Rising Star Open U.S. Office, Akai Katana Headed To North America

By Ishaan . January 26, 2012 . 9:00am

Rising Star Games announced this morning that they are expanding into North America by opening a new U.S. headquarters. Based in California, the North American branch’s first release will be Cave shoot-em-up Akai Katana.

Akai Katana will be released simultaneously for the Xbox 360 in North America and Europe in Q2 2012.

Additionally, Rising Star have also set up another division — Rising Star Games Digital — which will publish videogames on digital platforms, including Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, Steam, iOS and Android.

“Rising Star Games Digital has been something we’ve been working on for a while,” says Rising Star managing director, Martin Defries. “We envisage a huge growth in downloadable product over the coming years, and intend to play a big part shaping the future development of our exciting industry.”

Thanks to denpa no sekai for sending us a heads up!

http://www.youtube.com/user/xxHiryuuxx Hiryuu
Awwww yeeeeeee…
Jrpgfanatic
YESSSS!
I’m a big fan of RSG and have been supporting their EU only, import friendly, titles for a while now so this is amazing news! Welcome to North America RSG! <3
http://twitter.com/DanijoEX DanijoEX
Looks cool.
I’m laying down…
cjeromek
Yay! More niche publishers is always a good thing.
Zonic505
1st DoDonPachi: Maximum, now Akai Katana is coming to the US. I’m seriously digging all these CAVE shooters coming to the US at once.
SomeMist
everyone who’s a fan of cave shmups should get this! It’s been one of my favorite releases since ketsui. I’ll probably buy another copy just to support Cave/RSG
Go2hell66
The world is a better place with Rising Star Games :)
http://twitter.com/mistermeemee mistermeemee
More CAVE shmups the better!
Mister_Nep
Definitely gonna support this move, by buying the game when it comes out.
http://www.genkaibreak.com Code
Was going to import when it came out in Europe, but looks like I won’t have to now >w<' Seriously best of luck to Rising Star's new North American offices. Although I'm hoping they continue to maintain there great trend of regional free releases of Cave's titles!

http://www.siliconera.com Ishaan
EU release was going to be region-locked last we heard, so that may not have worked out too well!

TrevHead
Yeah it with what Grev it seems that MS has pulled the plug on regoin free games. If true RSG are our sole hope for playing shmups on our western 360s.
Theres always thye GOD route, but ild imagine CAVE and Grev will be holding back in hopes RSG publish the title.
It would be nice that when RSG have done with 360 shmups that we get a deluge of the rest on GOD
http://www.genkaibreak.com Code
Ah I gotcha, glad to hear they are going to have an American release then owo’ I figured after Dodonpachi Dai-fukkatsu got regional free release, and them acquiring the rights around the same time for Akai Katana, it might have been the same. But well if it’s gotta be regional locked, having worldwide release is the next best thing >w<'

http://twitter.com/sheleigha Shel
This is awesome news!!
cj_iwakura
You hear that, Aksys? Try again with Shikigami 3. It’s time.

SirTeffy
If you mean Shikigami no Shirou 3 it’s been out in the USA for QUITE awhile on the Wii. Look for “Castle Shikigami 3″.

cj_iwakura
I, uh, know. :P http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/shikigami/shikigami3.htm
Aksys wanted to bring the 360 version here, and were turned down by MS.

http://twitter.com/Paradox_me Paradox me
Oh man, that’s amazing!
http://twitter.com/matty_125 matty
That’s amazing.
Semi-related, Cave is apparently doing Games on Demand, too (in Japan).
http://cave-game.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2012/01/god.html
It would be cool if Rising Star would handle the localization of the games Cave is releasing on GoD, too.

http://www.genkaibreak.com Code
Agreed, I heard that too, but seems like at least for the time being it’s only in Japan o~o’ Shame too, since GOD would be great for importers if GOD’s weren’t also regionally locked o~o” But on the plus side Cave did release Deathsmiles 2 on games on demand here, and they did mention about being satisfied with it; so maybe potential that Cave might work out GOD releases here in the near future o3o’

TrevHead
Shame GOD is region locked with no way to bypass it like we can for DLC as Ild of bought Raiden Fighters Aces and Raiden 4 if I could. Man it sucks RFA PAL is stuck in limbo due to Tradewest buying the localisation rights and then sitting on it. If only they would sell those rights to another publisher like RSG (hint hint :p)

http://www.genkaibreak.com Code
Ohhh that does suck, had no idea Raiden Fighters Aces was still not available in PAL regions o~o” It’s a really good release too T3T; Although Raiden 4 is a big pass from me, not missing anything there, terrible balance, and the game doesn’t capture the feel of other Raiden titles at all xpx; But still if Rising Star is expanding, always potential in the future owo;

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_S2UKKIGGOA4V5EIFXAD7BQQOV4 Heehee
Martin Defries’s About To Make You His B****. Shoot It Down.
mikanko
Yay.
http://myanimelist.net/profile/Kuronoa Kuronoa
This is great, aren’t they the “XSEED” of Europe? I welcome these guys no problem. ^__^

http://www.facebook.com/people/Roberto-Armando-Iraheta/775564143 Roberto Armando Iraheta
They’re actually the XSEED/Atlus/Ignition of Europe. They’re just about the only publisher that will sell the niche games.

Ladius
Don’t forget the awesomeness brigade, also called Ghostlight :)
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LPUW3DGNVWCZ6MVLGHJA377P4M James
thats incorrect. I live in europe and ignition and Altus are a publisher here as well!

Ladius
Atlus never published anything directly in Europe, aside from PSN games like Persona Revelations. Their lineup is covered by publishers like Ghostlight, and in fact Europe missed out on most games published by Atlus USA on DS, X360 and PSP.

http://eonhack.blogspot.com theclaw
Who knows. I don’t think I’ve heard rumor of Atlus so much as contemplating any kind of substantial push into Europe. It’s odd whatever’s taken so long, heck they supported NES here…

Darkrise
This year is just too good to be true. It really has to be the end of the world or something.

Okuni-chan
It’s the beginning of an awesome world of gaming! (◡‿◡*)

http://gloopyeegra.wordpress.com/ Arla
Neat.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Roberto-Armando-Iraheta/775564143 Roberto Armando Iraheta
I wonder how this is going to work, because unlike Europe, we’ve got plenty of publishers for niche titles.
MrSirFeatherFang
Awesome! More games for my 360!
Ladius
Wow, this is great news for everyone :D Opening an American division means localizing new games, since they couldn’t reuse the ones already localized by other niche publishers. W
ay of the Samurai 4 and Akai Katana will probably be the first examples, but I really hope to see more :)
TrevHead
As a PAL gamer I think RSG breaking into the US market is the best thing to happen for the genre considering all the major gaming sites are US based and wont cover PAL exclusives.
Take Dodonpachi Resurrection, apart from Eurogamer and a couple of C rank websites there was zero marketting or reviews. As even though the game works on NA 360s RSG themselves couldnt market the game in the US.
Releasing PAL and NA niche titles at the same time is the best thing they can do to ensure all the major gaming websites cover it. As plenty of PAL gamers only use the major US based sites for their news, so I bet there’s plenty of PAL gamers who dont even know DR exists and that the game can be bought for a paltry £10 new in many places
wat_wat
There is a god ;_;
brian yep
I wanna hug these people.

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