Nitro+ by JAST USA

JAST Games Game Discussions
#101

I’m aware of the OS compatibility issue but its been around a year ago since that info was made public and still no news. I’m not saying Jast and Nitro+ aren’t working hard on resolving it but I wish there was something they can do to keep the interest for Jingai Makyou alive. New eroges/bishoujo games are being released and even fan translated (like Majikoi) so it might be harder for a much older game to compete. If I’m not mistaken Demonbane had the same problem as Jingai Makyou now which resulted to its delayed release. I wonder though if using the same “fix” will resolve the issue unless they have already tried. In any case, I don’t think the English release of Jingai Makyou is out for the count just yet but I do hope its release won’t take another year or more of waiting.

That’s good to hear though not very reassuring. I hope its not a losing battle. I’ll still give them my support regardless.

#102

The news was that Jingai Makyou was put on hold in favor of the 4 games that were announced instead. To me that says indeed, Nitro+ is not working hard on resolving the issue. I mean, they’re already working hard on a lot of other things. Honestly, Jast USA in general is going to be at the bottom of Nitroplus’ list of priorities. And Jingai Makyou is at the bottom of Jast’s priorities.

Sorry, but I’m quite positive it will take a bare minimum of 2 years of waiting. My best guess is by the end of 2012, the two 99%-done games will probably release. But it’s not guaranteed. Then after that the next two games will enter the same limbo. That will take at least another year. Then they will announce more Nitroplus games. If that batch includes Jingai Makyou, and that is the game they work on first, then it might be out about 2 years from now. But based on the already-established track record of “Nitroplus takes forever” I see absolutely no way it will move faster.

Sucks, doesn’t it? We want more! We want more!

#103

Hmm… I noticed Steins;Gate being mentioned in this thread, and recalled that it “borrowed” stuff from that old John Titor story posted on BB’s way back when. Fake as that person might be, I’m to understand that some of the stuff he claimed/said might be copyrighted by the John Titor Foundation, which published a book, and someone has been legally patenting odds and ends the guy posted.

I haven’t actually played Steins;Gate or watched it’s spin off media, but was just sorta curious how much was taken from that Titor guy. I don’t believe in the real life time travel claim, but someone out there seems to have thought about profiting from it, and might try to push a legal claim if too much is taken.

#104

The John Titor story has absolutely no interest value unless there is some possibility that the guy posting it at least believed in his own mind what he was saying, in which case obviously nobody can claim copyright on it and there’s obvious prior art re: patenting it.

Only the original author (John Titor) would be able to do this, and if he’s actually doing this there’s zero interest to the story. I don’t think 5pb has too much to worry about, though. While major details (CERN, black holes, the IBM 5100) remain the same between the two stories, steins;gate takes far too many liberties, especially with the technology, for it to risk running afoul of any patents.

#105

Besides, you can’t patent a storyline. You can copyright a storyline, but not patent it. If someone patents the technology that John Titor ‘invented’, then you can still write a book about said patented technology…

#106

So it’s been over a year since they announced Nitro+'s new titles and no updates. Anything from this year’s AX? I think it’s pretty understandable to expect something after a year of silence about these 2 titles.

Seems like its too much to expect the developers to care about the overseas market, despite what they say.

#107

All we got from this years AX is that the translation on Saya/Hana has been gone over by JAST and completed/finalized. Now its waiting on Nitro+ (as it has been for a while now)
Meanwhile Django and Sumaga are still in translation (ie no change there)

#108

From the blog post someone wrote summarizing the panel, it sounded like Saya no Uta and Hanachirasu were both having issues in the engine department because they’re so old modern OS’es have trouble with them. This the same thing that caused Demonbane to take so long. So I would expect - hope? Pray? - that they come out by the end of the year. It sounded like Sumaga doesn’t have those issues.

Reading between the lines it sounds dubious that Jingai Makyou will ever make it across, given that it would be the fourth Nitroplus game to have technical problems causing delays. It will probably be easier for N+ to focus on more recent titles.

Unfortunately, we are a second thought to the Japanese market. A distant second. Sales are about an order of magnitude lower, for half the price. Unsurprisingly, very few companies are even willing to talk to us. I’m convinced the ones that do view the English market as a long-term investment: not really worth it in the short term, valuable because of the chance of creating a viable long-term market.

#109

I wish that JAST would put up an official announcement on the fate of Jingai Makyou/Chaos Gate. Though on their twitter they said they haven’t given up hope on a release in the future it’s a rather ambiguous statement. As much as I want it to be released in English I rather have them tell us the project is discontinued than to keep us waiting in false hope. As for the other old Nitroplus titles (Saya no Uta, Hanachirasu, Sumaga) we can only hope they don’t suffer the same fate.

I heard that there was an independent group making an English patch Steins;Gate. But one of the translators went MIA, took off with all the work when it was nearly completed, and sold it to JAST without the other member’s consent. Knowing this will JAST intend to release the game?

#110

The Peter Payne empire had some very bad experiences in the early days of Peach Princess. All of the posts by “Kumiko Kamiyama” were deleted a long time ago (for good reason, ‘she’ wasn’t), but in the early days, Peach Princess had smeone whose job it was basically to hang out here and develop a community.

As part of that role, a whole bunch of stuff was disclosed. Games were announced as soon as the deal was done, but before a lot of due diligence on how long the project would actually take. Many of those ended up delayed for several years. (Little My Maid preorders were open for so long there were problems with credit cards having been cancelled in the interim.) Games were announced that ultimately never saw the light of day. Some sales data was even disclosed (such as the size of a print run, and how long it took for a game to get its second print run).

