Tecmo buy-out: the implications for NISA, Gust, and Atelier - Article
by Karl Koebke , posted on 20 March 2012 / 4,085 Views
Recent news of a new Atelier game on the way in Japan in June has both excited fans of the series and left them with questions about its localization. Primary among those questions is what the relationship will be between NISA and Gust after the Tecmo Koei buy-out.
Back in December, Tecmo Koei bought the JRPG developers Gust for $28.3 million. The first news to release following the change was the development of social games based on Gust's Atelier series, leaving many apprehensive about how this would affect Gust in the future. The localization of future Gust titles was also left up in the air, as NISA had previously localized most Gust games in North America, but it was unsure how the Tecmo Koei buy-out would affect this arrangement.
Talking to Nao Zook at NISA, it's clear that they have certainly not severed their ties with Gust, and will continue to work with them in the future, but no actual titles are currently confirmed or scheduled for release, so there are no promises on what games NISA will actually be publishing for Gust in the West. Nonetheless, this is potentially great news for anyone that enjoyed the Atelier Arland series and was unsure of how Tecmo Koei would handle the localization. I personally feel that, with the latest Atelier game being self-published by Gust in Japan, there is a fairly good chance that it will eventually be announced for a Western release by NISA, but as Nao made clear to me earlier, nothing is set in stone, so NISA fans will have to keep their fingers crossed for an eventual announcement.
