sad, but not entirely unexpected.
meh. I suppose when I get the current project out of the development phase that’s taking up so much of my time, perhaps I should see if I can find someone in dojinsoft to approach for licensing rights…
I think it’s about time Hirameki released an official statement. They had been MIA for a while and could not handle the problems on their community forums. I just hope some other company can follow-up on their works. I really enjoyed Ever17 and hope for other KID(being picked up by Cyber Front) titles to be released here in America.
[ 01-05-2008, 05:45 PM: Message edited by: Vaati ]
That is quite a shame. I was hoping they’d come back with a new title, as unlikely as that was. Ah well. Glad they took a chance on the genre, since Yo-Jin-Bo is what really got me into these types of games.
I was hoping they would make a comeback as well. But this is not at all surprising, given recent events. They censored their games, for content or (on some of their DVD titles) because it was too difficult. They released in the abominable DVD player format, and finally after they switched to PC games, they had a fatal run of bad luck (Kid going under right before they could buy rights to Never 11 and that other one).
When I was at their booth at ACen this year, they were selling off the DVD-player games at large discounts. The guy told me they were trying to finish the deal; this evidently was unsuccessful. That is too bad.
Crap. Didn’t they have patches or something for one of their games up on the website? Which game was that? I think I might need to try to find it.
I hope my life goes out of business like them.
So, only PP remains now.
Now I’m curious to see if Peapri will “collect the pieces”, like in the past 
.
If so, I’m also hoping for a new&improved PC version of the initial, ABOMINABLE DVD FORMAT games from Hirameki…
This really scares me, it seems when it comes to this genre, everyone is always hanging on by a thread. First C’s Ware and Himeya, then G-Collections (Which was very aggressive in their release schedule and brought in some of the best games I ever played in English) and now Hirameki? It’s almost like PP is next.
The answer is overspecialization. You can not survive in the business world if you cater only towards a niche market, most especially if your initial resources are limited.
And I’m not speaking only of erogames. I’ve lost the count of defunct shops/firms catering exclusively to RPG or Card gamers, for a related example.
Peapri is different because is a deputy service for goods from Japan, and erogames are merely a side business for it.
Well, I found the patches (via the google cache of the main site); God knows how long they’ll remain available. I guess we’ll see what happens; if PP picks the pieces up then I expect they’ll slipstream the patches into updated releases, or just make them available.
There’s still Kitty Media. 
The only problem I saw with hirameki was that they took regular bishoujo games and gutted the eroge content.
Only with a couple titles (which I did not buy.) Their big sellers were non-ero to begin with.
Hey, PP, ever consider making an all-ages brand/division? There are several titles out there I’d love to purchase (the rest of KID’s stuff, True Tears, Princess Maker series.)
I’m quite saddened by the news. So now it’s down to two companies. . .again - although Kitty Media doesn’t have any upcoming visual novel titles at all (I hope you all bought Discipline and Snow Sakura, too).
Their translation work was getting better with each release too - Piece of Wonder had zero grammar/spelling errors, although they dropped the use of honorifics. And they were even in the process of pursuing after Never 7 and Memories Off. I thought their staff members were awesome and also ever hopeful, so it sucks to hear of this.
2006 seemed like visual novels were on the rise thanks to the entry of Kitty Media, the imminent revival of G-Collections, Galaxy Angel possibily coming out, and Hirameki releasing a lot of things, yet here at the beginning of 2008 and things are almost back as things were before (except JAST seems stronger than ever before, at least).
[ 01-06-2008, 06:30 PM: Message edited by: Mockingbird ]
It may be that even though they went under their products aimed at a more general audiance might actually help, along with other things, bring more of these games over.
Right now though…I’m waiting for Galaxy Angel game release. Hope Hirameki’s demise doesn’t make Broccoli unwilling to attempt a English publication.
I bought copies of their games… didn’t actually play them, but I bought them. 
Was kinda was hoping Kitty Media would pickup something from Atelier Kaguya, seeing as how they translated a few of the OVA’s based off their titles - but they’ve been rather quiet as of late.
Could be a good sign… or it could be a bad sign. Guess time will tell.
[ 01-06-2008, 10:44 PM: Message edited by: Nargrakhan ]
Even though I didn’t like many of Hirameki’s practices, I am glad they existed solely because of Ever 17. More people need to play that game.
Without Hirameki I wouldn’t have ever started to purchase Peach Princess’ and G-Collection games… so I’m saddened that there will be no more novels from them…
As for the hatred of the all ages DVD-games, it’s too bad they couldn’t have released them as the PS2 versions… But actually, like with Phantom; I found the game much more enjoyable with the mountains of visual effects found in the dvd version; compared to the almost bare adult Integration Japanese PC version.
Hmm but…
Sort of unrelated… Geneon died too didn’t it?
What’s the deal…?!
Don’t go anywhere my Princess Peach!
It’s because of the massive rise in bittorrent that companies are losing money so badly. That they can’t support themselves and it’s not worth it if people are just gonna steal it. I myself used to be guilty of this but I’ve changed my ways.
[ 01-07-2008, 12:41 AM: Message edited by: GogetaSS4 ]