i remember nitro+ saying they might release the 2nd demonbane if the first one sells well
You mean Kishinhishou right? Kishinhoshou is PS2 version of the first game. It has full voice, but no hentai scenes. It is very hard to get, and it requires Japanese PS2.
I thought JAST was trying to get some stuff from PS2 version. Maybe, I was being rich.
Oh really? Then how are people supposed to understand content of the second game without reading the first prequel novel? That’s being irresponsible. I guess I gotta start finishing the translation.
maybe if the first game is successful enough jast will release translated versions of the novels
i hope he here some good news sometime soon
Just question. So how successful does this have to be for that to happen? I know eroge in USA is minor, so I am not expecting big number.(Not sure about how the genre goes in Japan either)
Oh, Demonbane would have sold decently; at least 30,000 copies. It was outsold by a number of other titles that year but still managed to beat Eien no Aselia so that’s nothing to sneeze at.
I wouldn’t even want to try and guess at JAST’s sales figures, or the kind of success factors JAST would use; however, I think the likelihood of the novels being translated are very, very slim.
Many years ago, some information was leaked regarding sales numbers; but I don’t remember what it was. Something about how long it took one of their recently released games to go thru a print run, and then, independently, the size of a print run.
The only recent tidbit of information would relate to MangaGamer’s recent brouhaha with Koihime Musou. They indicated they expect to get < 2K sales for the game, and they also implied that Shuffle has barely sold more than 1K copies. I’d expect Jast’s sales are much better, since J-List had for years lots of exposure at Something Awful. (Doesn’t look like much anymore, the reviews stopped in 2008 and I haven’t seen J-List ads there recently.) J-List also has their games for sale at various other websites and cons. MangaGamer has none of this, and a reputation for shoddy products. (Which is now basically undeserved, but it will persist for awhile.)
So I’d take a stab in the dark and venture Jast USA’s games sell a few thousand units. Enough to catch NitroPlus’ interest, but not enough to prompt a deluge of Japanese firms interested in signing up.
As for the novels being translated, I’d have to say I’d be highly skeptical of that ever happening. If Jast does decide to translate the sequel, I’d expect a brief summary of the novel in the liner notes for the game, if anything.
if they do go on j-list fan translation or summery or if jast releases the 2nd game they could include summaries of the novels
The criteria for success would likely depend on the timescale that they’re observing. Hopefully they understand that the English market is quite different from the Japanese market (in that the Japanese market tends to be extremely frontloaded while the English market is not). At least, that’s what I’ve been led to believe.
I don’t know about the English eroge market, but the English gaming market in general is quite frontloaded–often most of a game’s sales are in the first month or two after release.
I think the English eroge market would model similar ‘small’ markets, such as keitai apps and games sold primarily online by smaller ventures, and thus only be marginally front-loaded. This is probably why JAST does reasonably well; they’ve got a large back catalogue of titles that are likely still selling, drawing in revenue with little expense.
To get heavily front-loaded sales you need to do a lot of marketing and to build up a lot of prerelease hype for titles. JAST has trouble with this because they can only do so much thanks to the fact that they are selling an inherently niche product and the fact that they don’t commit to release dates.
I would expect the translated h-game market to be much less front-loaded than the Japanese h-game market. (This is one of the positives that offsets the lower sales and lower price.) In Japan, thousands of titles come out every year. Titles age very rapidly, and get buried under the weight of all the titles released since it came out.
I doubt very much Brave Soul sells any significant numbers in Japan. Now, it probably doesn’t sell very MANY copies in the foreign markets anymore, but it is still one of the only H-RPGs ever released here, and it’s still in print. So I’d expect it still sees significant sales.
Hundreds, yes, thousands, no.
On the whole you’re correct, although this is starting to become somewhat offset through DL sales sites, which allow old titles to get a second go. It’s still very front-loaded, though, and as you can see from sales rankings most of the sales of a game are preorder or release-weekend sales.
There’s exceptions, of course; print runs are often sufficient to keep MOST popular eroge available for years after release (except in the cases of companies like Palette, Softhouse Chara, minori etc.) and old titles can become popular again. Princess Lover, a 2008 game, got on the 2009 sales rankings (in 29th place, but nonetheless) probably due to the anime release revitalising interest in the game. Fate/stay Night, a 2004 eroge, got on the 2006 sales rankings thanks to the anime adaptation. There’s also lesser examples of these, when titles released in one month continue to do well enough to appear in the sales rankings of the next month, or even the month after. Takahiro’s Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai! came #1 in August 2009 when it was released, #3 in September and #26 in October. But yeah, I’m pretty certain Brave Soul isn’t selling at the moment. Crowd haven’t even put it up for DL sales (unlike their other titles) and it’s most definitely out of print.
Then, if I manage to finish translating the first prequel novel, would JAST care to look, edit stuff and publish? To be honest, I am translating from korean version, so not sure. Yeah I am far from professional in translation, but still passionate about it 
I hope JAST would include materials from PS2 version which didn’t contain h material, but added other things. But that’s asking too much, isn’t it?
BTW, the second game has VN elements but not much about choice. Mostly mecha battle.
The third game will be coming out next year or 2012. It seems to be back to visual novel this time.
maybe maybe not but you could put it on a share site or manga updates
If they didn’t also go back and re-release an updated PC version with the added content from the PS2 version in Japan, I doubt the extra stuff will be back-ported to the PC version just for the foreign market. Would be nice, though.
Crescendo had the voices, but not the extra content, added to its release, though. You never know.
I started working on the translation again. But damn, this job takes a lot of time. Then again, the first one is the longest one, and most difficult one to translate out of all 3 novels.
I really should start reading light novels. The Toraha3 and Demonbane ones are books I should not left unread. >_<
Anything Toraha or Azifu should be mine!
Just curious. Do you read Japanese? I am kinda learning Japanese atm, but not like I would reach sufficient level soon.
Take your time, it’s not like the game will be out anytime soon (seriously, anyone want to make bets on which will come out first: Demonbane or Harukoi Otome?).
demonbane since harukoi otome to my knowledge hasn’t even been started