Well, I heard about it but I didn't buy it on Vita because it didn't have a physical release in Europe (I prefer physical releases whenever possible on consoles). On PC though I don't have the same hang-up so if anything they at least have one assured sale already.
NIS FY results. NISA made about 64% of company revenue. Steam/mobile support from NIS
- Thread starter Busaiku
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Well, I heard about it but I didn't buy it on Vita because it didn't have a physical release in Europe (I prefer physical releases whenever possible on consoles). On PC though I don't have the same hang-up so if anything they at least have one assured sale already.
why do you assume they're doing it instead of disgaea instead of in addition to it? firefly diary is a small game to test the waters for themselves, not to see if steam is a successful platform for a japanese game. it's a familiarization process. disgaea is their flagship series. if that rolled out shoddily, it would be much worse than if they botched firefly diary.
GhostTrick
Banned
Yeah, there's also that. I mean for now, we had no concrete announcement. When IFI announced Steam support, that was with 3 games. For now, we have a game on Steamdb and a NIS comment....
But to be fair, I think that sometimes, it's also up to people to show their support.
i honestly have no clue what's going on with disgaea and steam. these are just my guesses.
if i were heading things up, i'd slowly ramp up the amount of steam games into 2016, and in the next fiscal year (where there are no new disgaea games or other flagship titles from what i can see), release disgaea 1 for steam. but do it super right, like hd sprites (with the option for 'classic' mode), bonus stuff from the psp game and maybe a little more, with features from 4, d2, and 5 like the ability to create your maps and fight other people online. open it up to the mod community and let them create weapons/special movies and occasionally allow some community maps and other stuff in, tf2 style. have controller support and customizable controls. also give the option to play the game in the original way or with advancements from d2 and 5. also, offer steam cards as randomized drops from item worlds.
all of that would be a lot of work, but it would be a really good first effort. it would also make the rest of the series more desirable once they could start making it over. disgaea 4, d2, and 5 would probably require the least amount of effort to bring up to speed, but disgaea 1 in particular has the most love.
of course i'd like to see other ps2 games hit too, like la pucelle, phantom brave, and the super-overlooked but incredibly awesome soul nomad and the world eaters
thesaucetastic
Unconfirmed Member
I'm so glad they're deciding to support PC. If they port over the other Disgaea games beyond Hour of Darkness I'd definitely buy them.
If Disgaea is a "challenge to port" for them then they should honestly simply outsource the port. It's hardly technically demanding in any way.
ell, from the outside it does almost look like that.
PepsimanVsJoe
Member
Oh my God.
That's so true.
Something as simple as double or even triple XP gains would be huge.
I really enjoy the games, but after a certain point it's just...oof.
Same for me!
The only disgaea in which I ever (nearly) finished the postgame was 4. Pre-patch (on the ps3) there was this ridiculous dupe that made things quite bit more managable.
AcceptableGhost
Member
Kresnik258
Member
That NISA revenue figure has made me wonder if this is why NIS have announced such early, strong support of PS4.
I mean, PS3 seemed to dry up pretty early for them (I was surprised just how poorly Awakened Fate Paradox sold last year), so I know they needed to move on, but they've never really embraced anywhere else. Support for Vita was there, but it was never anything substantial (just a few ports and then indie-esque games like Edo Blacksmith & HTOL#NIQ) and they never even tried on 3DS (which isn't a massive surprise, but still).
When they announced PS4 support - Disgaea 5; Witch & Hundred Knight 2 etc., I thought they were just on a death witch or something - I couldn't understand it, because there were less expensive; potentially more profitable avenues available for them that weren't the big shift that F2P mobile would've been.
But this makes more sense. If NISA does so well for them anyway, and PS4 is the best-performing console in the west, then maybe they do have a point. Make slightly-more-mass-market-but-still-very-NIS stuff in Disgaea 5 (which already has an audience in the west) and Witch & Hundred Knight, and do a bit of porting and a bit of smaller-scale development on Vita which will mostly stay localized in Japan.
I mean, PS3 seemed to dry up pretty early for them (I was surprised just how poorly Awakened Fate Paradox sold last year), so I know they needed to move on, but they've never really embraced anywhere else. Support for Vita was there, but it was never anything substantial (just a few ports and then indie-esque games like Edo Blacksmith & HTOL#NIQ) and they never even tried on 3DS (which isn't a massive surprise, but still).
When they announced PS4 support - Disgaea 5; Witch & Hundred Knight 2 etc., I thought they were just on a death witch or something - I couldn't understand it, because there were less expensive; potentially more profitable avenues available for them that weren't the big shift that F2P mobile would've been.
But this makes more sense. If NISA does so well for them anyway, and PS4 is the best-performing console in the west, then maybe they do have a point. Make slightly-more-mass-market-but-still-very-NIS stuff in Disgaea 5 (which already has an audience in the west) and Witch & Hundred Knight, and do a bit of porting and a bit of smaller-scale development on Vita which will mostly stay localized in Japan.
