Bishoujo game on psp

Visual Novel Community Visual Novel Talk
#1

If you’re talking about the Clannad or Queen’s Blade PSP games in Japan, I’m sure Peach Princess would love to be able to do English Ports of the game, but unfortunately it’s not Cost effective at this time due to the fact that a) The Japanese Company would want an unrealistic amount of money to do the port (Although in the PSP’s case it would just be a case of making the English text fit, since PSP’s and PS3’s are Region Free as far as games are concerned, and B) The market here isn’t really all that spectacular for these types of games at the moment. You also have to take into account the world wide economy still hasn’t totally recovered yet.

-Be patient and it may happen some day, but realistically it’s not going to happen for some time yet.

  • and Peach Princess only translates games with the support of the Japanese developers, they don’t make games per se.
#2

I’d like to play Suigetsu Portable sometime, but in general there isn’t enough stuff on PSP for me to really want one.

#3

There’re lots. Since the PS2 run has ended, publishers are now shoving all their ports onto PSP and (to a lesser extent) Xbox360. Some adult games are also released in UMD Video format.

None are likely to see release outside Japan, however.

#4

Putting aside the whole thing about money and the difference in SDK - publishing on the PSP is harder than the PC for two additional reasons: Sony and the ESRB.

When Jast negotiates for a PC bgame, it’s just between Jast and the Japanese publisher. If Jast wants to publish Tokimeki Memorial 4, the discussions will include the ever unpredictable and iron-fisted Sony, in addition to Konami. No game is allowed to be ported on their consoles, without their blessings. End of discussion. You’d be surprised how many games Sony has denied… sometimes making no sense at all. I’m not just talking about one Sony either… TWO of them. Sony of Japan and Sony of America are two hands that don’t know what the other is doing, but they both have to shake on it for something to happen. If SoJ rejects a game going to America: it’s dead. If SoA rejects a game coming from Japan: it’s dead. They don’t always agree… a lot…

Then there’s the circus that is the ESRB. Sometimes the process with them goes smooth as silk… other times it’s like pulling teeth.

Next up? Getting space on a store shelf. Getting Walmart and Gamestop to sell something, isn’t as easy as it sounds. Lots of wheeling and dealing.

Console publishing can be a political circus. Frustrating as hell when it is.

Brooktown High is call for you. :stuck_out_tongue:

#5

Well yeah, it was developed by Americans and released by Konami, so it’s more like a dating sim for those western people who don’t care about anime / Japanese culture…

I haven’t played it though.

#6

Brooktown High has been extensively discussed here before. That was a joke.

In short - Konami released a “test case game” - they wanted to see how well games like it would be received so they made one to test the waters. Unfortunately, they made one of the classic mistakes. The point of releasing a test game is to avoid making an expensive mistake by committing too many resources to something that’s unproven. So they undercooked the game; the devs have apparently said “there was a lot more we wanted to do, but the schedule got truncated and we ended up having to cut out almost all of it.”

So it ended up being dull, limp, and extremely repetitious, with the same events happening over and over.

The end result is pretty predictable. It sucked, it tanked, Konami concluded “see, we told you, nobody buys these”. No, that’s not it at all. Nobody bought the game because it sucked, not because nobody would ever buy a dating sim.

And then Narg said that Konami printed up sooo many copies… Mistake after mistake. They would have been better getting a few more months of development, and halving the number of pressed units.

#7

It could still be feasible it if was offered for download on PSN. From what I’ve seen, Sony America tends to be less restrictive on a game that’s offered for download as opposed to a physical medium. For example, although everybody knows that they won’t allow a title without English voices if it’s being released on discs, they’ve allowed sub-only games fly that are being offered for download on PSN (Fate/Unlimited Codes, Record of Agarest War, etc.).

What’s the deal with them? It’s not like they’ll refuse to rate any games that come along if they have something they don’t usually come across or anything… (I can name one title that JAST is selling right now that has been rated by the ESRB–Guess what it is?)

#8

Jast got all their early games rated by the ESRB. They may be doing all of them. It’s a formality, of course, AO is obviously what they’re going to get. But 8 years ago, it seemed like a good idea, just to make sure nobody could accuse them of trying to sell to minors. I’m not sure if they still bother. It’s not cheap to get ESRB rated, although they apparently do offer discounts to small companies.

#9

Well, it’s obvious that they don’t do it right now. Since they know for a fact that all their games obviously contain content that’s only suitable for adults, why waste time and money submitting a title to the ESRB when they can give it their own “adults only” label that resembles the ESRB’s rating stickers?

