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XSEED interview: Touhou & Xanadu underperform; Akiba & Nitro+ do well; more PC coming

Vamphuntr

Member
For Xseed, most of the titles I expected them to localize went to NISA (like Danganronpa, the latest Ys) and a bunch of PQube games.

For Atlus' case, they did much more localizations last generation: from Gungnir to Growlanser to 3D Dot Game Heroes to Hexyz Force to Demon's Souls. Maybe the pickings are much slimmer these days and they had to publish random Western titles nowadays?

Xseed tried for Ys VIII. The thing is NISA probably offered more in term of money, PC port and French Localization the latter two Xseed cannot offer on their own.

Atlus doesn't have much games to localize I think. Which is why I was asking what you were expecting. Pretty sure some of the PSP game like Growlanser and Gungnir did really poorly too. You know things are looking dire when you localize Dungeon Travelers. They've been publishing random Western games for a while, even last gen so this is nothing new. They've localized Legend of Legacy so that's good.

Others than this I'm not seeing what games people are expecting. They've already said they cannot do Net High because the text is in vertical boxes and the game uses a lot of puns revolving around kanji. People also want the Evo Kiseki games which they cannot touch because of licensing.
 

ezodagrom

Member
Xseed tried for Ys VIII. The thing is NISA probably offered more in term of money, PC port and French Localization the latter two Xseed cannot offer on their own.
Ys VIII is also coming with dual audio, something that has been lacking from XSEED published Falcom games, other than the PC port and french localization, I guess NISA may have offered more to include dual audio too?
 
You know things are looking dire when you localize Dungeon Travelers.

DT2 was fantastic, one of the best DRPGs on the Vita. Too bad about the fanservice though.

Damn shame about Xanadu Next btw. It was easily one of the best games I played last year: http://www.cubed3.com/review/3298/1/xanadu-next-pc.html

Hopefully Xseed doesn't quit on localizing Falcom's older games. Dinosaur Resurrection and the Brandish sequels are at the top of my most-wanted list.
 
Atlus doesn't have much games to localize I think. Which is why I was asking what you were expecting. Pretty sure some of the PSP game like Growlanser and Gungnir did really poorly too. You know things are looking dire when you localize Dungeon Travelers. They've been publishing random Western games for a while, even last gen so this is nothing new. They've localized Legend of Legacy so that's good.

http://kotaku.com/5982232/demons-hi...other-day-at-atlus-games?tag=kotaku-longreads

When I asked what they consider a "successful" game, Pivnicny wouldn't give any numbers, but he said there are a lot of factors involved. For example, thanks to the Internet, today's games have longer legs and more of a shelf life than even a decade ago—which is how a company like Atlus can get away with releasing new games for the PSP, a system that most consider to be dead, even just a few months ago.

"Back in the old days it was just retail," Pivnicny said. "Once it went out at regular price, ultimately it would get marked down. Nobody would really want more. But retailers now have online stores and some of them like to have back catalog, so we have a way now of continuing to rebuild the PSP games. And in fact, this month, this week, this day we're actually bringing in [PSP game Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time] into our distribution center. The majority of those are already sold.

Sounds like it did alright to me.

Also, don't really understand your comment about Dungeon Travelers. Atlus grab first-person dungeon crawler from Aquaplus due to long-standing relationship in localizing their games. What's the issue?
 
They wanted too much for those Touhou games for the type of games they are so I didn't buy them. I'll wait for a PSN sale. Not to mention those particular ones weren't super appealing.
 
Xseed tried for Ys VIII. The thing is NISA probably offered more in term of money, PC port and French Localization the latter two Xseed cannot offer on their own.

Atlus doesn't have much games to localize I think. Which is why I was asking what you were expecting. Pretty sure some of the PSP game like Growlanser and Gungnir did really poorly too. You know things are looking dire when you localize Dungeon Travelers. They've been publishing random Western games for a while, even last gen so this is nothing new. They've localized Legend of Legacy so that's good.

Others than this I'm not seeing what games people are expecting. They've already said they cannot do Net High because the text is in vertical boxes and the game uses a lot of puns revolving around kanji. People also want the Evo Kiseki games which they cannot touch because of licensing.

I don't know where the misconception about Growlanser IV bombing came from but I think I heard it did okay I recall reading in an interview once. Gungnir though, yeah, that did bomb, I bet.

EDIT: Beaten by Kresnik.
 

18-Volt

Member
EDF 5 and Schoolgirl Zombie Hunter, according to retail leaks. I don't think XSEED was confirmed as the publisher but they are both D3publisher titles and XSEED localized previous entries in both franchises, so it's pretty much a given.

