I think they jumped off Phyre relatively quickly. But Phyre has been dead for a while now. Also, Phyre is allowed to be multiplatform just not supported by Sony
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News Falcom president denies poor relationship with Nintendo
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Johnpv
Cappy
Looks like they used it from 2012/3 - 2018. Sure it can be multiplatform but some one has to port it over. Its not like Sony was porting Phyre to Switch. I never said Phyre couldn't be on something else. Porting an engine to another platform is not easy, and that was the point. They were using a free engine from Sony, and if they were going to make those games multiplatform themselves they would have to do the porting. Square Enix probably did that for DQ Builders 1, or paid some one to do so.
Hero of Hyrule
Frieren the Slayer
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Phyre Engine is cross platform
Caviar
Tektite
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I actually do believe him when he says that they're a small company who can't afford to do simultaneous multi-platform releases. In the past, they were able to support PS3/PSV, PS4/PSV, etc at the same time because of resources they were getting from Sony. I'm not just talking about Phyre Engine. My understanding was that Sony was actually paying for some costs and providing support. I'm not sure Nintendo would be interested in extending the same resources to Falcom when they seem to have no interest or capability of cultivating an audience on non-PS platforms (letting external partners port your games a year later is not 'cultivating an audience').
But speaking of that, I am not a publisher or product manager, but maybe it's time to explore new ecosystems when PS home consoles sell like they do in your primary market. Kuro no Kiseki is bombing, straight up. No qualifiers or asterisks. Falcom needs to develop a new platform strategy for their next game because it'll only get worse for them if they continue the course.
But speaking of that, I am not a publisher or product manager, but maybe it's time to explore new ecosystems when PS home consoles sell like they do in your primary market. Kuro no Kiseki is bombing, straight up. No qualifiers or asterisks. Falcom needs to develop a new platform strategy for their next game because it'll only get worse for them if they continue the course.
Sony never supported such. Devs had to do it themselves
Hero of Hyrule
Frieren the Slayer
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Right, the point I am making is that being on Phyre Engine didn't stop other developers from going multiplatform with their Phyre games.
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Calling Mishy disgusting is a bannable offense /jk or not
Falcom takes its time to adjust to new market conditions. But they should work closer with their foreign localization partners, if possible even for ports to Switch and Steam.
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Sumio Mondo
Lynchian
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So according to Wikipedia their staff force is made up of 62 employees (source is from 2019), I think they've seemingly made a choice on outsourcing rather than staffing up (guessing that it's more costly for them to hire more? Is it a weird tax break for them to outsource and keep the internal staffing levels lower?)
Feels like their games don't get the fanfare they used to nowadays, at least just looking in the usual places, so I could be wrong about that. Ys is always well received by critics but everything seems a bit muted compared to the noise fans used to make during the Turbo CD/PC/PSP/Vita/PS3/early PS4 days. I recall the excitement Trails in the Sky got on PSP and Oath in Felghana on PSP. Maybe XSEED were driving that cult fanbase more than anything? I don't remember many people talking about Ys on the PS2 much back in the day (Konami used to be their partner during that era, right?)
Still want to try out Ys IX one day regardless. Their relationship with Nintendo is weird.
Feels like their games don't get the fanfare they used to nowadays, at least just looking in the usual places, so I could be wrong about that. Ys is always well received by critics but everything seems a bit muted compared to the noise fans used to make during the Turbo CD/PC/PSP/Vita/PS3/early PS4 days. I recall the excitement Trails in the Sky got on PSP and Oath in Felghana on PSP. Maybe XSEED were driving that cult fanbase more than anything? I don't remember many people talking about Ys on the PS2 much back in the day (Konami used to be their partner during that era, right?)
Still want to try out Ys IX one day regardless. Their relationship with Nintendo is weird.
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I agree, but the thing is I was thinking that in late 2019, when I saw negative talk about them at the old place.
Imagine it is/almost is two years later, and we're still talking exactly the same.
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I sincerely hope they can figure out something to manage their decline, and recover. Kuro might've bombed but it's legit the best game in the series since Zero, and it would suck if things fell apart just as they're getting things back on track...
they most likely do both. staffing issues could be the result of people applying elsewhere (bigger companies like Nintendo, Bamco, SE, etc) and trickle down the list until they hit Falcom (if Falcom is lucky)
Excited for the rest of us to experience it in 2024...
