Eteric Rice said:Are they completely out of business, or are they going to have to reform?
Maybe they should try mobile games for a while, until they can build up a nest egg again?
The release for Again only just got set in stone- and Last Window has only been trademarked in the UK.Starwolf_UK said:What does this mean for international releases of Again: Eye of Providence (Tecmo is publishing) and Last Window?
Sale wise though don't their games seem to sell better in Europe?duckroll said:What is unfortunate is that all their recent titles bombed hard. Again, Another Code R, Last Window - all total bombs. It's definitely not the production value of their games which killed them, but their failure to sell. We could blame Tecmo and Nintendo for lack of marketing, but ultimately what's done is done.
I preordered it from America even before the release date was announced- thats badass expecially considering I don't even live their.Magypsy23 said:Now I feel guilty for not having bought AGAIN yet.
LKS was a Dream Team effort- meaning people from a few different companies worked on it, I don't think their was a major ammount of people from Cing working on the game- I think it was more from people like Marvalious and Toy Factory, but yeah they just used everyones resoruces to make the game pretty much.crazy monkey said:Little king story was amazing game
So that explains why their site was gone yesturday- was making an article about Again, and wanted to link to them as a "developer site" link.duckroll said:The last company info update on their site listed 29 employees. The entire site is gone now, so you'll have to check under Google Cache or Wayback Machine.
Least in Europe dam it! (then I can import and everyone else who wants it can do the same) and it will be less risky then releasing it everywhere then noone wanting it.Earl Cazone said:oh noez. i hope last window will release here nevertheless.
MYE said:Nooooooooooooooooooooo
Who's gonna make LKS 2 now?
True, the only thing Cing has going for it is the fact that they for this gen have been exlusivly working on Nintendo games instead of Playstation etc. games.Bentendo said:What about HAL? HAL was millions in debt and the president went to Yamauchi and asked to be saved. Yamauchi agreed to buy HAL on the account that they develop games exclusively for Nintendo.
I doubt a similar thing would happen here though.
Most likely in Europe (considering they have trademarked the name- their closer then everyone else).Jcgamer60 said:What are the chances of Last Window (Hotel Dusk 2) being localized?
I do not want some crappy fan translation
duckroll said:Let's be honest, when we're talking about a tiny company of under 30 employees going bankrupt, what IS there to "reform" really. They've made 7 games in 10 years of operation. I really doubt there is anything to restructure here. It's not some corporation which can downsize and cut off the unprofitable parts of the company.
Well, Last Window has been trademarked in Europe so it may be getting a release there. (Which wouldn't be surprising since Another Code R got released there too.)Jcgamer60 said:What are the chances of Last Window (Hotel Dusk 2) being localized?
CO_Andy said:How Capcom can get away with releasing the comparatively low budget Phoenix Wright astounds me. The game was ported to and fro on every system imaginable, so CING could of gotten away with porting had they not stuck with Nintendy as a publisher.
CO_Andy said:How Capcom can get away with releasing the comparatively low budget Phoenix Wright astounds me. The game was ported to and fro on every system imaginable, so CING could of gotten away with porting had they not stuck with Nintendy as a publisher.
Again. They could also port Glass Rose from the PS2 to current gen. Also their mobile titles they have developed around the time they made Glass Rose as well.bernardobri said:If both Another Code and Hotel Dusk are owned by Nintendo, what's left for Cing to port?
trinest said:So Duckroll seems to be an expert on this matter, instead of rabbid fan predictions etc. what will happen to them? I assume they will die- but if say Nintendo would give them a hand out- or buy them and use them as one of their studios etc. what is likely in that regard?
That's a money-winning proposition for a team of 30, make a current-gen game.trinest said:Again. They could also port Glass Rose from the PS2 to current gen. Also their mobile titles they have developed around the time they made Glass Rose as well.
trinest said:Again. They could also port Glass Rose from the PS2 to current gen. Also their mobile titles they have developed around the time they made Glass Rose as well.
duckroll said:Here are the Japanese sales for PW games:
Full price titles:
2001 - Phoenix Wright (GBA) - 62k
2002 - Phoenix Wright 2 (GBA) - 116k
2004 - Phoenix Wright 3 (GBA) - 161k
2005 - Phoenix Wright (DS) - 117k
2007 - Phoenix Wright 4 (DS) - 515k
2009 - Miles Edgeworth (DS) - 303k
Budget re-releases:
2002 - Phoenix Wright (GBA) - 66k
2003 - Phoenix Wright 2 (GBA) - 54k
2006 - Phoenix Wright (DS) - 254k
2006 - Phoenix Wright 2 (DS) - 214k
2007 - Phoenix Wright 3 (DS) - 195k
2008 - Phoenix Wright (DS) - 96k
2008 - Phoenix Wright 2 (DS) - 74k
2008 - Phoenix Wright 3 (DS) - 80k
How does Capcom "get away with it" you ask? Capcom gets away with it by releasing games people want to buy, and releasing it again and again as long as people want to buy it. There's a huge growth curve for the series, something Cing has never ever had.
