Derk Bramer leaving Atlus, joining XSEED.

[SaberVS7]

The January Shuffle continues:

And in this case, some positivity for XSEED here after the hysteria over the two high-ish profile departures from XSEED last year.



For context: Derk Bramer was the lead editor on the PS4 Yakuza and Valkyria localizations, as well as a few other Atlus titles.

This seems like a pretty decent Get for XSEED given his resume.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

This seems like kind of a downgrade, but I hope it works out well for him.

 

[Aters]

How did Xseed come up with a bigger check than Sega America?

 

[neoak]

How did Xseed come up with a bigger check than Sega America?

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Probably getting perks instead

 

[Kieli]

I remember Aram Jabbari leaving Atlus to go to Sony. Sony cutting dem phat checks. He made the OG unboxing videos for Atlus heh.

 

[iksenpets]

How did Xseed come up with a bigger check than Sega America?

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Yeah, seems kind of crazy to imagine that Xseed could outbid Sega. But maybe it was more on his, a certain amount of fatigue after localizing like 5 Yakuza games back-to-back. At this point he's probably also done most of the worst on scripts for Judgment and the Yakuza 3 remaster, so maybe it's a decent time to step away.

 

[Sabin]

Jessica Chavez is also back at XSEED after her hiatus and hopefully she will the Queen of Kiseki again.

 

[rawhide]

How's XSEED doing these days? Like, what's their bread-and-butter? Senran Kagura? I feel like they've been muscled out of picking up anything I might give a shit about.

 

[Ultimadrago]

For context: Derk Bramer was the lead editor on the PS4 Yakuza and Valkyria localizations, as well as a few other Atlus titles.

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May as well be Prince Ali!

 

[ILikeFeet]

How's XSEED doing these days? Like, what's their bread-and-butter? Senran Kagura? I feel like they've been muscled out of picking up anything I might give a shit about.

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They don't really have a b&b nowadays. You could say Falcom's stuff, but after Ys8, there's a possibility of getting outbidded on that

 

[ZeroX]

For context: Derk Bramer was the lead editor on the PS4 Yakuza and Valkyria localizations, as well as a few other Atlus titles.

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ooooh, nice resume!

 

[rawhide]

They don't really have a b&b nowadays. You could say Falcom's stuff, but after Ys8, there's a possibility of getting outbidded on that

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Yeah, that was my first thought--the Falcom games aren't a lock anymore, Story of Seasons is still in hibernation and it seems like there are a lot of other smaller publishers snapping up the more niche things that might otherwise have gone to them.

 

[Eila]

Interesting. Hope they have something cool unannounced beyond Senran Kagura.

 

[Pasokon Deacon]

How's XSEED doing these days? Like, what's their bread-and-butter? Senran Kagura? I feel like they've been muscled out of picking up anything I might give a shit about.

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Marvelous games are their B&B, though a lack of Rune Factory means it's largely become odd one-offs, lots of Senran Kagura, and the occasional Story of Seasons. The Falcom gold rush has definitely come to a close, which sucks because Dinosaur Resurrection deserves their localization work.

They'll have a good amount of unexpected titles to announce in the future. I wouldn't be surprised if they get some overlooked but interesting stuff like Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 4 (Disaster Report 4).

 

[Joltik]

I know Marvelous is their Japanese parent company, but is Marvelous doing anything other than producing Senran Kagura? Where is the new Story of Seasons game, already?

 

[rawhide]

They'll have a good amount of unexpected titles to announce in the future. I wouldn't be surprised if they get some overlooked but interesting stuff like Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 4 (Disaster Report 4).

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Now that you mention it, ZZT is exactly the sort of game that's in their wheelhouse, and it's also the sort of game that could go viral in a similar manner to Yakuza, so it lines up...

It's a pity this new one's not particularly good, but ya gotta start somewhere.

