[Request] Purchasable Digital Copies on PSN?

[Ar Tonelico]

It's not every regions that get them, you know? So it's harder to find NIS games in smaller towns and cities. Everyone jumps on them. In bigger cities, you have way more chances to find at least twenty to hundreds of copies when they come out. Where I'm from, the shop only receives like five to six games whenever they come out and they renew them rarely. So if you don't pre-order or someone pre-ordered before you, you are screwed. This is why the purchasable digital copies on PSN would save us from a LOT of trouble.

My Gamestop gets about 3-4 copies of NISA games, and I live in a kind of crowded area. I always buy my games right away, and maybe like 1 or 2 other copies get sold afterwards with like always having 1 display copy that just sits there on the store shelf available. Or like the NISA Premium Editions being kept in the back room or behind the cash register.

[Shizuka]

This has been requested before, but I really think NISA should do this. If I find Cross Edge now, it's probably from new copy from someone that bought the game from a retailer or a used copy, and those things don't give the company money. Now, if I could download Cross Edge, the only PS3 game from NISA that I do not have, then the company would get my money directly.

Cross Edge, Disgaea 3, Atelier Rorona, and Last Rebellion are still all being sold by Amazon's 1st party and not 1 of their 3rd party companies.

There may be no shortage on the US, but I can assure you there is on a lot of countries in the world. The PSN reaches a global level, and that's what NISA should go after.

[Teddie Sage]

See, there's nothing to lose here since a lot of people want JRPGs to be ported and localized in America. The problem is, Americas are biased toward WRPGs lately and not many people pay attention to them because of the lousy reviews or because of the shortage everywhere else, outside of the States. If those games would be on PSN, the cash would come like a flow and this would give NISA more opportunity to hire new people and localize more games in the future. I realize that I'm just an idealist, but this would be awesome...

[Hero]

most of the PS3 games that claim to fill the Blu-Ray disc are usually just padded with dummy files and duplicate textures to shorten load times. when LittleBigPlanet came out they claimed that they practically filled the disc, but the digital version is much smaller. and i think this is true for most games, with the exception of MGS4 and games than span multiple discs on Xbox 360.

[Shizuka]

I think Last Rebellion must be... 2GB, top.

[Teddie Sage]

According to Houk, they would need to rights from J-NIS first... I guess this is a no for now... Kinda depressing. I suggest that a well-versed Japanese speaking fan to send them a letter.

[Shizuka]

NISA can ask NIS to get Disgaea 3 and 4 on PSN, but with Atelier and Ar Tonelico games they'd need to contact Gust, and other games, Idea Factory.

[Houk]

Yeah, each game would need the approval and efforts of the Japanese developer (and the amount of time/resources it would take to prepare a game for digital distribution are not insignificant). There are a number of factors at play, especially when discussing a game being released both physically and digitally, that all influence the feasibility of it. Trust me, if there were no costs and it was easy and purely profitable, we'd definitely be seeing a lot more of it. When it doesn't shake out that way, there's usually a pretty good, if regrettable, reason for it.

[Teddie Sage]

I guess all we can do for now is pray that a miracle happen. And I'm not even a believer, that's how bad I want these games. Many of us here are looking for decent JRPG experiences and those games could be just the answer for that. Sadly, getting our hands on physical copies right now is almost impossible. I already pre-ordered Atelier Totori and Disgaea 4, so I won't have long to wait... Still, I would really enjoy to play D3 and CE.

[SpaceDrake]

Yeah, each game would need the approval and efforts of the Japanese developer (and the amount of time/resources it would take to prepare a game for digital distribution are not insignificant). There are a number of factors at play, especially when discussing a game being released both physically and digitally, that all influence the feasibility of it. Trust me, if there were no costs and it was easy and purely profitable, we'd definitely be seeing a lot more of it. When it doesn't shake out that way, there's usually a pretty good, if regrettable, reason for it.

Wait, they aren't just dumped up on the PSN as ISOs? A game requires "porting" to even work on the PSN as opposed to a disc?

Oi vei, and people wonder why so many developers love Steam and other PC digidistro platforms so much

But yeah, in theory I'd love to see this happen as I'd really, really like to purchase a "new" copy of D3 so that NIS actually sees that money. Being a dev myself I know how bad used sales hurt.

[Houk]

Well I can't honestly say exactly what it takes to put a game up on PSN, maybe it is just that easy, but from what I understand there is definitely a process to it, once a game's already been prepared for release on physical media. But I could certainly be wrong there!

[Shizuka]

Could you pass on this suggestion forward, Houk? Even if it doesn't get anywhere, it'd be nice to send NISA this message.

[LAMV]

Could you pass on this suggestion forward, Houk? Even if it doesn't get anywhere, it'd be nice to send NISA this message.

Seconded.

[Houk]

Trust me, everyone here is very well aware of the nature and trend of digital content. We see the value in it, and we're exploring all of our options in that regard. But we're only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to the games we release, and so there's a big huge minefield of issues to navigate that can make things tough to get rolling.

Hopefully we'll be able to capitalize on a system that is clearly only growing bigger every year sooner rather than later, but as one company we can only do so much. Consider it a work in progress on our part.

[Shizuka]

Thank you for the response, Houk. I couldn't ask for more.