SeafoamGaming
Moblin
Falcom isn't exactly the kind of dev that can change on a whim, hence why they stick to familiar territory for so long: Wouldn't be surprised if Ys V caused some fears of sales and led to them hesitating from Nintendo consoles before NISA offered to help. (before Ys 8, you got a terribad Ys I/II port, a godawful Strategy game, and a good Gurumin 3DS port) So I don't blame them in the slightest for sticking to playstation, especially if the PS4 versions still outsell the switch ports they do make worldwide.
The problem I find comes from the length between releases, translation, and their output in general: Trails is a fun series I enjoyed playing the bits I have, but the fact it's reached Kingdom Hearts levels of "play ALL these longass games back to back in a specific order to understand what's going on, or read long recaps" with nearly 10 games makes jumping into something like CSIII or Kuro as a starter game pretty irritating, and I really can't believe that Falcom refuses to just stop and make a disconnected trails game, or make a new arc that does it the Ys way where old events are a cool thing you'll understand if you've played all of the games, but you can totally go in blind with it as your first and have an equal amount of understanding of the story.
Considering how touchy games like CSIV were to fans of that series, I would not be surprised if the stupidly overly connected main plot of the franchise gating newcomers from games + the milking of Trails in general is leading to a decline in Japan... And making it hard for westerners to care when the localization waits are so long. In a world where Yakuza and SMT are finally getting global releases, the fact I have to wait 2 years for an HD port of a PSP action RPG spinoff is pretty silly. Doubly so when even Xseed was guilty of this by taking a freaking year to localize a PS4 port of a game they already finished with Memories of Celceta.
If I were Falcom, I'd try to make easier money by letting CL/NIS port simpler, older games like the Trails in the Sky Trilogy, the older Ys titles, and some stuff that's not just from those two IPs, and aim to get those out in the same year around the world: Of course, they can't do them alone, but maybe it should also teach them that instead of pumping every resource into big huge Trails and Ys games non-stop... slow the milking down and do a smaller scale release or franchise? Brandish or Gurumin would sure be fun to see again... But if they keep on milking Trails and Ys (especially Trails due to the higher gate of entry + long loc waits), I don't see the future being bright for them unless they move completely to PC/Switch or worldwide releases.
The problem I find comes from the length between releases, translation, and their output in general: Trails is a fun series I enjoyed playing the bits I have, but the fact it's reached Kingdom Hearts levels of "play ALL these longass games back to back in a specific order to understand what's going on, or read long recaps" with nearly 10 games makes jumping into something like CSIII or Kuro as a starter game pretty irritating, and I really can't believe that Falcom refuses to just stop and make a disconnected trails game, or make a new arc that does it the Ys way where old events are a cool thing you'll understand if you've played all of the games, but you can totally go in blind with it as your first and have an equal amount of understanding of the story.
Considering how touchy games like CSIV were to fans of that series, I would not be surprised if the stupidly overly connected main plot of the franchise gating newcomers from games + the milking of Trails in general is leading to a decline in Japan... And making it hard for westerners to care when the localization waits are so long. In a world where Yakuza and SMT are finally getting global releases, the fact I have to wait 2 years for an HD port of a PSP action RPG spinoff is pretty silly. Doubly so when even Xseed was guilty of this by taking a freaking year to localize a PS4 port of a game they already finished with Memories of Celceta.
If I were Falcom, I'd try to make easier money by letting CL/NIS port simpler, older games like the Trails in the Sky Trilogy, the older Ys titles, and some stuff that's not just from those two IPs, and aim to get those out in the same year around the world: Of course, they can't do them alone, but maybe it should also teach them that instead of pumping every resource into big huge Trails and Ys games non-stop... slow the milking down and do a smaller scale release or franchise? Brandish or Gurumin would sure be fun to see again... But if they keep on milking Trails and Ys (especially Trails due to the higher gate of entry + long loc waits), I don't see the future being bright for them unless they move completely to PC/Switch or worldwide releases.
The Trails series is one of my favorite long-running franchises so I do hope Falcom finds a way to adjust to the current market. If there's one thing I do not wish to happen it's for them to go under. Hearing good things about Kuro and how fixes the issues of the Cold Steel saga has me excited for the future. So I do hope they can continue to make Kiseki games.
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Yeah, that's the big thing. The arc will likely be finished in Japan before Kuro itself even gets localized...