I know Marvelous is their Japanese parent company, but is Marvelous doing anything other than producing Senran Kagura? Where is the new Story of Seasons game, already?

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They've never directly addressed what's happening with that series but I think there are a multitude of factors keeping it down: the most recent producer split off to make his own studio, they're being forced into the world of HD and they're probably flummoxed by the out-of-nowhere success of Stardew Valley.

Maybe they're planning a big shake-up or something, I don't know. I wish somebody would at least ask Marvelous what's up.

 

[shadowman16]

Now that you mention it, ZZT is exactly the sort of game that's in their wheelhouse, and it's also the sort of game that could go viral in a similar manner to Yakuza, so it lines up...

It's a pity this new one's not particularly good, but ya gotta start somewhere.

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Disaster Report 4 wasn't bad. Its got quite a few good spots and some great moment by moment story bits. Only issues I had with it were the endings and the fact that it was more story focused and nowhere near as set piece focused as the older games were. DR2 is still my favourite of the bunch, it had the best balance of story, characters and action. I don't see it having any viral hook like Yakuza did though, outside of a few admittedly funny dialogue options it doesn't have anything like Nugget etc.

Regarding the topic, I just hope that Sega/Atlus have someone capable to followup on Derks great work on the Yakuza series this past couple of years - the series localisations and release schedules have never been better and I hope that continues past Judgment.

 

[Danthrax]

Hopefully the rest of the team can keep up the same level of quality for the Yakuza localizations. They've been excellent under his watch.

On the flip side, I suppose Senran Kagura's going to get awesome localizations now.

 

[Thoraxes]

I know Marvelous is their Japanese parent company, but is Marvelous doing anything other than producing Senran Kagura? Where is the new Story of Seasons game, already?

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Fate/Extella Link is coming over this year in English (was delayed to 2019 from 2018 originally iirc, Switch version announced around when this happened), and Daemon x Machina is them too.

Presumably they have more to announce this year too.

 

[Hero of Legend]

Yeah, that was my first thought--the Falcom games aren't a lock anymore, Story of Seasons is still in hibernation and it seems like there are a lot of other smaller publishers snapping up the more niche things that might otherwise have gone to them.

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Some interesting bits:

Despite being owned by Marvelous, they've been left in the cold a bit:

- Daemon X Machina, while developed and owned by Marvelous, is actually being localized (and likely very involved with) by Nintendo.
- Despite Marvelous owning No More Heroes, they have little to no involvement with Travis Strikes Again. In fact Grasshopper is publishing it worldwide with Nintendo funny enough being the ones to release the retail release at least in the west.
- Marvelous actually have some involvement, even today, with Dragon Marked For Death on Switch. Their producer (who even "announced" the game on 3DS back in 2011) is still involved, but at his own division called Hakama. Despite this, the NA retail release is being handled by Nighthawk, with Inti Ctrates otherwise publishing ti worldwide. And XSEED have done indie publishing (even retail) releases, such as Shantae 1/2 Genie Hero and Freedom Planet, both on Switch.

Meaning XSEED's being left out in the cold with numerous opportunities with Marvelous's output. Really it's just Senran Kagura and whatever Falcom will give them. Marvelous is lacking in some variety compared to their peak on Wii (IMO), where we had Rune Factory Frontier, Arc Rise Fantasia, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga, and of course Little King's Story.

XSEED did awesome stuff with Bandai Namco, such as Fragile Dreams, Sky Crawlers (both on Wii) and Solatorobo on DS. But never got to work with BN again afterward.

There IS a huge opportunity for them and they may actually be taking it. They do their own PC ports of games, from Marvelous to Falcom, but if ESRB is correct, they may be bringing Corpse Party: Blood Drive (originally on Vita) to Switch themselves. There's a massive market here untapped by XSEED. Really NISA has really been eating their lunch on Switch, getting many ports out from their own JP HQ to other parties (most famously Ys 8) on Switch and seemingly have been VERY successful with those games.

