When we last asked Mages producer Masaki Sakari what was going on with Phantom Breaker’s release in the west, he said to us, “The deal we have is [U.S. publisher] 7Sixty has almost full control of the project. We just gave it to them and all we can really say is if we try to put pressure on them, it’s on their table.”
Siliconera recently had a chance to speak with Sakari again, and once more, we asked him the same question: what are the chances that Phantom Breaker will actually see a western release? Perhaps we’ll see the updated version, Phantom Breaker: Extra, come over?
Sakari replied, “To be quite frank, there have been some goings back and forth between 7Sixty and us. The original contract was for physical goods, like a packaged product, but with the change in the climate of the market, we’re reconsidering that, and they expressed their concerns. We were in the process of negotiating it.”
However, things aren’t quite in place for a western release just yet. Sakari added, “Even though we’re kind of giving them suggestions, we haven’t really had a kind of productive discussion that’s critically pushing us forward. I would almost say that we’re kind of waiting on them, from our perspective. That’s really the cause of the holdup.”
Luckily, Sakari says, Mages are trying to work on a solution, by procuring the rights to publish the game in the U.S. back from 7Sixty.
“We really would like to bring Extra to the states as well, but it might be a little weird if Phantom Breaker original doesn’t come out, and Extra comes out first,” Sakari shared. “So we’re in the process of attempting to get the rights back from them from our original contract and re-releasing it in some other shape or form.”