Yeah they're really pretty close with D3. Maybe they could bring Idol TV Death Game too as a digital only title?
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Xseed tried for Ys VIII. The thing is NISA probably offered more in term of money, PC port and French Localization the latter two Xseed cannot offer on their own.

Atlus doesn't have much games to localize I think. Which is why I was asking what you were expecting. Pretty sure some of the PSP game like Growlanser and Gungnir did really poorly too. You know things are looking dire when you localize Dungeon Travelers. They've been publishing random Western games for a while, even last gen so this is nothing new. They've localized Legend of Legacy so that's good.

Others than this I'm not seeing what games people are expecting. They've already said they cannot do Net High because the text is in vertical boxes and the game uses a lot of puns revolving around kanji. People also want the Evo Kiseki games which they cannot touch because of licensing.

You'd be surprised Dungeon Travelers 2-2 was also developed by Sting, the ones who did Gungnir and Hexyz Force.

Actually yeah, the pickings are really slim for this gen if they're localizing content from FuRyu (let's admit it, all FuRyu games are incredibly mediocre). At least they published KoFXIV!
 
You know things are looking dire when you localize Dungeon Travelers.

So dire indeed to localize what is the most challenging, most content rich drpg on the system. It really is a shame that so many only think it was worth mentioning for it's fanservice.

Yeah they're really pretty close with D3. Maybe they could bring Idol TV Death Game too as a digital only title?

That's a Vita exclusive, which they're done with.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Good that they seem to see the problem with their PC releases. Stealth releases aren't a very good way to find an audience.

I'll pick up the Touhou game, I just wasn't $20 interested. Someday, on sale.


I expect them to port Cold Steel 1 and 2 (and eventually 3) if they have any commitment to the Trails series beyond 3rd.
 

bobawesome

Member
You guys really need to buy Xanadu Next. I've been loving it.

It's a good game. Shame about the achievements being bugged, though.

It's a shame about Xanadu Next, as the game is great, but they really sent it out to die. There was hardly any marketing for that title, it came out at a busy time, etc. People here on GAF did way more marketing for that game than XSEED seemed to. Maybe they did have more of a marketing push, but I certainly didn't see it.

Everyone should buy it though, one of Falcom's best. If you loved Brandish on PSP you will love Xanadu Next.

I probably wouldn't have even known about the game if Tizoc wasn't always going on about it.
 

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Akiba's Beat, Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel games etc for PC will be good

and since Akiba's Trip is a success, I guess Akiba's Beat for PC is a lock
 
Xseed tried for Ys VIII. The thing is NISA probably offered more in term of money, PC port and French Localization the latter two Xseed cannot offer on their own.

Atlus doesn't have much games to localize I think. Which is why I was asking what you were expecting. Pretty sure some of the PSP game like Growlanser and Gungnir did really poorly too. You know things are looking dire when you localize Dungeon Travelers. They've been publishing random Western games for a while, even last gen so this is nothing new. They've localized Legend of Legacy so that's good.
But Legend of Legacy is probably the worst title even mentioned in this thread.

I don't really care for Dungeon Travelers, but Atlus' partnership with Aquaplus is the best thing going for them in terms of 3rd party localization.

Others than this I'm not seeing what games people are expecting. They've already said they cannot do Net High because the text is in vertical boxes and the game uses a lot of puns revolving around kanji. People also want the Evo Kiseki games which they cannot touch because of licensing.
People treat this as a roundabout way of saying they won't do Net High because it's a vita exclusive and they are probably right. Vertical text and puns are not deal breakers when it comes to localization.
 

120v

Member
i don't know what resources XSEED has in the way of promotion but i can't help but feel they really bungled Xanadu. if it weren't for this forum i would've never known it existed or i would've ran across it on steam and shrugged it off as some old jrpg... pretty amazing game, optimized great too. hope it somehow catches on later on
 

Sir TapTap

Member
Valkyrie Drive wasn't even localized by a seed, that's PQube (they also localized Steins;gate).

To be honest, they along with Atlus (outside the given internal titles like SMT and Persona), dropped the ball when localizing great stuff this gen, only to be picked up by like say... NISA.

Their localizations last year were so much more and better than their stuff this year.

Such a shame Pqube got Valk Drive. Their PR sucks and their localization is pretty bland (and some things like the shop girl quotes have no subtitles, feels like an omission Xseed wouldn't make if avoidable). Not entirely sure the game isn't just really bland dialog-wise but it feels like it should be better than it is considering the developer. It should at least be funny...

The point was more that Xseed passed on it and it went to PQube instead, because the last we heard on Marvelous titles, Xseed had first dibs on them. There was no indicator that VD would sell poorly and PQube has even gone on record multiple times saying that it did extremely well for them. Why did they pass on it? There's really no excuse other than "we made a business decision to skip Vita exclusives", which they continue to say is not the case, despite not doing a single exclusive since EDF 2.

