working on this plays the rest of the series' recent English language releases because there are a whole lot of terminology and event call backs in the text that'll far apart without proper continuity/research.

This is my only concern. Especially for what is probably the most story heavy Ys game to date.
 

Eusis

Member
That deal was made a long time ago, though. These things tend not to be infinite.
Nevermind that deals can be worked out to break out of them, perhaps Falcom found it unfavorable and paid Xseed/Marvelous to back out, it's not as if the localizing staff usually get to make the business calls.
 
I absolutely feel for XSEED people who wanted to work on the game, but why is it shitty? Companies bid for localization licenses all the time. This doesn't really seem unusual except in the sense that XSEED does not appear to have first dibs anymore.

Business is cruel, cold, bastard. I feel for XSEED because went out and brought Ys back into mainstream relevance in the West with the PSP release. Same goes for Trails.
 
XSeed put in some serious work to keep Ys known in the west, I'd hope Falcom would keep allowing them dibs on the series.

I think Falcom is capitalizing on that and trying to get their games out closer to JP release in the West. Something that is simply just not possible working exclusively with Xseed. Their games are just too big for them to keep up with under the same working conditions.
 

Mozendo

Member
I absolutely feel for XSEED people who wanted to work on the game, but why is it shitty? Companies bid for localization licenses all the time. This doesn't really seem unusual except in the sense that XSEED does not appear to have first dibs anymore.

You're right, it's not shitty from a business standpoint and these things happen all the time just like how Gagharv was Bamco then the majority of the future LoH installments were caught by XSeed. I guess what stands out to me is that XSeed had more appreciation (can't think of a better word at the moment) than most publishers do with localization licenses or their developers.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Man that PS4 LE is tempting though gotta watch my budget. D: Plus know it would wind up sitting on my shelf unopened even if I did order one.
 

Knurek

Member
You're right, it's not shitty from a business standpoint and these things happen all the time just like how Gagharv was Bamco then the majority of the future LoH installments were caught by XSeed. I guess what stands out to me is that XSeed had more appreciation (can't think of a better word at the moment) than most publishers do with localization licenses or their developers.

I wish someone would actually release an English translation of Gagharv.
We sure didn't get one yet, no siree.
 

Aeana

Member
XSeed put in some serious work to keep Ys known in the west, I'd hope Falcom would keep allowing them dibs on the series.

Well, I can't argue with that, but XSEED isn't the first company to translate Ys, and I never expected them to be the last.

In the end, XSEED's work is good but they have too much to work on to be the only company releasing Falcom games in the west. It's good for us if there's multiple
provided they release the games entirely in English and not partially *stares at Aksys*
 
XSeed put in some serious work to keep Ys known in the west, I'd hope Falcom would keep allowing them dibs on the series.

Pretty much. Xseed were the ones that actually made the series a known quantity here in the West, same with Trails. Just seems really shitty to basically give the company who made you a thing outside of Japan, the middle finger. At the same time, if lack of a PC version is what kept Xseed from being able to do it, that's something they're going to need to fix going forward. More and more Japanese companies see how well Steam is doing over here and they want a piece of that pie when it comes to contracting out their games.
 

Eusis

Member
You're right, it's not shitty from a business standpoint and these things happen all the time just like how Gagharv was Bamco then the majority of the future LoH installments were caught by XSeed. I guess what stands out to me is that XSeed had more appreciation (can't think of a better word at the moment) than most publishers do with localization licenses or their developers.
We see a lot more of it with Xseed, but NIS, Aksys, and Atlus have all been really good. Getting picked up by Ubisoft and getting a phoned in localization effort this shouldn't be, even maybe an NISA flavor can be undesirable (and they have lacked polish at times.)
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
I think Falcom is capitalizing on that and trying to get their games out closer to JP release in the West. Something that is simply just not possible working exclusively with Xseed. They games are just too big for them to keep up with under the same working conditions.

XSEED has said before they were limited by Falcom, since they couldn't even start on anything until the games were out in Japan. Fall 2017 doesn't seem like an unrealistic window for XSEED since that would be a full year+ after the Vita release, at which point they could have started on it.

NISA probably just outbid them, and the fact they were able to offer a PC version and XSEED probably couldn't may have made a difference.
 
The LE looks great, but I think I'd rather play this on PC than the other platforms.

And yeah, it sucks for XSEED. I get that it's business, but it's clear that people there really felt passionately about the series.
 
Nice! I'm glad NISA and Aksys are doing Falcom titles now, they actually bother with the Vita version. Xseed's screw Vita owners policy went into full gear recently.
 
I imagine its a case of xseed size that's hurt them with ys 8 and tokyo xanadu. They probably could get out a timely translation OR a pc release but not both which Nisa/acksys/etc can since they're bigger companies.

Glad to see we're getting the game in English, give me more of that falcom goodness. Also glad we're getting the definitive ps4 versions.
 

QisTopTier

XisBannedTier
This really sucks for Xseed and I'll continue to support their releases obviously but I highly doubt we would have gotten a PC release otherwise.
 
Did I miss something?

Xseed is done with Vita exclusives, despite them telling us otherwise. At the same time, we knew not long after release that this wouldn't be exclusive, and whichever company got it, would have to wait for Falcom to release the PS4 version before bringing anything over, something that some posters don't seem to understand.
 

dreamfall

Member
I really wish they'd release a PC version of the CE !

I owe a lot to xseed for finally being able to play these games. Any Ys publishing deal makes me happy, I'm just relieved and ecstatic that it is coming to the West some time soon at that.
 

jackal27

Banned
That deal was made a long time ago, though. These things tend not to be infinite.

I see. Still makes me sad... We wouldn't be having this conversation if it wasn't for XSeed.

Still, glad to see the game will make it over to bother PS Vita and PS4.
 
XSEED has said before they were limited by Falcom, since they couldn't even start on anything until the games were out in Japan. Fall 2017 doesn't seem like an unrealistic window for XSEED since that would be a full year+ after the Vita release, at which point they could have started on it.

Perhaps they wanted Xseed freed up to work on something else instead to keep that close to JP as well...

NISA probably just outbid them, and the fact they were able to offer a PC version and XSEED probably couldn't may have made a difference.

Probably. Sometimes that's just how these things go.

This really sucks for Xseed and I'll continue to support their releases obviously but I highly doubt we would have gotten a PC release otherwise.

or Dual Audio. We were always told by Xseed that it just wasn't an option
 

Marche90

Member
Nice! I'm glad NISA and Aksys are doing Falcom titles now, they actually bother with the Vita version. Xseed's screw Vita owners policy went into full gear recently.

If this is about The 3rd's lack of a PSP release, I literally sighed in front of my PC. And the Vita ports are licensing hell, so there's not a lot they could have done in that front.
 
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