SCEA rejected Sakura Wars 1+2...

KillerRamen

KillerRamen

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I'm a SRPG fan and I fell love with "So Long, My Love," so this makes me sad... :cry:

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/06/2...e-crossovers-sakura-wars-and-ps3-development/

What’s the fate of Sakura Wars in North America then? I see a lot of my readers are hoping for Sakura 1+2 for PSP.

Haru Akenaga, President of NIS America:
Another publisher tried to get approval from Sony for Sakura Wars 1+2 for PSP, but it was rejected. Once a title is rejected by SCEA there is almost no chance to release the title.

What about as a digital download?

Haru Akenaga, President of NIS America:
That’s Sony’s decision. Sony said this is not a game. They said it’s a text novel. They judged it as that, so it’s really difficult to get the license again. It’s also tough to localize Sakura Wars because of the huge amount of text. It took more than two years to complete the localization. That’s more than the development time of the Japanese version.
Click to expand...

Lesson of the day: smashing people's heads in with a pipe is cool, but a Dating Sim/Strategic Role Playing Game like Sakura Wars is taking things too far? :whistle2:s
 
[quote name='glemtvapen']What makes it so different from what NISA released? It's practically the same damn thing.[/QUOTE]

SCEA's approval process has grown more lenient as they've lost market share. Thus you saw Visual Novels (like the recent Disgaea infinite) and you saw some PS1-->PSP direct ports (like Harvest Moon), even though past straight ports like Breath of Fire 3 and Tales of Eternia and Suikoden 1&2 were denied.

But still, if you read that article, it says they were disappointed with sales of SW on the PS2. So would this really have sold any if it had gotten approved?

It's like the Growlanser people. They keep complaining about Growlanser 1 remake for PSP not being localized by Atlus. But no one bought the Growlanswer that Atlus did bring over for the PS2, and no one bought the Growlanser that WD did (and probably helped do WD in)
 
Ah, no wonder. But then again, did anyone really expect a niche title from a past generation console to become a blockbuster hit?

NISA set themselves up to fail.
 
My husband has the Japanese version of this. The load times are atrocious. And they likely rejected it because it's a port, not because it's a visual novel (note that NISA wasn't the one interested in bringing it over so they are probably speculating on that point). Depending on who was interested in bringing it over (according to Vic Ireland on GAF, he was interested), they may or may not have fixed the load times. If not, good riddens.
 
Even if Sony approved it the cost of translating two games and the low sales of Sakura War V means that it is not worth the risk.

[quote name='phantasyx']Fan sub time![/QUOTE]

Most of the Sakura Wars games are available on PC, but so far nothing. PC games are a lot easier to translate and a number of lesser known Japanese game did get fan translation.
 
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[quote name='Nogib']So Sony rejects this for being "a text novel" yet accepted Disgaea Infinite?[/QUOTE]

Perhaps, it got approved because Disgaea Infinite is heavy voiced acted like Harvey Birdman
 
Not to mention Disgaea would sell better. This is a business decision, don't look at it an other way. The NISA president even said the first game's sales were lower than expected.
 
[quote name='ssjmichael']Not to mention Disgaea would sell better. This is a business decision, don't look at it an other way. The NISA president even said the first game's sales were lower than expected.[/QUOTE]

If that was all there is to it, then fine. However, I do not see why he would say the following;

Haru Akenaga, President of NIS America:
"Another publisher tried to get approval from Sony for Sakura Wars 1+2 for PSP, but it was rejected. Once a title is rejected by SCEA there is almost no chance to release the title"

I also don't see why he would lie about something like that... It was also suspected that SCEA rejected the retail release of Record of Agarest War for the PS3. Assuming Haru Akenaga is right, there was no good reason for SCEA to reject Sakura Wars 1+2 from being localized.
 
Whatever it is, Sony have crazy and weird rules for publication! One game gets rejected while another game in similar fashion get accepted. I don't get why Sony have all these rules in first place. They're getting money from publishing fee. I have no idea how much is publishing fee, but I'm pretty sure a fee for niche game is not as high compare to mainstream game.
 
If that another publisher got sony to approve it would have a very good chance of getting a US release, since it cost money to get sony to even look at a game. A publsiher won't do that unless they plan to release the game.
 
[quote name='KillerRamen']
I also don't see why he would lie about something like that... It was also suspected that SCEA rejected the retail release of Record of Agarest War for the PS3. Assuming Haru Akenaga is right, there was no good reason for SCEA to reject Sakura Wars 1+2 from being localized.[/QUOTE]

I heard from Aksys that Agarest was rejected due to not having any English dubs and the only way to send it here is through digital. It annoyed a quite a lot of people especially when Aksys announced only the Xbox was getting the LE.

[quote name='fatbeer']Whatever it is, Sony have crazy and weird rules for publication! One game gets rejected while another game in similar fashion get accepted. I don't get why Sony have all these rules in first place. They're getting money from publishing fee. I have no idea how much is publishing fee, but I'm pretty sure a fee for niche game is not as high compare to mainstream game.[/QUOTE]

I have been wondering that myself. The only thing that comes to mind why Sony rejects a lot of games is that they're avoiding the over-saturation of "bad" video games in the market like what happened in the video game crash of 1983.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']My husband has the Japanese version of this. The load times are atrocious. And they likely rejected it because it's a port, not because it's a visual novel (note that NISA wasn't the one interested in bringing it over so they are probably speculating on that point). Depending on who was interested in bringing it over (according to Vic Ireland on GAF, he was interested), they may or may not have fixed the load times. If not, good riddens.[/QUOTE]

I would tend to think that the NIS President wouldn't have said what he did unless he had first hand knowledge of what happened.