I'm interested in how CING's titles have been doing in Europe. I heard that Another Code R sold decently there but haven't seen any numbers for it.Hcoregamer00 said:Not to mention the very loyal USA and European markets that buy many of the Ace Attroney games.
loosus said:First, what is "direction?" That's an extremely broad term. That sounds like, basically, you're saying that Nintendo needs to tell them to stop making the games that they actually know how to make and start making something more mainstream -- thus, why "save" CING to begin with?
loosus said:Second, what makes Nintendo's "direction" almighty? It cannot change people. Hell, Rare and Left Field fell apart under Nintendo, for instance.
loosus said:Third, why pick CING to do this with? There are countless amounts of videogame studios that need "direction."
Hcoregamer00 said:Not to mention the very loyal USA and European markets that buy many of the Ace Attroney games.
CING's games are inherently not mainstream. If you don't want Hotel Dusk-esque games, then why do you want Nintendo to bail out CING to begin with?ICallItFutile said:Nintendo does let some of their developers go wild; aka skip Ltd. I was referring more to getting their games more attention and polishing the gameplay to appeal to a larger audience. You act like making a game more mainstream is a bad thing entirely; mainstream games can still be excellent. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a good example. Besides, Nintendo still has new Metroid games developed right? Nothing mainstream about the Metroid franchise.
The point is that ownership by Nintendo doesn't necessarily create a sustainable business model.ICallItFutile said:I wouldn't say Rare fell apart under Nintendo. Rare was starting to have problems, but seeing it continued under Microsoft they weren't to blame. Nintendo essentially let them make the game they wanted to just with Star Fox thrown it for franchise recognition.
Nintendo never owned a majority stock, just a minority. Left Field in 2002 bought out all of Nintendo's shares. Nintendo is not responsible for any of their games past 2002.
Monolith Soft a.) pays for itself and/or b.) adds something that (at least in Nintendo's opinion) is important enough to Nintendo's brand and feels it cannot otherwise get in-house. CING doesn't fit that categorization.ICallItFutile said:Cheap. Why the fuck pick up Monolith Soft? Nintendo doesn't need a reason.
duckroll said:The series only arrived in English starting with the DS ports though. By that time, the Phoenix Wright series had already made more unit sales in Japan than Cing's entire portfolio in their entire existence up to today.
To compare the two is just silly, which was my point.
ICallItFutile said:Cheap. Why the fuck pick up Monolith Soft? Nintendo doesn't need a reason.
I wouldn't say that just yet. As recently as two months ago, Nintendo was still working with CING. And there is still the possibility of localizations for Last Window and maybe even Another Code R. (Though that's a very long shot now sadly.)loosus said:Monolith Soft a.) pays for itself and/or b.) adds something that (at least in Nintendo's opinion) is important enough to Nintendo's brand and feels it cannot otherwise get in-house. CING doesn't fit that categorization.
To make them finish Disaster: Day of Crisis- which was one hell of a game.ICallItFutile said:Cheap. Why the fuck pick up Monolith Soft? Nintendo doesn't need a reason.
That's pretty much what I'm hoping. Just leave Ignition out of the loop.A Link to the Snitch said:Maybe we'll get lucky and if Nintendo doesn't want to publish Last Window, Atlus or XSEED can?
loosus said:CING's games are inherently not mainstream. If you don't want Hotel Dusk-esque games, then why do you want Nintendo to bail out CING to begin with?
loosus said:The point is that ownership by Nintendo doesn't necessarily create a sustainable business model.
loosus said:Monolith Soft a.) pays for itself and/or b.) adds something that (at least in Nintendo's opinion) is important enough to Nintendo's brand and feels it cannot otherwise get in-house. CING doesn't fit that categorization.
CO_Andy said:How Capcom can get away with releasing the comparatively low budget Phoenix Wright astounds me. The game was ported to and fro on every system imaginable, so CING could of gotten away with porting had they not stuck with Nintendy as a publisher.[/QUOTE]
Porting isn't the problem.
Most Cing adventure sold poorly because people weren't interested in them in the first place.
AC and HD sold well in Japan but even then they can't be comparable to the popularity o the Gyakuten Saiban series.
Apollo Justice sold over half million copies in Japan alone.
It's incredible result for the genre.
Edit:
Ducky beat me to it.
ICallItFutile said:a) Yes because Disaster was such a huge hit.
b) You can't say that for certain.
