The way it goes with me is that I get an e-mail when I place the order. Then after a while, I’ll get the e-mail saying my credit card was charged. After that I’ll get the “within 24 hours” e-mail. I never do get one when it actually ships.
To clarify the shipping questions:
We shipped the bulk of Princess Waltz pre-orders between December 1-3, with a few final ones going out on December 4th. All pre-orders that were charged have now been shipped. Orders are going out to our wholesale clients now as well.
We began charging for the pre-orders last week once we had a concrete “in stock” date in order to address any issues that might come up during processing, and make sure we were able to get games out the door as quickly as possible; the email notices that people received last week reflect this (and not the actual shipment of the games; we apologize for the confusing wording).
Just got back from work and noticed that my order came in. First thing i noticed was that the packaging on the game is as high quality as a dvd movie case. Another thing I noticed was a big sticker on the front saying there’s a one time activation on this release by PP. I guess a really didn’t look through this thread and notice this mention but I just wanted to say that I don’t regret my purchase. The things getting removed sooner or later so it’s not a big deal to me. Hope this move makes it possible for JAST/PP/G-Collections to obtain more high profile games from publishers.
Seems like I’m rambling on, so I just wanted to say that I hope to enjoy that game (been waiting months for it) and thanks to PP for making a title like this available to us English speaking people 
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I agree with you immensely on hopes of more high profile games, and I’ve been encouraging those I know who are into h-games to purchase this. It’s quite a major milestone for PP on the release of this title, I’m hoping it sees a lot of success and surpasses PP’s sales expectations. It’s interesting to see the history of PP and how much they have progressed.
I’m looking forward to the day when high profile games that are announced in Japan, get released there and maybe a couple of months later, that PP “announces” acquiring a license for them. Only to see these titles come out a 1-2 years after the japanese release (I’d prefer earlier but you can’t rush everything). The day that PP can meet with publishers and be welcomed and granted licenses easily, is a day I can see possibly happening within the next 5 years. Hopefully by then we’ll also see games being licensed that have anime counterparts.
A quick update on the lack-of-updates: the release of Princess Waltz this week has kept our PR department (yours truly) occupied such that it looks like we’re not going to have concrete word on our next title out by the end of the week. We’re still waiting on a couple of variables that will be known in the next few days as well before making the final decision. When the decision is finalized you’ll hear it here first (though not in this thread, which I’ve done a fine job of derailing already).
Princess Waltz IS that new, basically. Sure, it was announced a year or so after its Japanese release (not a few months) - but the game came out in April 06 in Japan and in Dec 08 in the US. Yes, that’s two and a half, not two, years. It’s still pretty damn close.
Anime has a much wider availability now than it did a few years ago. Anime-type games (eroge or otherwise), though, have only juuuust recently demonstrated they have a reliable market outside of Japan. It will be quite some time before visual novels are popular enough that PP will get licenses easily. At least, the very ultra-famous game makers are still going to want huge sums commensurate with the vast sales they expect (based on population size comparisons). Either a VERY large increase of popularity needs to happen, or the price has to come down A LOT, before PP will be able to go knocking on any door and get in.
At least, that’s what I would have said before MangaGamer. I honestly have no clue what happens now they’re here. If they flame out in 6 months, well, Circus will probably try again later, but it will be a setback just like it was when Elf tried to come into the US market. Conversely if they succeed, and demonstrate that even big-selling games like DC don’t have (Pop of US / Pop of Japan) times as many sales as the Japanese domestic release – BUT they STILL make money – then we might see this market finally open up.
My copy of princess waltz arrived today. Even got a LWR poster and a YMK poster.
yeah i got my copy today as well
haven’t got to play it or install it yet
I’m hoping that they’ll be able to get their hands on those visual novels to which people attempted to translate but haven’t due to the game being hard to crack.
As far as i know, no one at least publicly was able to crack all the files in Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien, apart from the prologue text no more has been figured out. At least 5 groups started on this, but never finished due to not being able to crack it, i believe one is still trying it.