Wait, was it deliberate? Because it's dumb as hell if so frankly. It was going to do well after SK, and owning both is great synergy for XSeed, or would be. I imagine it'll eventually have a PC version too so Vita feels like a dumb reason to avoid if true.
 

Jolkien

Member
Oh I totally forgot about Xanadu Next, just bought it. I'll play it down the line, it looked interesting. Hopefully the 3rd sells well enough to have Ao and Zero.
 
When did XSEED say they were done with Vita? That's sad.

They never "said" it, it's just heavily implied based on what they have and have not been localizing. We may still see another Vita/PS4 game from them, just no more Vita exclusives.

Wait, was it deliberate? Because it's dumb as hell if so frankly. It was going to do well after SK, and owning both is great synergy for XSeed, or would be. I imagine it'll eventually have a PC version too so Vita feels like a dumb reason to avoid if true.

Unless things have changed recently, they still get first dibs on Marvelous (their parent company) games. So a decision was made to pass on it for reasons they won't go into (while they've said why they wouldn't do the other Marvelous titles they passed on), which is when PQube picked it up.
 

Tohsaka

Member
Oh I totally forgot about Xanadu Next, just bought it. I'll play it down the line, it looked interesting. Hopefully the 3rd sells well enough to have Ao and Zero.

I can't see the bolded happening, sadly. Zero and Ao are both huge in terms of script size, and given the fact that there was a huge dropoff (256k vs 34k) in sales between the first and second games, I really don't think it will be feasible for XSEED to devote significant resources to two more games with big scripts that have low potential sales since they are direct sequels.
 
Maybe if Xanadu Next came to Vita. There, I said it.

I should probably get it on PC at some point.

The Touhou game...are any of them good? Like this one seemed interesting but I dunno. And then I watched Bluemaxima's review of the two new ones and he hated the Metroidvania one and for Wanderer basically said "buy Shiren instead."
 

Amir0x

Banned
so I was playing Xanadu Next, all walking along innocently and I get into a pretty standard fight near the end and this motherfucker hits me so hard twice I revert two levels back and can no longer hold my equipment! Now that's hardcore! I was not ready for that shit lol

you guys need to play Xanadu Next basically
 

Sir TapTap

Member
They never "said" it, it's just heavily implied based on what they have and have not been localizing. We may still see another Vita/PS4 game from them, just no more Vita exclusives.



Unless things have changed recently, they still get first dibs on Marvelous (their parent company) games. So a decision was made to pass on it for reasons they won't go into (while they've said why they wouldn't do the other Marvelous titles they passed on), which is when PQube picked it up.

That sucks. I hope they improve, but for now PQube is about the one name I don't like suddenly popping up with a localization announcement. But improvements happen (IMO NISA's a lot better lately, I haven't seen the crappy memery they're often insulted for in years personally, anyway).

Wonder if there's a PS4 VD if Xseed or PQube will have first dibs

Maybe if Xanadu Next came to Vita. There, I said it.

I should probably get it on PC at some point.

The Touhou game...are any of them good? Like this one seemed interesting but I dunno. And then I watched Bluemaxima's review of the two new ones and he hated the Metroidvania one and for Wanderer basically said "buy Shiren instead."

The Vs game would make a great $10-20 game if you have friends who are not total garbage at dodging bullets, but as single player it's just...not really there. I had a blast for an hour or two with a friend but he could only win with the character I'm the worst at countering and I was going (a little) easy on him. Hard to line up skill levels.
 
The Touhou game...are any of them good? Like this one seemed interesting but I dunno. And then I watched Bluemaxima's review of the two new ones and he hated the Metroidvania one and for Wanderer basically said "buy Shiren instead."

That's basically how most of the Touhou spinoffs are, "X game is better, get it instead". Can't recommend Shiren enough though, as it's easily the best roguelike on the system and probably has more content than all the others combined.
 
so I was playing Xanadu Next, all walking along innocently and I get into a pretty standard fight near the end and this motherfucker hits me so hard twice I revert two levels back and can no longer hold my equipment! Now that's hardcore! I was not ready for that shit lol

you guys need to play Xanadu Next basically

That's some Advanced Dungeons and Dragons shit right there.
 

Jolkien

Member
I can't see the bolded happening, sadly. Zero and Ao are both huge in terms of script size, and given the fact that there was a huge dropoff (256k vs 34k) in sales between the first and second games, I really don't think it will be feasible for XSEED to devote significant resources to two more games with big scripts that have low potential sales since they are direct sequels.

