Thanks, doppleganger Claire entry deleted.
Key thing to understand here is that it is cheaper for all of these existing publisher's to continue self-publishing as they get a several thousand dollar discount off of the rating fee from the ESRB if they submit the game to be rated for both the digital & physical release at the same time.
Aksys Games, is another Japanese company that for reasons no one can comprehend rarely localizes the parent company's JP releases. They're quick to localize the fighting games from parent company, Arc System Works, and nothing more. Aksys has also been stung pretty badly on many of the other titles that they've licensed and released for the Vita; Mind Zero, Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters, Aegis of Earth, and Drive Girls all seem to have flopped hard after their respective launches for one reason or another. I think they've finally found a niche to settle into with localizing and publishing Otomate VNs though, as the one announced for next year will be the fifth one they've licensed for the Vita, and their seventh VN in total released by them, counting their two XBlaze games. And this is all highly ironic, as Arc System Works is well known in Japan for producing... Visual Novel games. It's like the universe is trying to tell them something, and they just can't seem to hear it.
Atlus is and already was a publisher before Sega bought their parent company. Sega is also a publisher. Atlus doesn't seem to care, or perhaps is intentionally ignoring the fact, that Sega Corporate gave them the keys to freely access and use all Sega franchises. Sega doesn't seem to understand that Atlus remains a profitable division because they just keep on doing what they always did. Common sense doesn't actually much enter the equation of this parent child relationship anywhere at any point though as neither company seems to have a grasp on how to best utilize one another for a common goal, which has been utterly mind numbing aggravating to watch play out over the years. Sega appears to be done with the Vita outside of Japan, despite their last four releases for the system having sold rather fantastically. But I think everytime the new Sega has a success it mentally scares whoever is in charge. Quite the opposite, everytime Atlus has a failure, or even predicts a game is going to be a failure, they order up a print run of the title lower than what the demand is going to be and call it a day. There are sooooooooo many problems with these two parts of the one whole that it just makes you want to punch someone. I mean really, it's not like they've got a new problem, rather they just continue to go on year after year, after year, after year, pretending there isn't any problem to address. See, a sane person would look at the mess that is present-day Sega and ask, if you were the number one game system maker in the world for a few years, then you fell to second, and then third, and then you dropped out to be a game producer & publisher for the former system competition and were regarded as a top notch publisher for a few years and then fell out of favor when you stopped making and/or licensing games fans were demanding, you have some really terrible problems in the company that need to be addressed. But Sega is blind to all of their own problems.
NISA, parent company Nippon Ichi Software, knows about and has released several limited edition game titles, which they sold exclusively through their own web store. The LRG method of sale is nothing new to them, though they didn't try it out for themselves until after FanGamer and LRG had already proven the concept successful. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they didn't continue to operate in this method for additional Vita releases. NISA Has several added advantages over LRG in that they possess a full blown translation staff, have a licensing partnership with Tecmo Koei for special & limited edition releases, and have a European operation division that handles European release publishing and distribution. If they ever decided to do what LRG does full swing, NISA would be a force to be reckoned with... and our wallets would be eternally empty.
Shakedown Miami is still coming per the Tweets, just no date for pre-orders to begin yet. Likely still putting the finishing touches on the PlayStation platform versions.
