It looks like 2009 was not such a great year for Japanese developer Nippon Ichi (NIS). With a loss of 299 million yen ($3.33 million) for the fiscal year the company is looking to turn their ship around (go here if you can read Japanese) into the waters of profitability. As with many companies these days who are feeling the pinch, this means a bit of streamlining is going to be done.
NIS is saying that they will be cutting out most of their externally developed games, as they believe they are one of the main causes of their massive loss. As such they are planning to only release 8 games over the next year.
Disgaea, the company's best seller, will be seeing another release on the PS3 as the company hopes to raise profits. This will be part of NIS's new focus on potential developing markets, which include the PS3 and the ever expanding North American market. The question is can their mostly indie titles become big hits.
Nippon Ichi Plans PS3 Disgaea Title [andriasang, via Joystiq]
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Contest:
4:00 PM on 02.13.2010
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Yes, they made a profit, but isn't not enough to keep doing the kinds of things they want to do, so they're down to doing things they need to do.
Which begs the question - Why keep any focus on PS3? Niche games are not PS3's strong point and the way things are going, it likely never will be. Its not the PS2. Niche is DS, PSP and Wii now.
And please God, update the graphics. If I remember correctly some Disgaea 3 users and reviwers reported some frame rate issues, which isn't exactly acceptable with a sprite based game.
Maybe NIS are Sony fanboys?
Also, is this an announcement of Disgaea 4, or is it just another remake of Disgaea 1? The last paragraph is kind of vague...
Hell no. They had better not make the game more "accessible".
I don't want them to dumb it down, just maybe create some kind of alternate mode for people like me who suck at it. Some way I can still play and enjoy the game, without necessarily knowing what the hell I'm doing. That way everyone can choose to play it normally, and I can play it like a dumbass.
The fiscal year isn't over yet. How do you know they made a profit?
I'll also be bummed that I bought all the Disgaea 3 DLC and it will probably not transfer over to Disgaea 4. -_-
I loved Mao and Adell/Rozy were pretty cool I guess. But Laharl is the man and we need more than a cameo!
I think Disgaea needs to retain it's current style, it's alot of it's charm.
As of last week when they released the information to their stockholders. Stockholders panicked because there was a 90% drop in profits, but no loss. There are links everywhere online, even here, if you don't believe me.
Also, you make replay value sound like bad thing.
I agree however i think they should keep with the sprites, they just need to update them
The sprites in disagree 3 looked no better than what they were doing back on the PS2... they need to bring those into high resolution... they could do some really beautiful sprite work and they actually put sometime into it
I agree, it could only help them to diversify a bit. The average PS3 owner and the average 360 owner would probably overlook the average NIS game, but if they made them availabe for both platforms, together there would probably be enough revenue to keep them comfortably profitable. You have to cast a wide net, these days.
Oh well, even if I'm only able to support them through DS and PSP, they still have a lifelong fan in me. La Pucelle was the tits.
My question though, is given how Disgaea 3 looked on the PS3, think they'll attempt to give us a PSP port for the game? Don't know what they can add or take away to make it possible, but I might have to pick up a new PSP if they decide to port it over.
Truth is, strategy rpgs dont sell as well as action ones. Nippon Ichi need to seriously sit down and think if they want to be around in 5-10 years. They are indeed stuck in a creative flux like many japanese devs, remixing the same cookie cutter stuff.
New ideas and spreading to multiformat makes since, and also more important for them, is to step into the 3D game design business. 2D graphics are sweet, especially if in HD, but they will need much more to save them against the competition out there.
The clock is ticking.
Wii is niche? I can think of a few Atlus games, but what else?
How about a little less whoring out of Prinnies and Disgaea: Hour of Darkness director's cuts?
I want to like them, I do, but word is that Disgaea sequels are insubstantial, and all their other sRPGs don't draw my interest. That leaves the Prinny platformer which isn't on any platforms I own.
@SayWord
The PS3 demographic is high? Huh. I thought only people on Xbox and PC hit the green, white and yellow before jumping online.
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