5pb are better known for their range of visual novels, like their massively popular Steins;Gate series… which is why they gave us a surprise a couple months back when they announced they were releasing indie platformer Constant C on the Xbox 360 in America.
And now, they’ve surprised us again, by swinging the gate the other way and taking up publishing rights in Japan for developer Focus Interactive’s Mars: War Logs. The game is set to be released on the 30th of January on PC in Japan.
This is great news for those Japanese gamers hungering for Western titles to play, especially on the PC. Who knows, there could be a Japanese doppelganger of you right now, sitting on 2ch happily squealing that the game is finally coming over. The point, though, is that 5pb are now a new player in the publisher pool that localizes for both the West and East.—and maybe they’ll do it again in the future.
It’s actually similar to how Spike Chunsoft picks up more niche titles from the West such as The Witcher and then localizes it for the Japanese market—something we talked about just a few months ago. It should be interesting to see if 5pb, too, can build up an audience for western games in their home market.
