Someone pointed out to me that it’s really not unusual… just towards a different medium.
Same “phenomenon” happens in the West with stuff like Warhammer (fantasy and 40k), Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars, EA Sports, The SIMS, etc.
Going by the technicality of sales: there are more of them in the West. 
Some idiot out there a couple years back said he was going to remake The Birds. Yes, the Alfred Hitchcock movie. No, I have no idea what he might be “thinking”, but it certainly can’t have anything to do with making a good movie. Either you try to make a mostly-faithful remake (in which case, you are not Alfred Hitchcock, therefore, you are not going to be successful), or you try to do a different take on the concept – in which case, it won’t work because 9 times out of 10, the new vision is a lot like most other movies of its type, and that’s not why The Birds is awesome.
Evospace posted on his blog a tentative release schedule for MangaGamer.
http://www.akiba-ch.com/?p=1134
Yes! Soul Link please! 
One release every month? I hope they know what they’re doing :roll:
I thought we already knew they have no clue? Seriously, if their actual plan is one game per month … given their past history, I just can’t see it.
i hope they at least get shuffle on time
I imagine the dates are set based on the ‘engrish transration and no editing’ time frames.
Mangagamer MIGHT have the license for more games
This is based off the fact that they were selling merchandise for more games…so at the very least, they must have connections
Otome wa Boku Ni Koishiteru
Fate/Stay Night, Lamento - Beyond the Void, ‘Togainu No Chi’ is mentioned, and one more title I don’t know of
School Days
It just means that HOBIBOX was there, selling their merchandise.
I’ve just watched the page Mangagamer put up for Shuffle!, and the plot sure seems to be lame. A God princess and a Devil princess, both casually in love with a totally anonymous human boy, that they both met for only a few minutes years and years ago? Surely an eroge that has its main focus on slice-of-life scenes (as I suppose this is the case) doesn’t need a strong plot, but at least I would expect something reasonable.
With all the good stuff that’s coming out in the next year, I can hardly see myself paying 50 euros for this game :? (besides, with Kira Kira at 37 euros, I thought that would’ve been the standard price for future releases, I can’t seem to find any sense in these choices they’re making).
Considering Mangagamer is in the red, we are likely to start seeing future games released around 40 to 50 euro price range. With Higurashi coming out in 4 chapters I’d expect this to start off atleast at 50 euro but more then likely it will be at 40 euro’s. It could also be a company choice to price it in this range. I wouldn’t buy shuffle at 30 euro’s myself just too much of a crap game.
I will shit bricks if they ever manage to announce School Days. Which company is the owner of that, and were they on the MangaGamer poster at AX?
The company that made School Days was Overflow. Not sure if their name was on the AX poster though. Isn’t that game full motion video all the way through? I don’t see how they would add english text to that. If MG ever does pick it up somehow that’s going to be 8gb of a download (better off using BT technology.)
An update to it added subtitles. Modify the displayer, translate the subtitles to English, it’s basically like watching subbed anime, I guess.
Don’t know if this really fits with MangaGamer’s existing ‘port everything to BGI*’ approach, because School Days would be VERY DIFFICULT TO PORT. To anything. Well, maybe rUGP would be an option since it has good support for all those kinds of movie displayables, but it would still be a lot of work.
*everything except Edelweiss and Kira Kira, obviously, because they’re already BGI =P
My guess is this. Mangagamer seems more like a loose conglomerate of developers than a standalone entity, and with that model it’d make sense that the developers would each set their own prices.
The perfect price for me right now is what Kira Kira is priced at. Comes to around $50 and I wouldn’t think twice about picking up a title at that price point. When manga gamer puts a game with anime/manga/eroge recognition it’s going to be at a premium price. I know it’s been said before but Jast really spoils our wallets with their prices. Not to get too side tracked but I was wondering what everyone else would think if ¬Ä49.95 was the maximum manga gamer is going to charge for any of their “AAA” titles?
49.95 Euros = 6 432.61911 Japanese yen
Ehh, I don’t know, but that’s still a fair bit cheaper than pretty much any new eroge.
And aren’t these essentially new eroges (for people who don’t know Japanese)?
Don’t see anything wrong with the price myself - although I’m not that familiar with the translation quality. Are you saying you’d happily pay original price for everything if they were perfectly translated?
EDIT: Whoops! I forgot for a moment that these were download-only. Yeah, okay, that’s a bit much.
But you also forgot that translated eroges are uncensored so we get something more that those who buy japanese editions.
Frankly, them being uncensored does not matter to me at all. And download-only means the game is guaranteed to self-destruct. So no, this is not a good tradeoff. Ever 17 can still be installed even though Hirameki is out of business. When (not if) MangaGamer goes under, their titles probably just lay down and die. Gone forever. Once you have not got an activated machine that can play the game, you are SOL.