ATLUS ~ Virtually non-existant in the UK & Europe

[Gemini-Phoenix]

Why is it that ATLUS (Developer of some of the best RPG's in the last two decades) are virtually unheard of in the UK and the rest of Europe? Why is it that virtually all their works are never published over here, and those that do make it are usually under some different guise (Read: Subsidary of ATLUS) or need to be published by a budget company, such as 505 Gamestreet?

Square's main rival in the market (Now that Enix has become part of the Sqyaresoft company), why is it that hardly any classic ATLUS games have made the trans-Atlantic crossing? They've been making superb games from back in the days of the SNES, and there's a whole loads of PlayStation, PS2, and Nintendo 64 games that we missed out on.


What bugs me the most is: The games that do make it here are usually branded under a different name than ATLUS. Ie, Steambot Chronicles (Published by 505 Gamestreet) is branded under "irem" ~ I've also noticed that if it wasn't for companies like 505 Gamestreet publishing these games here in the UK, we would never see them at all...

[PentiumMMX]

Atlus is just a copmany that translates games AFAIK. Most of the games released by them in the US are by other companies in Japan (Disguia: Hour of Darkness is an example of this)

[Xexyz]

Time for the facts:

Atlus Co. is a very small Japanese company that only makes a handful of games per year. Their biggest (and practically only) franchise is the Shin Megami Tensei series, which features many off-shoots such as the Persona titles, Digital Devil Saga, and Demi Kids.

Now, Atlus of USA is pretty much a localization specialty company. They translate quite a few Atlus made games, but also release a lot of niche games from other Japanese developers who have no U.S. publishing branch.

Now, you mentioned Steambot Chronicles and the Irem copyright logo. Well, guess what, Irem made the game. Atlus USA merely translated it and gave it a release in the NA region. Just like your 505 Gamestreet, Atlus got the rights to another company's game in order to translate and release it to another region.

And I'd hardly call Atlus one of Square's main rivals. None of their franchises are of the same caliber of mainstream success as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. And Square didn't absorb Enix, Enix bought out Squaresoft when they went bankrupt from making that terrible CGI Final Fantasy movie.

I don't know what games you guys in Europe have gotten, but I'll list some recent games released by Atlus of USA for handhelds:

Summon Night: Swordcraft Story, Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2, Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation, Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation 2, Yggdra Union, Puyo Pop Fever - All these games were published by Atlus, but were developed and published by completely different parties in Japan.

Trauma Center: Under the Knife, Etrian Odyssey - These games were developed by Atlus, and also published by Atlus in the U.S.

[Haoie]

There's only 1 example of an Atlus localised title that got EU released, but not US, that I can think of.

Hellnight, PS1.

[Gemini-Phoenix]

Ah, hmm. Maybe I am getting confused a little then. I did notice that ATLUS published the Nippon Ichi games in the US (And I did pay attention in class to notice that N.I.P were the ones who made the game, not ATLUS) ~ I maybe suspected that Irem was perhaps a subsidary of ATLUS though, as their logo's are similarly designed...

[Xexyz]

Irem's been around much longer than Atlus. They were a major player in the arcades back in the 80's and stayed in the business until 1994. They're responsible for the highly acclaimed R-Type series. Irem changed their logo sometime during the late nineties, when they abandoned the arcade market and started making more console based (shitty IMO) games. With the exception of two R-Type titles, I really haven't found anything from them to be of interest since In the Hunt and GunForce 2, which were their last two arcade releases in 1994.

Now, your subject on subsidiaries does bring up a good point. Atlus does have at least one subsidiary I know of called Million. Million is a company that was founded at the turn of the century, and is composed of many former Technos employees. They managed to get the rights to Technos' old I.P.'s which is why games like Double Dragon Advance, River City Ransom EX, and Super Dodgeball Advance were released for the GBA.

Now if only Atlus would let Million make some new IP's...

[djsquarewave]

Irem's been around much longer than Atlus. They were a major player in the arcades back in the 80's and stayed in the business until 1994.
Atlus was founded in 1986, so this doesn't mean much until you consider that Irem's been around since '74.

Part of the issue is probably that Atlus doesn't actually have a European branch, meaning any games they localize in the US will have to be picked up by someone else for them to ever see a PAL release. 505, Ghostlight, Koei...hell, even NOE has brought some of them over.

Keep in mind, also, that here in the US we don't have any publishers like 505 or Midas, so it's sort of a two way street.

[Xexyz]

Yeah, I personally wish for a 505 Gamestreet type publisher who would give us all the Psikyo shmup collections for a budget price.

[mailman187666]

maybe one of the reasons Atlus doesn't bring thier games to the UK often is maybe they are afraid that the gents over in the UK won't buy enough of thier games to justify a release. Kind of like how some of the earlier Final Fantasy games only came out in Japan at first. They may not see a market for thier RPGs and little niiche games in the UK and since it is a smaller company, could be suicide on thier buisiness. But I'm just guessing here.