I’m talking about releasing all-ages games on consoles. I know it does take money to submit a game to get a rating, but what else is the deal with them? What exactly did he mean by “it’s like pulling teeth” at times?

#10

Yeah, according to this list there have only been 25 games rated AO by the ESRB. All of Peach Princess’s early games are on it: XChange 1, Snow Drop, Tokimeki Checkin!, Water Closet, and Critical Point.

After Critical Point, there started to be a lengthy gap in between releases. In fact, it was quite some time before their next game was released at all. (I think their next one after that was XChange 2, and that was 15 months later.) I think by that point Peter decided not to mess with it. A lot of the heat over the issue had started dying down.

#11

Sometimes they get a stick up their rear end and you end up having to go back and make changes to the game to get the rating that you want. All rating processes are inherently subjective and therefore have the same problems. The Dark Knight for example probably shouldn’t have gotten a PG-13 rating. Great movie, but I wouldn’t necessarily take a 13-year-old to see it.

For example, why is Halo rated M? Look at Halo, and look at Manhunt, or even the cut down version of Manhunt 2 that got released, and tell me the violence is comparable. Halo really should be rated T.

#12

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…That’s it? Having the occasionally subjective “T” rating as opposed to the expected “E” rating or the occassionally subjective “M” rating as opposed to the expected “T” rating is a reason to write off the ESRB as some kind of obstacle for VNs? I know they can be weird at times, but really, is that all there is to it?

Honestly, think about these “games” for a second. Visual novels have the “player” reading line after line of text as part of the “gameplay”–I can’t imagine a “younger” audience finding this concept to be very appealing to begin with, even if a title does have an “E” rating, so It should be perfectly obvious that these games were never designed with the intention of being appealing to a younger audience, regardless of how much effort you put into reverting a rating. Furthermore, I’ve seen no shortage T/M-rated games (including niche titles released by Atlus and NISA) being sold in “mainstream” retailers like Walmart, Best Buy, Gamestop, etc. Really, how much does having a T or M rating game truly negatively impact a title’s sales potential? In fact, I can even argue that a higher rating might help, as there’s still a lot of people out there who often associate anime/manga with “kids shows”.

Besides, if it has blood splattering all over the place, then it shouldn’t be unreasonable to expect to see an M-rating–This isn’t anything new. I’ve seen it with CSS, Call of Duty 4, Rainbow Six Las Vegas and a bunch of other games. So what if Halo gets an M-rating? That doesn’t stop the millions of whiny 8~12 year-olds from getting the game via their parents.

#13

The deal is that during development of a game - ported or original - producers (and the overlord that is Sony) will often state they want a specific rating for a game. You will abide by that ruling, because the producer (and Sony) is god. The ESRB is not consistent with how they rate things. There’s no real checklist or official guideline: a game developers thought would get a Teen, has gotten a Mature. A game that developers thought would get a Mature, has gotten an Everyone. I’m not making this up… it’s happened. The reason for it has a lot of explanations - the ESRB doesn’t rate games the same way. The ESRB sometimes doesn’t even check a game for content and been lied to - then other times, they’ll play the thing three times over and be ultra conservatives. It’s like Russian Roulette.

The ESRB is a hurdle when they’re made into one, and I’ve seen them made into one many times too often in House Sony. If a perceived ESRB rating is actually a problem, or just a half-ass excuse, doesn’t matter. It becomes a problem. You’re right… there’s a lot of M titles in the Sony library… which is when the politics factor rolls in. Title ranging from Metal Wolf Chaos to Dragon Force to Ganbare Goemon to… well… titles I can’t mention thanks to NDA’s, were rejected by Sony for reasons ranging from what the ESRB said, to they just didn’t like it (for an infinite number of reasons), to they didn’t even say why.

Porting a title from Japan on a Sony console isn’t always a cakewalk: there’s a lot of issues that never get publicized due to limits on disclosure from contractual agreement. Which are often there because Sony put them in there for exactly those reasons. It gets ugly real fast, and the sad part is that few gamers don’t know (or even care), because ignorance is bliss…

You’re right. What you say is true. But it doesn’t always matter - because those rules don’t always apply. The world of the Sony game producer and the Sony game consumer, are two entirely different dimensions, that just happen to have a few portals to each other. What you’ve seen is what makes it to the store… if only I could show you what didn’t make it to the store - it make you cry. Several game companies - one of them quite popular - went out of business because of these mind screwing activities. Agetec almost went under as well, but managed to claw themselves out the grave Sony dug for them. They most certainly are not the only two “niche” companies to get screwed over… just the two most vocal (although Agetec has been “silenced” as of late). Note that this hasn’t changed… what occurred in the early 2000’s still occurs today.