Just my two cents. :P

 

[Curler]

Some interesting bits:

Despite being owned by Marvelous, they've been left in the cold a bit:

- Daemon X Machina, while developed and owned by Marvelous, is actually being localized (and likely very involved with) by Nintendo.
- Despite Marvelous owning No More Heroes, they have little to no involvement with Travis Strikes Again. In fact Grasshopper is publishing it worldwide with Nintendo funny enough being the ones to release the retail release at least in the west.
- Marvelous actually have some involvement, even today, with Dragon Marked For Death on Switch. Their producer (who even "announced" the game on 3DS back in 2011) is still involved, but at his own division called Hakama. Despite this, the NA retail release is being handled by Nighthawk, with Inti Ctrates otherwise publishing ti worldwide. And XSEED have done indie publishing (even retail) releases, such as Shantae 1/2 Genie Hero and Freedom Planet, both on Switch.

Meaning XSEED's being left out in the cold with numerous opportunities with Marvelous's output. Really it's just Senran Kagura and whatever Falcom will give them. Marvelous is lacking in some variety compared to their peak on Wii (IMO), where we had Rune Factory Frontier, Arc Rise Fantasia, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga, and of course Little King's Story.

XSEED did awesome stuff with Bandai Namco, such as Fragile Dreams, Sky Crawlers (both on Wii) and Solatorobo on DS. But never got to work with BN again afterward.

There IS a huge opportunity for them and they may actually be taking it. They do their own PC ports of games, from Marvelous to Falcom, but if ESRB is correct, they may be bringing Corpse Party: Blood Drive (originally on Vita) to Switch themselves. There's a massive market here untapped by XSEED. Really NISA has really been eating their lunch on Switch, getting many ports out from their own JP HQ to other parties (most famously Ys 8) on Switch and seemingly have been VERY successful with those games.

Just my two cents. :P

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Yeah thinking about all this, and it's actually become tough for niche Japanese localizers now. More keep popping up and want to do their own localizations (IF > NISA, Spike-Chun > Aksys, ArcSys > Aksys, etc.), so now the bidding gets fierce with trying to stay relevant, with companies picking up whatever they can. Falcom is being passed around right now, MMV not doing too much, so XSEED is kinda picking up the scraps, like Aksys and NISA. I feel like we will see a bit of condensing as time goes on, though. The last thing I would want to see are closures though, although when it comes to niche companies, I don't know how Natsume will fare...

Anyhow, hopefully we will see some more neat things come out of XSEED!

 

[Deleted member 26768]

How did Xseed come up with a bigger check than Sega America?

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Sega could not bid up to localising titty ninjas, obviously.

Jessica Chavez is also back at XSEED after her hiatus and hopefully she will the Queen of Kiseki again.

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This does not indicate she is working back at XSEED whatsoever, just that she is editing. Her last stint with them was doing their social media but her most recent loc work has been TX for Aksys.

 

[rawhide]

I don't know how Natsume will fare...

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I hadn't thought about them in a while so I looked up what they're doing and saw this: https://ceecee-natsume.tumblr.com/post/181603729528/happy-new-year-to-our-worldwide-fans

Apparently those mostly-bad Harvest Moon games they've been putting out keep selling, so I guess they'll stay afloat for a little while.

Disaster Report 4 wasn't bad. Its got quite a few good spots and some great moment by moment story bits. Only issues I had with it were the endings and the fact that it was more story focused and nowhere near as set piece focused as the older games were. DR2 is still my favourite of the bunch, it had the best balance of story, characters and action. I don't see it having any viral hook like Yakuza did though, outside of a few admittedly funny dialogue options it doesn't have anything like Nugget etc.

Click to shrink...