Yeah... it's such a shame that people that says to like jrpg never played any of the trails game, in my opinion they're one of the best series.
 

Tohsaka

Member
Yeah... it's such a shame that people that says to like jrpg never played any of the trails game, in my opinion they're one of the best series.

I agree 100%. It's pretty much the modern equivalent of Suikoden in terms of world-building now that that franchise is unfortunately dead. Huge cast of characters spanning multiple nations, great stuff.
 

Thoraxes

Member
I can't see the bolded happening, sadly. Zero and Ao are both huge in terms of script size, and given the fact that there was a huge dropoff (256k vs 34k) in sales between the first and second games, I really don't think it will be feasible for XSEED to devote significant resources to two more games with big scripts that have low potential sales since they are direct sequels.

It's the only reason why I dump my money into multiple copies, the full DLC packs, etc. for Trails games. I know i'm just one dude, but like, idk what else I can do.
 

Amir0x

Banned
That's some Advanced Dungeons and Dragons shit right there.

took me by complete surprise because no other enemy in the game had this ability, that pink nose punch shouldn't be anything; I was used to eating damage OH GOD WHY

I was so mad (in a good way), even with my exp+ guardian on it took like 40 minutes to get those levels back at the point I was in the game :p
 

Antiwhippy

the holder of the trombone
Yeah... it's such a shame that people that says to like jrpg never played any of the trails game, in my opinion they're one of the best series.

Honestly the trails series would be a really bad intro to someone new to JRPGs because they are slow as fuck in the beginning.

I love JRPGs and I struggle through trails games most times.
 

Graciaus

Member
So I bought Xanadu Next and am having fun with it. But I switched to a steam controller from a 360 pad that I've never used before. I thought this controller worked as a mouse at the same time? The mouse pad doesn't seem to be doing anything only in this game. Menu switching with the 360 needed a mouse so I figured I'd finally try my new controller. Seems I've no idea how to use it.
 

Ascheroth

Member
Honestly, Xanadu Next hasn't aged all that great visually, especially the character models. It's an 11 year old game after all.
If I weren't a Falcom fan and already knew about this games existence beforehand I probably wouldn't spare it a second glance if I noticed it popping up in the new releases.

It's inherently a hard sell, but that's why you'd especially need marketing to show how awesome it is despite it's age.
I guess it's always difficult to decide how much you want to spend on marketing when you know it's not going to sell gangbusters, but their 'intense press release cycle'(lol) cleary wasn't enough.
 
Such a shame Pqube got Valk Drive. Their PR sucks and their localization is pretty bland (and some things like the shop girl quotes have no subtitles, feels like an omission Xseed wouldn't make if avoidable). Not entirely sure the game isn't just really bland dialog-wise but it feels like it should be better than it is considering the developer. It should at least be funny.

I've heard similar things myself, but the take-away should be that at least someone picked it up; whereas it likely would've gotten skipped otherwise.

I actually didn't know Marvelous IP's were up for grabs by publishers other than XSEED either.
 

Tapejara

Member
I think it's been mentioned in this thread, but I do find it interesting that the Touhou game XSEED localized underperformed for them, while the one NISA localized seemed to do well enough that they're doing two more this year. Obviously each company's goals are going to differ, but as someone with little knowledge of the series I do have to wonder what led to one game underperforming and the other doing well enough to garner more localizations. I have a theory that it's because the NISA game was at retail, while the one XSEED localized was digital only. I bought the NISA one purely because it was a physical release from a series that hasn't had much presence in the West, whereas the one XSEED localized being digital only meant I felt much more comfortable waiting (and still waiting) for a deep discount. Purely anecdotal of course, though maybe making it a physical release pushed more collectors like myself to pick it up.
 

BasilZero

Member
I'll get Xanadu eventually.

Still catching up to the other games I got :X


I wonder what titles they'll announce next for PC. I need to get into more VNs though lol
 

UltraJay

Member
So I bought Xanadu Next and am having fun with it. But I switched to a steam controller from a 360 pad that I've never used before. I thought this controller worked as a mouse at the same time? The mouse pad doesn't seem to be doing anything only in this game. Menu switching with the 360 needed a mouse so I figured I'd finally try my new controller. Seems I've no idea how to use it.

Have you configured it? Set the right trackpad as the mouse? Don't have it use Xbox buttons in the configuration either, just straight up have it use the keyboard buttons so you can set them where you want (clicking the sticks for the map and menu SUUUUCKS, should be Start and Select). At best I would keep the joystick set to Joystick Move.

Just bought Xanadu during this 25% off sale as well. Having fun with it but it really is hidden amongst all the other Steam games. I remembered it simply because I noticed all the other XSEED games were on sale.
 
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