If you view the industry as a shareholder who knows NOTHING about gaming, and considers it no different than your typical banking investment, it makes a lot more sense I guess…

#14

Agreed, although in actuality, WD dug their own grave. Vic Ireland managed to piss off many of his business partners (licensors, console manufacturers), so it’s no surprise that companies like Sony became increasingly uncooperative and inflexible when dealing with him. WD had to fold simply because it became too difficult to secure contracts (the bad reputation spread through the industry, and there were now many competitors in the niche localization business) and get the games approved.

With Gaijinworks, Ireland has established new working relationships and has (supposedly) become more tactful. A return to publishing is the next goal.

#15

He also pissed off his shareholders to a massive extent, which is why he had to abandon Working Designs and start a new company over from scratch. The bad rep was a major factor, but the lack of capital was an even bigger one. He could have kept the bad rep if he had the money to bury it, but the whole ordeal of battling Sony and spending funds on projects Sony rejected, made that impossible.

The worst part about all this: Vic had done the impossible when he managed to get Konami to actually hand one of their IP’s to a third party that wasn’t AAA. Believe me, that is no small feat. Nor was Ganbare Goemon the only IP that Victor tried to secure… there were others… In any case, the matter left a very bad taste in Konami’s mouth about lending their material to third parties, and has only made it harder for third parties to secure IP’s from them.

Victor Ireland is a… complex man. He’s a total dick to superiors and business partners, for reasons I can never fathom - but he’s incredibly friendly and very pro-customer with fans. I’ve always tried to rational that if you agree with him, there’s no better friend. But if you’re disagreement, then it’s his way or the highway. Which surprisingly works from time to time… but fails just as much (if not more). Vic also burns bridges and holds a grudge. He sells a good bridge though: I’ll give him that much. The less you personally know about the man, the better your relationship with him. His list of enemies is quite long though, and going to Microsoft was an act of desperation IMHO. Nonetheless if he could somehow bring iDOLM@STER to Western shores - which I’m sure is his ultimate pipe dream at the moment - I’m sure even those who hate him would lend their support if he swallowed his pride and asked.

#16

The ESRB gets pissy when they slap a vastly incorrect label on something because they didn’t bother testing the product before rating it and then their rating is shown to be completely wrong.

Having your product recalled because the ESRB doesn’t actually do the job they charge money for could do serious damage to a small company who’d sunk lots of money into printing things that all had to be scrapped…

#17

Heh… remember that whole ordeal with Grand Theft Auto? Oh it made the ESRB look like a bunch of idiots… [url=http://www.esrb.org/about/news/7202005.jsp]but then they revealed their true power[/url]. Of course that was just an isolated incident… but no one has since had the balls to overtly hide something from them.

Angry ESRB is like the Incredible Hulk. Still stupid, but waaaay too strong. :wink: :stuck_out_tongue:

The ESRB only admits to 24. No one beats Peach Princess though. Looks like Peter stopped submitting titles for ratings after the first batch, and just labels them all AO on his own. :stuck_out_tongue:

#18

Rockstar never did “overtly hide” anything from the ESRB. They censored the content period, it was supposed to be inaccessible forevermore. They just didn’t want to be bothered spending time and effort actually ripping it out, so instead they put in a flag and set it to ‘true’ and expected that to be the end of it.

This was pretty darned stupid. I mean, really, it was literally just a flag in the savefile that says “turn off hot coffee?” - toggling the value reenabled the content. They should have known that wouldn’t be enough to keep it quiet. But they didn’t try to pull a fast one on the ESRB and not disclose to the ESRB content that they intended players to access. Instead Rockstar honestly believed they’d nuked the conent. Foolishly, but honestly.

(Yes, then they very stupidly tried to lie their asses off about it and hope if they spewed enough BS they could bury the controversy.)

#19

Assuming he gets the cheap price from the ESRB, that’s eight hundred dollars. $800 is a pretty hefty cost to cover when your game is expected to sell a few thousand units. It’s probably not enough to sink the game’s profitability (if PP was THAT close to the red, it would probably have folded years ago) but it IS a cost that arguably doesn’t buy you anything. The games all carry huge disclaimers plastered all over the place on the actual product and the sites that sell them anyway.

#20

I think some stores would have problems or policies against carrying AO rated games (IIRC this was a problem with the second Manhunt game). Although visual novels that get ported to consoles and handhelds are usually stripped of erotic content anyway, right? If that’s the case the worst I see any game getting is an M. Ratings aside, the main problem is probably just that it’s more expensive and with more red tape and regulations to publish a game for consoles/handhelds than it is for PC. But I sure would love to play some of these games on my psp…