Well yeah, you kinda encapsulated my problems with it--the series has never been particularly deep or demanding but they've removed so much of the actual game components that it's pretty much just a dialogue mad-libs simulator now. I'm not even talking purely about the reduction in setpieces or the near non-existent survival aspects, even the character stuff feels shallower with fewer consequential choices, a lot of them provoke wacky reactions but don't really affect anything like I hoped they would.

The dialogue is the viral hook and while it'll never get as big as Yakuza did, I think a properly localized and marketed shot at ZZT aimed at the right people could definitely establish and audience for itself, and maybe even justify a bigger budget for the next one because boy do they need it.

 

[ramoisdead]

Derek is definitely a big get if his pedigree consists of Yakuza and Valkyria Chronicles 4. XSEED losing Brittney and even creepy Tom probly gave them a one-two punch so this could mean XSEED has something up their sleeves as to releasing content whether on Switch, PS4, or PC.

If Derek likes the job position, then more power to him.

 

[Sumio Mondo]

Yeah thinking about all this, and it's actually become tough for niche Japanese localizers now. More keep popping up and want to do their own localizations (IF > NISA, Spike-Chun > Aksys, ArcSys > Aksys, etc.), so now the bidding gets fierce with trying to stay relevant, with companies picking up whatever they can. Falcom is being passed around right now, MMV not doing too much, so XSEED is kinda picking up the scraps, like Aksys and NISA. I feel like we will see a bit of condensing as time goes on, though. The last thing I would want to see are closures though, although when it comes to niche companies, I don't know how Natsume will fare...

Anyhow, hopefully we will see some more neat things come out of XSEED!

Click to shrink...

Spike Chunsoft doing their own thing will have been a big blow for NISA who brought over Danganronpa (which was one of NISA's best sellers).

 

[Pedetemptim]

This does not indicate she is working back at XSEED whatsoever, just that she is editing. Her last stint with them was doing their social media but her most recent loc work has been TX for Aksys.

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Jessica just welcomed Derk into the company, a somewhat strange word for her to use if her current contract is with a different publisher. Nothing conclusive, of course: she'll always be an XSEED alumna.

 

[Tizoc]

Off topic but when are XSEED are doing their annual stream?

 

[deepFlaw]

Oh, huh. I haven't gotten to the PS4 Yakuzas yet (I only barely started 3 before I had to put it down for other games a few months back), but given how people talk about the loc work there, that's a good get for them. And possibly sad for Yakuza, which is probably more important to me than anything XSEED's put out lately...

Regardless, hope it goes well for him and that he gets to work on some cool things.

 

[ZKenir]

Meaning XSEED's being left out in the cold with numerous opportunities with Marvelous's output. Really it's just Senran Kagura and whatever Falcom will give them. Marvelous is lacking in some variety compared to their peak on Wii (IMO), where we had Rune Factory Frontier, Arc Rise Fantasia, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga, and of course Little King's Story.

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Xseed also has the Fate console games since Marvelous has been developing those.

 

[jrpl]

Off topic but when are XSEED are doing their annual stream?

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They don't really have a set in stone annual stream of reveals. They usually do a few teases of their upcoming games & E3 is where they showcase the rest of their stuff

 

[Curler]

Spike Chunsoft doing their own thing will have been a big blow for NISA who brought over Danganronpa (which was one of NISA's best sellers).

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Yeah, Spike took from both Aksys and NISA. What makes things more interesting is the new Tookyo Games company. Will the western Spike be publishing those now, then? More likely them than PQube.

 

[ILikeFeet]

as long as Nippon Ichi still makes games, NISA will have work. and it seems NIS is stepping their game up, if Destiny Connect is anything to go by. throw their capital and system support for Falcom games, they'll be sitting good for the time being.

XSeed maybe be getting into switch portin. Corpse Party might be the first, and they got a backlog of games they can bring over (like Trails of Cold Steel and Little King's Story), so there's still something on the table for them

 

[wrowa]

Yeah, seems kind of crazy to imagine that Xseed could outbid Sega. But maybe it was more on his, a certain amount of fatigue after localizing like 5 Yakuza games back-to-back. At this point he's probably also done most of the worst on scripts for Judgment and the Yakuza 3 remaster, so maybe it's a decent time to step away.