Also, I would be fine with some load times or I wouldn't mind buying it on the PSN.

...In fact, I think the only way any of the other games will come to the USA is by way of the Xbox Live Arcade. If that were to happen, I still think that would be great. However, it just sucks that there was a publisher who was interested in bringing the first two over only to get rejected by SCEA. It just doesn't make any sense for them to have done so. Especially with all of the crap that they do let through.

[quote name='62t']Remember Sony America and Sony Europe are completely different. Europe did get Agarest PS3 on a disc.

Also
http://www.siliconera.com/2010/07/02/retailers-refuse-to-carry-anime-games/

Most stores don't want to carry anime games[/QUOTE]

Sakura Wars may have had an anime based on the video game, but it is not a video game based on an anime. Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Gamestop, Target, Sears and K-Mart all carried :wii: Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love.
 
But it is still an anime style game. And most stores did not carry the Ps2 version. You also don't see most stores (outside of gamestop and maybe bestbuy) carrying other NISA or Aksys games with anime cover either. Even Star Ocean 4 on Xbox 360 had its anime element removed.

As a fan of the series I would love to see an English release. However if I am making a business decision I would bring this game over.
 
[quote name='Nogib']So Sony rejects this for being "a text novel" yet accepted Disgaea Infinite?[/QUOTE]Sakura Wars I & II was submitted LONG ago, back when SCEA had harsher rules on PSP games. That was a time SCEA was pretty much denying all old ports, such as Devil Summoner, Breath of Fire III, Tales of Eternia, etc. However, the majority of people at SCEA are different now when it comes to game approval.

Also, it's not just SCEA. Many anime based games (which was discussed in a Siliconera article) don't come stateside because retailers refuse to carry them (outside a Naruto, DBZ, or what's popular).

[quote name='KillerRamen']
I also don't see why he would lie about something like that... It was also suspected that SCEA rejected the retail release of Record of Agarest War for the PS3. Assuming Haru Akenaga is right, there was no good reason for SCEA to reject Sakura Wars 1+2 from being localized.[/QUOTE]SCEA rejected that and Battle Fantasia for ONE main reason. The game was English subs and only Japanese voices. SCEA has had this rule for a very long time. Games either had to drop all Japanese voice acting, or have both Japanese/English voices. Castle Shikigami 2 added terrible English voiceacting because SCEA required English voices to be released here. The ONLY way SCEA normally allows games to be released at retail without English voiceacting (for text) is if they moved onto a new platform (like PS1 to PS2, then PS2 to PS3). The only reason Yakuza 3 got an exception was because the series was really huge in Japan, its a huge exclusive to have, and I believe there was someone at SCEA who really loved Yakuza and let it slide. SCEA also denied SNK games last gen because they wanted to charge full price for dated graphic games (with no enhancements from the Neo Geo).

Regardless, SCEA believes that since we are an English speaking country, games SHOULD be voiced in English. They don't want games to cater to a small niche, they want it to appeal to most everyone, especially if they are going to allow a publisher to utilize some of the retail space they pay for (if SCEA allowed too many games to come stateside, then they'd run into an issue with retail space). SCEA has now allowed publishers to release a game as download only, if there's not going to be English voiceacting (that's how Capcom got Fate/Unlimited Codes stateside).

As for Sakura Wars I & II, I would not be surprised if a publisher didn't exactly want to voice many scenes and just go to strictly text translated (with Japanese voices), which is also a big no-no to SCEA.
 
I know of this rule, but it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Most of LittleBigPlanet's voice work is in gibberish. ...If a developer told them that it wasn't in Japanese, but it was in gibberish would it then be allowable?
 
[quote name='KillerRamen']I know of this rule, but it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Most of LittleBigPlanet's voice work is in gibberish. ...If a developer told them that it wasn't in Japanese, but it was in gibberish would it then be allowable?[/QUOTE]That's because the game has its own language. Games that do that are not a problem. Games which NEED to be translated are where SCEA requires English voiceacting. Because in reality, 98% of people in NA find Japanese voices weird (any of my friends think it is) with English subtitles. That is a big reason why SCEA requires them, so games can appeal to the masses more easily.
 
[quote name='KillerRamen']I know of this rule, but it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Most of LittleBigPlanet's voice work is in gibberish. ...If a developer told them that it wasn't in Japanese, but it was in gibberish would it then be allowable?[/QUOTE]

SCEA will most likely be more offended for the developer to think that they're that stupid. Making it a snowball's chance in hell of it in being published here. :whistle2:#
 
The other issue is that most localization companies are based in USA so they have to follow SCEA's policy. The flip side is that Europe localization don't have to follow any of that and companies like 505 Street and Rising Star did localized some Japanese game for Europe only
 
[quote name='glemtvapen']:bs:
Blaming it on a store? This sounds a lot of bullshit coming from Xseed's ass.[/QUOTE]
No. This is really how it works.
 
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