Falcom IR update - PSP titles released in NA?

[syraxis]

Mar 21, 2010 18:22:37 GMT -5 Wyrdwad said:

I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss them. XSEED's become a force to be reckoned with lately - they've had a lot of hits on their hands, and have presumably made a lot of money from them - so all it would really take is for localizing Sora no Kiseki to reach a point where it's cost effective based on their current profit margins, and I bet they'd snap it up in an instant.

I'm guessing there's some basis to this rumor, and I'm putting my money on XSEED.

-Tom

Wasn't XSEED's main complaint about publishing SnK was that it was heavy on dialogue? Is it comparable to any of their recent projects (Lunar for example)?

[knightofancient]

Same here, so far the evidence currently points toward XSEED. Plus, I do not know if a joint effort of XSEED and Marvelous can help decrease the cost of localizing Sora no Kiseki. I know its a very unlikely possibility but might as well throw it out there since Marvelous has rights to Falcom's Catalog. Anything can happen.

[syraxis]

Falcom did make it a goal to bring their PSP games internationally in '10 (a fine goal it is, considering the PSP's library isn't what it should/could be), perhaps they're contributing some of the capital their '09 releases gained them in order to help finance some of the more costly projects?

Probably unlikely, just a thought.

[schlagwerk]

Mar 21, 2010 18:22:37 GMT -5 Wyrdwad said:

I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss them. XSEED's become a force to be reckoned with lately - they've had a lot of hits on their hands, and have presumably made a lot of money from them

Amusingly true because I was just recently musing about how a majority of the commercial releases I've purchased lately have been by XSEED... including Korg DS-10 plus

[syraxis]

Mar 22, 2010 10:11:15 GMT -5 omgfloofy said:

First Chapter is roughly 50,000 to 55,000 strings of text. When they compiled the main scenario and side quests into a book, it was published at 500 pages, with two columns of text per page.

Ah.... I was expecting the amount of text to be more akin to around Planescape: Torment (roughly 800k words according to the lead designer).

[Mutagene]

Note that that's 50,000 STRINGS of text, not words, so it could easily exceed 1 million words when translated.

I think the file size for the script was fairly high in the tens of megabytes, as well?

[cxt217]

The size of the translation and script writing is what causes me to doubt any/all rumors of SnK being licensed until I see the official press release. And while XSeed might be doing very well, I still have doubts on any license that has a long lead time until they can release it in the US (i.e., start making money from it.).

IIRC, it was Rika Takahashi (Who did Cowboy Bebop and a very large number of high profile titles.) who said that Japanese to English translation can be either fast, cheap, or good - but you could only pick two. That is not including turning the translation to something you can easily read (Which is the more difficult task.). That means it will be a good while before the translation/writing is done and you get to the technical parts of the game, or you are shelling out a large fee to get it done fast. And all this time, you can not actually get revenue on the license until you release the product. And (Usually.) the license is an immediate cost - you have to pay immediately upon agreement, which means you start out with a large expense that you can only recoup when you release the game.

XSeed may have had increased revenues lately, but do they have the cash so they can really take a long term cost like that? Or a even larger cost of pushing the production process hard? A Square-Enix can, but even they only do so for major sellers like FF13 which they know will move large numbers of units.

I would love to see the SnK trilogy come to the US, but there are a few practical issues in the way...

C.T.

[knightofancient]

www.rpgfan.com/news/2005/2068.html

Last sentence of the first paragraph "Marvelous will furthermore publish soundtracks of Nihon Falcom games and use its sales channels to release Nihon Falcom games outside Japan."

They do have licensing rights to Falcom's games. The question is that agreement still in affect and valid. The only other company that I can think of, based on Falcom's current listing of there partners/customers, is SCEA. Sony did publish Sora no Kiseki FC in Asia.

[syraxis]

Mar 22, 2010 18:33:15 GMT -5 omgfloofy said:

You are correct with strings =/= words. For example- if a character has dialogue that requires you to hit 'continue' multiple times? Chances are, that's still one string. Each of the Carnelia novels? They're *all* one string. The newspaper volumes? Each = 1 string. Arts? The name and description = 1 string.

I see... I was going under the impression that 1 string = text in the dialogue box at any given moment. Learn something new everyday.

[HJ]

Unless that was some sort of dream, wasn't it said that there would be an announcement by the end of March?

Looks like good old pessimism wins again.

[schlagwerk]

That's okay, March 31st came and passed, PC/PS2 PSU was shut down, and Sega still hasn't made any new major announcements


..other than one of the PSU GMs admitting he had played Sonic 4 and stating "Sonic 4 is magical"

[knightofancient]

XSEED's released all their titles for Q1 recently last one being on March 30th, and they have not announced theire new batch of games yet.

When will they announce?

"XSEED Games:

Stay tuned, we'll start announcing more titles within the next couple weeks now that our crazy release schedule of first quarter 2010 is almost behind us. "

March 29

This was a response XSEED gave to the question of when are the next group of announcements. This was on FB.

It is not over yet.

[HJ]

Well played, looks like pessimism hasn't quite won yet. I think in this case, it might even be worth it for pessimism to lose. It still has so many other victories under it's belt, after all.

[Disgaeamad]

There'll be good news if we put our hearts together and belieeeeeeeeeeeeeeve!

[cxt217]

Belief is nothing when compared to hard evidence and (especially) money.

...Though the evidence is starting to mount...

C.T.

[AllenSmithee]

is all I can say.

[knightofancient]

Yup it make sense. Another light piece of evidence is that XSEED said on their FB that more PSP games are coming. I wonder.

"We're going to give you a lot more reasons to own a PSP soon, why not just give in to the temptation now?"

That is another comment XSEED stated on FB. It kinda adds on to the evidence we have already.

[Disgaeamad]

I think the best part of all this is how they playfully avoid the issue. Me and floof brought it up with them on twitter, and their answers pretty great:

"Disgaeamad I know. I felt the same way about Duel Love at first too." - In reply to me saying that I might have an idea of what they're working on.

[knightofancient]

One thing that makes me happy is that E3 is two months away, which is the best place to advertise any Falcom game XSEED has on their sleeve.

[HJ]

Hmm, it's getting increasingly hard to stay pessimistic...