The first Hotel Dusk is still available at a good price. Tell your friends!Unknown Soldier said:I had always kind of thought I wanted to try Hotel Dusk sometime. I never knew much about the VN genre (though I played the hell out of Phoenix Wright 1) and now maybe I won't get to play this?
Jangaroo said:That's pretty much what I'm hoping. Just leave Ignition out of the loop.
To late now.Gunloc said:The first Hotel Dusk is still available at a good price. Tell your friends!
It's never too late to play a good game.trinest said:To late now.
duckroll said:Monolithsoft is a developer of considerable size, with experience in developing RPGs on consoles and portables, with a proven sales record. Are you seriously attempting to compare Monolithsoft with Cing here? That's not just stupid, but completely illogical.
Monolithsoft was formed in 1999, the same year Cing was. Wanna take a look at their sales record to date in comparison?
2002 - Xenosaga Ep1 - 439k
2003 - Xenosaga Ep1 Reload - 14k
2003 - Baten Kaitos - 108k
2004 - Xenosaga Freaks - 25k
2004 - Xenosaga Ep2 - 256k
2005 - Namco x Capcom - 131k
2006 - Xenosaga I+II - 21k
2006 - Xenosaga Ep3 - 181k
2006 - Baten Kaitos II - 44k
2008 - Soma Bringer - 100k
2008 - Super Robot Wars OG Saga - 120k
2008 - Disaster - 27k
2009 - Dragonball Kai - 192k
2010 - Super Robot Wars OG Saga Exceed - 79k (first week)
2010 - Xenoblade - Upcoming
What do you think is more valuable to Nintendo? A developer who can actually release multiple games a year, every single year, and still generate good sales, or a developer who takes 2 years to make an adventure game which sells 30k?
duckroll said:Since Nintendo bought a majority stake in Monolithsoft, they have generated over 500k in unit sales. That's more than Cing has generated in their entire lifetime. I would say that's a good indication of how much more successful Monolithsoft is.
trinest said:To make them finish Disaster: Day of Crisis- which was one hell of a game.
duckroll said:Monolithsoft is also a well rounded developer filled with 3D modelers, level designers, texture artists, etc. A good example of how Nintendo made use of that talent is by putting them on Super Smash Brothers Brawl's adventure mode. Seriously, do NOT compare them with a tiny developer like Cing.
ICallItFutile said:I think Nintendo along with any publisher has the potential to turn around a failing company. I think a better question is why did Namco-Bandai give Monolith Soft up?
Wouldn't a buyer need first to repay the debt (US$ 2.5 million ) so it isn't really that cheap.trinest said:Cing I think is a candiate for takeover, one because it would be quite cheap, two it will add unqiue and interesting developers to their resources and three because of their IPs which they own (not from a developing more point of view, but from a using them in other games and IPs etc point of view).
Also will they be still functioning like American businesses which delacare bankrupcy or is Japanese bankrupcy law different?
duckroll said:They didn't give Monolithsoft up though. They still own a chunk of Monolithsoft, it is a misconception that Nintendo owns 100% of the company. Nintendo bought a majority stake in Monolithsoft, but not all of it. Namco Bandai still uses Monolithsoft, as you can see from the SRW OG Saga and Dragonball Kai games.
On why Namco gave away the majority of Monolith to Nintendo, is because Nintendo owned some share of Bandai ( 3-4% I think ) and when Namco and Bandai merged Nintendo gave back their shares and in exchange Namco gave Monolith to Nintendo.ICallItFutile said:You're right. Nintendo owns 80%, which Namco Bandai sold to them, while Namco Bandai now owns 16%. That's close enough to giving them up.
jj984jj said:Do we even know how Nintendo ended up with MonolithSoft? Was it really a shares trade? We know Nintendo doesn't like to acquire companies, but maybe the trade for MonolithSoft was a business decision worth taking? I doubt CiNG is in the same position here.
I don't think anyone here thinks that. People are just hoping that the company can be kept alive so we can keep getting their great games.loosus said:I like how a few folks think that, just because there might be some talent at CING, Nintendo should kill for the opportunity to have them work at Nintendo. :lol I mean, you're making two big assumptions: a.) that Nintendo is looking to expand or fill positions and b.) that there is nobody outside of CING they'd rather have in those positions.
What "positions" are you talking about? I think most people are hoping that CING will be left intact and just be owned by Nintendo or another parent company.loosus said:I like how a few folks think that, just because there might be some talent at CING, Nintendo should kill for the opportunity to have them work at Nintendo. :lol I mean, you're making two big assumptions: a.) that Nintendo is looking to expand or fill positions and b.) that there is nobody outside of CING they'd rather have in those positions.