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After their recent departures, XSEED might just desperately need new experienced editors, so that in this case they're willing to pay a bit above industry average.

I know Marvelous is their Japanese parent company, but is Marvelous doing anything other than producing Senran Kagura? Where is the new Story of Seasons game, already?

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These days Marvelous does quite a bit of work for other publishers. Daemon X Machina is done for Nintendo, they also did God Eater 3 for Namco Bandai and in the recent past they've also made Monster Hunter Stories for Capcom. The games they seem to spend most of their resources on, aren't the games they publish themselves, which likely puts XSEED in a bit of a rough position. Outside of the never ending avalanche of low budget Senran Kagura spin-offs, the ocassional Fate release and a new Story of Seasons every now and then, their parent company isn't giving them much to work with.

 

[Curler]

These days Marvelous does quite a bit of work for other publishers. Daemon X Machina is done for Nintendo, they also did God Eater 3 for Namco Bandai and in the recent past they've also made Monster Hunter Stories for Capcom. The games they seem to spend most of their resources on, aren't the games they publish themselves, which likely puts XSEED in a bit of a rough position. Outside of the never ending avalanche of low budget Senran Kagura spin-offs, the ocassional Fate release and a new Story of Seasons every now and then, their parent company isn't giving them much to work with.

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Didn't know they did GE3 or MonHun Stories (LOVED that game!!) Yeah, MMV themselves aren't doing too much on their own. Even NISA has an outpour of new games lately, with the odd Kadokawa game here and there, so they are fine. Sega/Atlus is doing great, with their own double-studio titles, and even some Furyu and Aquaplus stuff. XSEED definately needs a lift!

 

[TriggerRedd]

Regarding the topic, I just hope that Sega/Atlus have someone capable to followup on Derks great work on the Yakuza series this past couple of years - the series localisations and release schedules have never been better and I hope that continues past Judgment.

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I'm obviously not going to comment on reasons here, but it's safe to say I think Derk is a great guy and a really good editor, and our whole office wishes him nothing but the best!

What I do want to clarify though is that Derk's title is Lead Editor, but he hasn't been on the Yakuza team since Kiwami 1, when he shifted to Valkyria. Starting from 6, Jon Riesenbach started sharing the heavy lifting with me and the support of some other great translators and editors. So we don't have to fill any gaps to fill and there's no reason to worry about a dip in quality.

 

[LordGorchnik]

I'm obviously not going to comment on reasons here, but it's safe to say I think Derk is a great guy and a really good editor, and our whole office wishes him nothing but the best!

What I do want to clarify though is that Derk's title is Lead Editor, but he hasn't been on the Yakuza team since Kiwami 1, when he shifted to Valkyria. Starting from 6, Jon Riesenbach started sharing the heavy lifting with me and the support of some other great translators and editors. So we don't have to fill any gaps to fill and there's no reason to worry about a dip in quality.

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Good to hear, thanks for letting us know.

 

[shadowman16]

I'm obviously not going to comment on reasons here, but it's safe to say I think Derk is a great guy and a really good editor, and our whole office wishes him nothing but the best!

What I do want to clarify though is that Derk's title is Lead Editor, but he hasn't been on the Yakuza team since Kiwami 1, when he shifted to Valkyria. Starting from 6, Jon Riesenbach started sharing the heavy lifting with me and the support of some other great translators and editors. So we don't have to fill any gaps to fill and there's no reason to worry about a dip in quality.

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That's reassuring and great to hear :) You guys do such a great job on the series that I hope that things get even better :) I'm playing the import version of Judge Eyes at the moment and can't wait to replay it in English later in the year, and I hope that the remasters of 3-5 turn out great as well ;)