XSeedare the guys that broughtJU-ON,Little King’s Story,Rune Factory Frontier, andFragile Dreamsto the Wii. They’re also the U.S. publisher forRetro Game Challenge,Flower Sun, and Rainand the upcomingSolatoroboon the DS. In short, they have the love of videogames and marketing savy needed to take the weird Japanese titles that other U.S. developers don’t have the guts to publish, and make them profitable in the West. If it weren’t for the fact thatPandora’s Tower,The Last Story, andXenobladeare Nintendo products, I’m sure they’d be working to snatch that gravy up and bring it to the Western Wii audience posthaste.
Instead, XSeed will be keeping a close eye on two other Wii titles; the post apocalyptic RPGEarth Seeker, and Yuji Naka’s next big project,Rodea: The Sky Soldier. I’m really looking forward to playing those two, and as long as they don’t totally bomb in Japan, it sounds like XSeed is feeling pretty optimistic about the publishing the both of them.
The same can’t be said for games on the 3DS.
According to Ken Berry, director of publishing at XSeed “Weare looking at some 3DS titles, but for now I don’t think we’re ready to jump into that market just yet unless the perfect opportunity comes by. We’re still sort of sitting back and watching how the market plays out on the 3DS.”Mr Berry sounds a lot more optimistic about the PS Vita- “If we could be there at the launch of Vita, that would be absolutely great for us. It just seems like a natural transition from all of the PSP work we’ve been doing recently to be able to move on to Sony’s next handheld platform.“
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard a publisher voice caution towards the 3DS. Failing to hitNintendo’s projected 4 million in saleswithin the launch window changeda lot of people’s thinkingon the console. It’s worrisome to hear that even XSeed, the masters of publishing risky and potentially unprofitable games on Nintendo consoles, is feeling gun shy towards Nintendo’s latest handheld. I really hope the 3DS has an exceptional year, lest they loose too many publishers to the imposing PS Vita and the budding smart phone market.