The long and short of it is that Peter’s learned the hard way that often, the best thing to do is keep his mouth shut. Jingai Makyou’s future is very uncertain; they’d like it to happen, but given the actual reality involved, likely it won’t. But there’s always that chance! Publically announce ‘it’s never going to happen’, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Better to just let it die the quiet death that La Voyeur: Used Condom did.

#111

I’m still waiting for Slave Bazaar aka Dorei Ichiba. It’s all right there in that flyer I have. :stuck_out_tongue: :wink:

#112

Is it Shijou or Ichiba? Wikipedia says Ichiba. EGS says Shijou. I was under the impression Shijou was correct based on the game’s plot, but who knows…

Let’s just call it ‘Slave Market’. Carry the ambiguity from the Japanese title to the English title.

EDIT: Managed to hunt down the original website, looks like even ruf called it Slave Bazaar (although they misspelled it), so I guess it is Ichiba.

#113

A bloody shame that Jingai Makyou may never see the light of day in English. It would be awesome if JAST could promote this figure along with the game if ever they released it.

#114

I want >.>

#115

I get the feeling we’ll get it eventually. They mentioned licensing it and Nitro+Royal but putting them on hold due to not having Windows Vista/7 versions.

Nitro+ (and Nitro+Chiral) have slowly but steadily been re-releasing those older titles in updated editions so we should get Jingai Makyou eventually. Of the 12 Nitro+ titles released before Windows Vista, 4 have been re-released. If you count the all ages release of Kikokugai then 5 have been released. As for Nitro+Chiral, of the 2 titles released before Windows Vista both have been re-released.

#116

In like when? A year or so from now? Demonbane and Jingai Makyou were announced to be released in English about roughly the same time. Only Demonbane was released among the 2 Nitroplus games last year and even that had a major delay. Even Saya no Uta might share the same fate as Jingai Makyou if the OS compatibility issues aren’t fixed soon. The longer the delayed or put on hold interest for the game will dwindle and the project would get canceled due to lack of support. It’s been already 7 years since Jingai Makyou was release in Japan and chances of an English release look grim at this point. Though Demonbane was released in English 8 years after Japan it had better support due to its greater popularity.

#117

Demonbane’s delay was a different issue entirely. On the Nitro+USA website they mentioned that they wanted to make a base engine specifically for the US releases rather then adapt each to English on a per game basis (as JAST has done in the past).

Saya No Uta has a windows Vista/7 version ( The Best! Volume 2 ), the holdup with that according to the twitter posts is the priorities. Nitro+ prioritizes Japan’s releases over the US releases and so they keep getting put on the back bench. The only one I believe that is at risk of being put on ‘temporary hold’ in their current lineup is Hanachirasu. It hasn’t got a re-release and has a minigame so theirs some engine differences there. Nitro+Royal is the one I think might remain on ‘indefinite hold’ persay. I’d assume Nitro+ would give main titles priority over fandisks/fun titles and theres still another 6 main titles to go before they reach the 2 fun titles (Sabato Nabe and Nitro+Royale).

Based on the schedule of the re-releases they do at least 1 main title a year:
“Hello, world.” - 2008
Phantom - 2009
Saya - 2009
Demonbane - 2009
Lamento - 2010
Kikokugai (All Ages) - 2011
Togainu - 2012
So the next re-release will probably come out next year. Of the options, I’d assume it’d be either ‘Gekkou no Carnevale’, ‘Hanachirasu’ or ‘Jingai Makyou’. The other 3 I don’t really hear about.

Its probably also worth mentioning that 3 years in itself is nothing compared to Doushin.
I had it pointed out to me that it was announced in 2001 and released in 2006, it took 5 years to finally see the light of day. If Jingai Makyou reaches 5 years without release…then I’d say it’s grim.

#118

I don’t think it will take a year. Demonbane is a longer game, and it didn’t get delayed by like two years. It is my sincere belief (hope? Delusion? Couldn’t say :wink: that the games will release before the end of the year, as that will be getting close to the length of time Demonbane was delayed.

I also don’t see Saya no Uta, at least, getting cancelled, for a few reasons. I think you’re underestimating its popularity. After Madoca Magica, the writer got famous. Also, this is far from the first time Jast USA/Peach Princess have delayed a game for a very long time. It isn’t even the most absurd delay! That would go to - I can’t remember exactly - one of Doushin, or Little My Maid, or Transfer Student. The thing is that Jast USA / Peter Payne hardly ever announces a game, starts work on it, and then cancels it. There were a few games announced very early in the history of Peach Princess: Slave Bazaar, La Voyeur: Used Condom, and Newscaster Mariko. Then there’s Sakigake (which they tried to pick up after Hobibox imploded, but ultimately couldn’t) and Cleavage (which is “on hold” pending “discovery” of uncensored image data that doesn’t exist).

Cleavage is the closest thing to an unexpected show-stopper technical problem killing a project. And they told us what happened and put the title ‘on hold’. Whereas the current situation with Nitroplus can be compared better to Little My Maid. It took forever and a day because of extensive technical issues on the Japanese side. The thing is, work proceeded on those issues at a very slow pace (because the Japanese companies are always busy) but did proceed. It never stopped entirely. LMM was eventually released.

So it sucks, and it’s going to take a really long time, but it IS coming.

#119

Yeah, when I said that Jingai Makyou would take two years minimum to be released in English (and only then if it was announced soon) I was speaking from long experience. At least they had the courtesy of un-announcing Jingai Makyou rather than try to beat their old record :wink:

#120

Did you guys forget that there was a tsunami which hit japan at the time before demonbane got released? The tsunami probably tacked on few months.