Visualante2
Member
Yeah, if the American branch of Nippon Ichi is doing so well in the west compared to how Nippon Ichi does in Japan, then it makes sense to focus on the Western market with releases and the American branch is likely telling them to make PS4 games because the PS3 and Vita are pretty dead outside of Japan. Witch And the Hundred Knight looks like it was designed with the Western market in mind as a new franchise that takes on a Western genre, but still being essentially a NIS game with all that entails. It's a Diablo clone in NIS's signature flavor. As for Vita support, that is likely for the Japanese market though allowing enough leeway to port to PS4 should the Western market take to it. I suppose this is also why they are seeking to expand to Steam and Mobile. Mobile is obviously them catering to the Japanese market given how success a platform mobile has become in Japan. As for Steam, the only choices in NIS's mind to expand their Western platform support is PC via Steam or the Xbox One, and they likely chose Steam because the audience for PC games has shown to be much more receptive to Anime-style games than the audience for Xbox games.
All and all, it seems like NIS is a Japanese publisher who has adapted to the current gaming environment in that they understand that the Western market and the Japanese market have totally different tastes in gaming platforms nowadays. Since they have more success with the Western market, they chose to support the West's chosen platform over Japan's.
Kresnik258
Member
The only thing I thought of, after I typed that post, is this is still a financial report where NISA made 64% of company revenue and they released 6 Vita games; 4 PS3 games; a PS3/PS4/Vita game and distributed 2 3DS games; 1 PS3 game and 3 PS3/Vita games in Europe.
It'll probably be, as you say, that NISA are suggesting to them a shift towards PS4/PC due to market trends, absolutely, but they still made that profit off the back of a sea of PS3/Vita games in the west.
charlequin
Banned
What, exactly, makes them different from all the other titles that were previously exclusive to one particular console ecosystem and which succeeded after porting not based on childish notions of syetem loyalty but instead on their broader appeal to users of other platforms?
Well I do imagine they still will make Vita games still since Vita does seem to have a dedicated fanbase if not the sales, though they have probably abandoned PS3 development. It is pretty obvious that the Japanese developers on PS3 and Vita are all shifting towards PS4 given all the announced PS4/PS3 or PS4/Vita games in Japan. NIS is just the first to declare PS4 exclusives.
Castef
Banned
Yep. Start porting Disgaea to other platforms already! The game would sell very well on Steam.
Delusibeta
Banned
Eh, I suspect that this is the benefit of getting to put their international branch on their books. Nippon Ichi has had a terrible year in terms of Japanese sales, while NIS America has done very well, hence NISA's increasing influence on the overall company. Expect IFI and Xseed to do something similar to their respective parent companies. (Although do note that Xseed [& MarvEU] is still economically independent from MarvJP, which tbh is looking increasingly like a blunder from MarvJP's perspective which I suspect they will fix sooner rather than later).
As for Steam, if two of your major rivals has substantial success getting onto Steam, it would make sense to follow suit (even if NISA was the first to give it a go, no matter how half-hearted that attempt was).
dark_prinny
Banned
nisa doesn't distribute. they have distributors in europe for every region (you can find them on the back of old ps3 games they did where they're mentioned in the copyright). nisa published those games in europe, even if a couple of them have atlus's logo on the front (which i imagine is a special arrangement and probably out of respect to atlus). atlus does the distribution for nisa in the us though. on rare occasion, koei tecmo used to, but i think that was for the gust games mostly. kinda gives insight as to why those are the two third-parties they're closest with, though.
edit: another development that was sorta glossed over, but it seems nisa has a new president. after haru akenaga left in 2013, sohei niikawa took over, who was also the disgaea producer and president of nis in japan. in a recent interview, takuro yamashita was introduced as ceo and president of nis america, and he was managing director last year, and president of the short-lived nis europe. he's probably the reason for nis america's strong expansion into europe.
BoilersFan23
Member
Its because their games did not meet much success on Nintendo platforms in the past, w/ Phantom Brave, Rhapsody, and Disgaea. That is kind of why they stick to PlayStation (the lower loyalties from Sony help too).
NIS never put much effort into their ancient yet still full priced Nintendo ports. They got out of DS and Wii exactly what they put into them. Their first Steam support was a total repeat of that low effort ideology and the return from it was equally appropriate.
They tend to do best on PlayStation because PlayStation also tends to be the only platforms they sink any effort or priority into. Well until PS4 anyway, that one completely backfired.
Kresnik258
Member
You're completely right, sorry, I did mean to say publisher.
What I was meaning with that sentence though is that they're picking up titles translated by other companies without networks in Europe and publishing them there. Kinda different to what they're doing with stuff like DanganRonpa that's translated + published internally.