I think this game is one of the longest installs I’ve seen too, and my machine isn’t by no means slow. it took about 15 minutes to install this. ^^; I think it installed around 2.3gb of data or something. I haven’t gotten to really start it just yet though, will do so later tonight.
Looks like your manual is missing your Defender Code. My code sticker covers up that “no code required” box. Hopefully Shingo can get you some help so you can start enjoying the game (good card combat IMHO).
software defender has been causing me problems
Just got back home from gaming (that is to say, roleplaying) with my friends and found my copy in the mail. Contrary to what opticalsky said, I found it installed fairly quickly (at least on my desktop, I haven’t installed yet on my laptop). I’m about to see how the DRM works and try the game. I foresee a possible sleepless night, what with it being the night I watch anime in addition to the game arriving.
Hmmm, it looks like Shingo may be starting a sticky thread in the near future if lots of others got a game without an activation code. As for the DRM itself, it was very simple and not a pain at all, for me at least. I just put in the code when I was prompted and then the game immediately started.
On a side note, even though I’m barely in the game (haven’t even had a card battle yet), I’m loving it. I’ve laughed many times already.
Yeah, I’m liking the characters so far. For me there isn’t really much in-game explanation of the card system, I know I got a manual but I skimmed through it and didn’t find out much as to what colors of the cards mean. Only thing I recognized really is that it appears to use a “rock paper scissor system”.
In any case, I’m having a few problems with mine. One I’m assuming has something to do with the DRM. I do however have my code, so there is no problem there. However, my case involves when launching the game, you see a quick flash of the secure defender on the screen before the game boots up. Which is fine, but the weird part is that the FIRST time ALWAYS causes the game to freeze up, then I gotta Control alt del, stop the game, then start it again and it works fine. I have to go through this same process every time I start the game up after a system reboot/start up. Any game launching after the first one is fine, until I reboot the system again. Seems to be a bug to me.
Even more like Kikaijikake no Eve and Amatsukaze than I thought!
I finally reached the first card battle. I took some time to read through the “help” section once I started the battle. While the card battle rules at first seemed like gibberish to me, I believe I’ve got the basics down, considering that I beat the first opponent and was only hit once (and this wasn’t on easy mode). I’m going to take an educated guess that the next battle will start introducing the new game mechanic of skill cards, since only the five dealt cards in red, blue, and green were part of this first battle. So far I’m really enjoying the card battles. The rules so far are quite well-balanced. That is to say, they aren’t so complicated as to discourage you, but they aren’t so simple that you feel you’ve mastered them right away (thus making the card game boring).
I was having that problem as well where i had to use the task manager to shut down the program. I notice it opens up 2 process of the game where I closed one of them one time and the game started automatically and one time where I had to restart it again like you said. Also have a problem where my first card battle is always glitch up where i only see big color boxes moving across the screen so i have to restart the game and re-load (good thing it ask to save right before a battle) where it seems to be fine the second time.
BTW the “help” button that MEIJI mention REALLY helps to explain the battle system. Was just throwing card up like crazy at first lol.
It took me a while before I noticed the HELP button there. haha. I see I’m not the only one that’s having an issue with the card system. I don’t have the issue you have, but for some reason right after card battles, my computer starts lagging really badly. So now I usually save right after a battle, quit the game, reload the game and the game is running fine again. These are the really the only 2 problems (this one, and the one mentioned in the post before), that I’m having.
On a separate note, I’m really starting to like the main character’s behavior. I actually like all the girls so far too, one girl I really like is suzumi(?) keiko. (the girl thats always bent forward in class), she’s really cute. As for the princesses, of what I met they are all great, I’m gonna have a hard time choosing girls here. So far the card battles are fairly easy, even on normal. However I’m early in the game, so it may get harder later.
I think we can count on the battles getting tough, given how good some of the skill cards sound from their description in the help section and what it has said about battles where you have a limited number of rounds to win the battle. Now back to the window the game is running in to find out for sure!