Earlier today, Xseed announced that they have been rebranded as Marvelous USA and will be overseeing all U.S. operations of their parent company, Marvelous AQL. Additionally, Marvelous have also acquired Atlus Online, the online games division of Index Digital Media Inc. (AKA Atlus USA), and will be expanding their online and mobile games business.
Siliconera got in touch with Xseed’s Director of Publishing, Ken Berry, to ask how the rebranding would affect Xseed’s ability to publish games from Marvelous. Not all Marvelous AQL games are published by Xseed in North America. For example, Muramasa Rebirth is being published by Aksys Games. Will Xseed now have access to a wider range of Marvelous games?
“We’ve always had the first look at our parent company’s titles, but we would also always have to decide if publishing it ourselves or letting Japan license it out to another publisher in North America was better for the entire group as a whole,” Berry explained via e-mail.
“Now that our company names are integrated we are definitely interested in pushing the ‘Marvelous’ brand as much as possible (even as XSEED brand within the Marvelous company name), but in the end it will still depend on what’s best for the entire international Marvelous group, not just us in America.”
So… where does that leave Senran Kagura Burst, which is a game that both Xseed and Marvelous have expressed interest in localizing?
“It is something that we continue to look into because we know the demand is there as lots of fans have asked us about it,” Berry shared, “but it’s just such a scary proposition due to the subject matter and difference in attitudes between Japanese culture and the more conservative culture here in the U.S.”
“With digital distribution it becomes more plausible to try it, but as a physical product the potential for disaster would be too great.”
