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tri-Ace acquired by Nepro Japan, becomes dedicated smartphone/tablet mobile dev
- Thread starter Maximilian Kolbe
- Start date
RyougaSaotome
Member
Not super heart broken over this for a lot of reasons (JP mobile development has gotten a lot better over the years, tri-Ace was struggling for a long time, etc), but like Schala, the buyer is what surprised me the most.
I wholly expected SE/Konami/Sega to be the ones to grab it.
I wholly expected SE/Konami/Sega to be the ones to grab it.
SatoAilDarko
Member
RIP
Have Resonance of Fate so I'll at least play one of their games.
I'm thankful Nintendo got Monolith Soft back in 2007 for this reason. They would have surely been gone by now otherwise.
Have Resonance of Fate so I'll at least play one of their games.
I'm thankful Nintendo got Monolith Soft back in 2007 for this reason. They would have surely been gone by now otherwise.
Triggerhappytel
Member
One of the premier JRPG developers will from now on be developing smartphone rubbish.
BlackBuzzard
Banned
Another dev going mobile, disgusting all those fast food quality games.
John Bender
Banned
So true! And Xenoblade is awesome.
StoppedInTracks
Member
RIP Baten Kaitos
RIP Resonance of Fate
RIP Star Ocean
RIP true jRPGs
;(
RIP Resonance of Fate
RIP Star Ocean
RIP true jRPGs
;(
This is a fate worse than death.Well... at least they are still alive? Kind of?
Kagoshima_Luke
Gold Member
Welp. Another one down.
JordanN
Banned
MightyHedgehog
Member
Makes sense since the market seems to be more or less on smartphones/mobile computers now. A niche genre developer won't last long when the dedicated gaming device market they depend on has more or less migrated over to mobile. Wouldn't be surprised if consoles were basically near non-existent in Japan by end of decade.
otaku-asia
Member
Oh yeah, I love to play JRPGs on my phone...
no not really
Z
ZombieFred
Unconfirmed Member
:'(
J
Jotamide
Unconfirmed Member
Never played one of their games but I know that pain. It's what I felt when Cave stopped porting their arcade games and focused on mobile last year.
Goodbye to best battle systems in the business.
Seriously, it's a tragedy. They should've been on top of the world right now. I guess that's pretty much the way most Japanese devs have gone, though. They had everything, and now it's all gone mobile.
durrrrrrrrrr
Member
my ipad is ready. Tera Battle was pretty fun for a bit and shows jrpg designers can try different things in the mobile space. got my japanese itunes account ready for whatever tri-ace brings to the table
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
poor Valkyrie Profile. i really wanted to have a #3 and somehow round out the story at least.
Bots are better than you
Banned
Bah ... in this case, a buyout through one of the console makers would have been better. A exclusive console/AAA/"full" game is better than the (possibly) F2P/P2W games they are now going to produce ....
The rights for Baten Kaitos are still in the hands of Namco/Bandai, right? I'm asking for the (foolish, Dan Aykroid-insane type) dream of another Baten Kaitos.
The rights for Baten Kaitos are still in the hands of Namco/Bandai, right? I'm asking for the (foolish, Dan Aykroid-insane type) dream of another Baten Kaitos.
Dragoon En Regalia
Member
Wow, this bites. I hope Gotanda reinvests his cut of the deal into a new studio, assuming he and other staff leave. Now would be a chance to discuss the games he and others made at Telenet as well.
I'm pretty sure Baten Kaitos was developed by Monolith soft, not tri-ace, so at least there's a chance it could reappear when Nintendo rolls out Gamecube VC. Maybe you're thinking of tri-crescendo?
Wait Baten Kaitos is tri-Crescendo, I think they are independent from tri-Ace.
Please someone confirm Baten Kaitos can sill exist (non-smartphone)
Goodacre0081
Member
SpaceDrake
Member
There's tons of good stuff coming out this year alone, both in Japan and especially overseas.
Going to agree Ryouga and a few others: Tri-Ace's output has been anemic for years. Resonance was cool, sure, but it didn't grab people and nobody bought it. PS Nova apparently fell flat on its butt saleswise. Everything else they've done since Star Ocean: TLH has been similarly non-riveting. If anything I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner (in fact for some reason I thought they'd been bought by Square Enix ages ago :V), especially after TLH took so much flak.
Hopefully their mobile output doesn't go too heavily down the wealth-extraction-"F2P" route and remain solid experiences, but it's very hard to say given who bought them. I wouldn't be surprised if Nepro is just in the market for a developer so they can chase those whales as hard as possible.