Stu Benedict
My geode must be acknowledged
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kiseki runs every other year. if 2022 is ys x or tokyo xanatwo, then 'kuro 2' would be 2023. 2024 is another ys-team game. then if kuro is three games, it's over in 2025. if it's over in four games (like cold steel... kinda) then 2027. on ps4.
Johnpv
Cappy
That is a major undertaking though and not something every studio is capable of doing. Yeah Square Enix did it for less than a handful of games, but they're huge. It was a small percentage of Phyre games that got ported to other systems. Falcom releases like 1 game a year, they probably don't have a lot of overheard to also have people porting a game engine over to another platform.
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Kuro itself is long (and, more importantly, complete) enough that I very, very highly doubt that it'll be 4 games. If it's 3 games there's a chance it'll be two years in a row too, like CS3 -> CS4. Or, hell, Haji -> Kuro.
I see your point though.
Johnpv
Cappy
I don't think this is the case. While I can't find it right now, I could have sworn there were news articles about Ys VIII selling best World Wide on Switch. I could have sworn NISA made some big deals about it.
Falcom have a policy that localizers can't start localizing until the Japanese version has shipped. I don't know why they do this but its how they've worked in the past.
They are doing this to an extent, while we aren't getting the Trails in the Sky games we are getting some others https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2...ore_trails_games_coming_to_switch_in_the_west . Part of the problem is the way Falcom works, they don't do the porting themselves its up to who ever holds the localization for it if they want to bring it to other platforms. Xseed holds the localization rights for a lot of the PSP and some older Ys games. Since Xseed seems to have no desire to bring these things to Switch it probably isn't going to happen. It's been rumored that was a big reason why Falcom made the jump to NIS, is because they offered up porting their games to other platforms. Which is why Switch got Ys VIII, IX, Cold Steel III, and IV, and now these other Legend of Heroes games.
If you want to see stuff like Ys Seven, Oath in Felghana, Ys I and II Chronicles, Ark of Napishtim, Memories of Celceta, the Trails in the Sky games, or the first 2 Cold Steel games, you need to bug Xseed. I'm not sure how Ys Origins moved from Xseed to DotEmu but maybe we can see that again with others, but who knows.
I know people online were pissy when Falcom switch to NIS but honestly it was the best thing they did to get their games on more platforms.
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Since it's getting brought up, a small clarification - while it's indeed true that offering to port to multiple platforms, having access to French localizations, et al were a major part of why Falcom went to NISA, the main reason they even got their foot in the door was because XSEED refused to localize Tokyo Xanadu. If they'd gone for that localization over Akiba's Beat (and, yes, that was the decision they had to make) things may well have looked very different about now.
Of course, a significant portion of the blame also falls on Falcom themselves for that. They didn't tell anyone about the PS4 port of the game at a time when XSEED did not want to touch Vita exclusives.
Of course, a significant portion of the blame also falls on Falcom themselves for that. They didn't tell anyone about the PS4 port of the game at a time when XSEED did not want to touch Vita exclusives.
SeafoamGaming
Moblin
I mean, for the EN versions, sure, but Clouded Leopard could bring the old Trails/Ys games out in Japan, right? I'd be fine playing Ys I-IV in Japanese at the very least... But yeah, Falcom's lame policy on holding localizations until after launch is kinda what's hurting them, especially when they don't seem to mind Korean/Chinese localizations being made super shortly. I don't mind NISA as the holder of Falcom in the west at all, but seeing how NISA are happy to port their own stuff around, I'd sure like them to nudge Falcom into having them port their older stuff, too...
Oh god: and Akiba's Beat is the game that led to Tom pretty much outing himself and people not wanting to work with Xseed in general, right? Big yikes on that... Surprised Aksys didn't pick up more Falcom titles, though... Trails would kill them but Ys would be doable I'd imagine.
Johnpv
Cappy
Yeah its just for the out of Japan releases. I believe that is what's happening with Cold Steel 1 and 2 coming to Switch in Japan. Though maybe they are already out, I think it was supposed to be summer time, but I can't remember.
ChaosSaga
Crux Captain
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Well the problem of trails ports for switch is all of them are late ports and Falcon didn't try to add switch to the new releases to create a base. Just look at Gust output in japan on switch. From bad ports to day one releases. You can't expect to throw late ports and hope that sticks. (Unless you're Namco >_>)
it only really works for desirable games like Naruto and DBZ. and The Witcher
