Natsume Vs. Marvelous

[Kugyince]

Neverland is the development team behind Harvest Moon and Rune Factory.

The North American publishing rights to Harvest Moon belongs to Natsume.

The North american publishing rights to Rune Factory belong to Xseed.

Marvelous would then buy the rights to localize (not publish) the Harvest Moon titles from Natsume.

Are we still following? Good.

While Xseed was localizing Neverland's latest Rune Factory game they were bought by Marvelous.

While that was happening Marvelous also secured the right to localize Neverland's latest Harvest Moon game from Natsume (Bokujou Monogatari: Tsunagaru Shin Tenchi) which was already released in Japan..

Neverland went defunct while making the successor to Bokujou Monogatari: Tsunagaru Shin Tenchi, which was never given an official title.

That title that was under development is still owned by Natsume.

Soon after Neverland went defunct, Marvelous absorbed the talent and changed their name to Marvelous AQL.

With the team in place, Marvelous AQL announced they were beginning work on a third IP; Infernal Magna.

One week ago Marvelous announced that they will localize Bokujou Monogatari: Tsunagaru Shin Tenchi as Season's Story. Having to do so as Natsume owns the copyright to "Harvest Moon."

Season's Story is set to be released later this year in North America.

Today, obviously in reaction to the announcement, Natsume announced that they will release Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley later this year. This is believed to be the title Neverland was working on when they went defunct.

So if you've followed this, now we have Harvest Moon directly competing against Harvest Moon.

Confused yet?

[Seahawk]

Natsume just seems screwed in the end here, they don't have the original game and they don't have the original devs. What are they bringing out of Japan these days? Did they even publish anything else before? All I can think of is the old Legend of the River King series. They localized Umihara Kawase but that didn't exactly light up any sales charts.
They can bank on the Harvest Moon name all they want, but if their game doesn't deliver then they're probably done outside of Japan, XSeed has pretty much taken their place in localizing niche titles, and they do it faster and better than Natsume ever did.

[Kugyince]

Natsume has a history of attempting this. Both times have met with sheer failure.

They've tried to develop a Harvest Moon game based on running a store instead of farming called Hometown Story. They also tried making a modern Harvest Moon for Sony consoles called Innocent Life.

Besides the Harvest Moon series they've mostly consisted of fishing sims and Bust-A-Move.

---------- Post added at 12:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:08 AM ----------

Meanwhile:

FARMING SIMULATOR 14: LAUNCH TRAILER - YouTube

[Dudebro]

Why does anyone buy those games and why did they buy enough to justify making 13 sequels? I just don't get it at all.

[Seahawk]

Why does anyone buy those games and why did they buy enough to justify making 13 sequels? I just don't get it at all.
I don't like thing. Why do they like thing

[Dudebro]

Yes yes someone always says that but if we're being real about it you gotta admit I have a point. Why are these kind of sims so popular? It's basically Sim Manual Labor, which sounds like a game made up by The Onion.

[elrod21]

Yes yes someone always says that but if we're being real about it you gotta admit I have a point. Why are these kind of sims so popular? It's basically Sim Manual Labor, which sounds like a game made up by The Onion.

I'm in the same camp as you about this DB. I don't get it at all but to each their own I suppose.

Who knows maybe virtual Ditch Digger or Sewer Maintenance will catch on. ;)

[ARedLetterDay]

Why does anyone buy those games and why did they buy enough to justify making 13 sequels? I just don't get it at all.

I hope you're talking about something else instead of Farming Simulator, because the 14 is for 2014 :P since the previous game was Farming Simulator 2013.

[Kugyince]

Why does anyone buy those games and why did they buy enough to justify making 13 sequels? I just don't get it at all.

If you're talking about Farming Simulator '14 then you can blame Germany. Supposedly those sims are very popular over there, especially the Euro Trucker series.

If you're talking about Harvest Moon it because it's like Animal Crossing but good and fun.

[Dudebro]

@Elrod-
Street Cleaning Simulator: The Simulationing - YouTube
Doesn't get much more mundane than that.

@ARLD- Oops I didn't realize that. I never heard of these sims until I joined Steam and started noticing the dozens of train sims. Those I can kind of understand but it's still weird because all you can do is go faster or slower really.

@Tenser- Figures it's the Germans.

I like Harvest Moon games. I can understand their appeal because they have more traditional video game stuff like a main character and side quests(romance plots are in all of them right?).


I'm really not trying to bash people for liking these sims I just don't get why they're so popular. People are dropping good money to virtually farm or sweep streets. It doesn't seem like a game anymore it seems like simulating chores or work.

[elrod21]

That street cleaning simulator reminds me of the mowing the lawn punishment in Bully when you are caught being naughty. Emphasis on the punishment. :p

[Kugyince]

Since we're talking about both Natsume and odd simulators:

Natsume Confirms A-Train: City Simulator For 3DS and Alphadia Genesis for Wii U - Nintendo Life (http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/06/natsume_confirms_a_train_city_simulator_for_3ds_an d_alphadia_genesis_for_wii_u)

Apparently the long awaited sequel to this DS game:

Nintendo DS - A Ressha de Ikou DS (J) Intro (HD) - YouTube

---------- Post added at 11:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:12 PM ----------

http://www.retrouprising.com/img/2014_06/3949.jpg
http://www.retrouprising.com/img/2014_06/3950.jpg