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Nicalis does it again, no digital version of Umihara Kawase Fresh! outside Japan?

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ggx2ac

ggx2ac

Sales Heaven or Sales Hell?
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Oct 25, 2017
3,504
A timeline of events:

During Tokyo Game Show 2018 (in September 2018), Umihara Kawase Fresh! was announced and was being published by Success.

Success confirmed at that time that it would be launched digitally worldwide including English and Chinese localisation but physical release outside Japan was unconfirmed.

In January 2019, Success confirmed that Umihara Kawase Fresh! would launch on April 25th in Japan. It is available physically in Japan and digitally from the Japan eShop, it has Japanese, English and Chinese language options. A Success representative told Gematsu the western release would be handled by a different company.

In March 2019, the western release of Umihara Kawase Fresh! is July 9th and is being handled by Nicalis. Here is what was reported:
Screenshot_20190711-1251422.png


And here's a tweet from Success:


Fast forward to July 10th where Nicalis has tweeted this:


People in the replies are asking where the game is on the eShop. I've even asked around for people on US and European eShops to check, it's not released on the eShop outside Japan and there's no information I can find from Nicalis on whether it is releasing digitally outside Japan.
 
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Seafoam Gaming

Seafoam Gaming

One Winged Slayer
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Nov 3, 2017
2,691
they didn't seem to send out review copies either so I don't know what's going on with this game. I legitimately forgot it even came out because of this
 
Dest

Dest

Has seen more 10s than EA ever will
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Jun 4, 2018
14,025
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Do people like Nicalis? I don't think i've seen a single positive thing about 'em.
 
Razorrin

Razorrin

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Nov 7, 2017
5,236
the HELP Menu.
That should be the Thread Title for whenever Nicalis does shady, stupid shit. Nicalis, at it again!

Sniping indie IP's to own completely, reducing original developer credit and putting them in their cross media products!

Negotiating publishing rights for smaller and independent games people want and not publishing them digitally!

What's next, threat of lawsuit for anyone who previously associated with the company badmouthing it after parting? Wouldn't surprise me, considering how they "negotiated" their acquisition of Cave Story's IP from a Japanese developer with little experience with the English language.

Don't waste your money on their games, the company's scum from the top down.
 
ASaiyan

ASaiyan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,228
Weekly reminder that Nicalis are the EA of indie publishers.

How Tyrone swindles all these small Japanese devs into working with him is beyond me. Umihara Kawase deserves far better.
 
Nanashrew

Nanashrew

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,328
ASaiyan said:
Weekly reminder that Nicalis are the EA of indie publishers.

How Tyrone swindles all these small Japanese devs into working with him is beyond me. Umihara Kawase deserves far better.
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I imagine it's in large part due to language barriers. JP side is likely very unaware of all the things that happen on the other side of the pond and so there are very few to even warn or tell others about Nicalis's behavior as a publisher in the west.
 
lambdaupsilon

lambdaupsilon

Member
Apr 17, 2018
1,211
Speaking on the topic of Japanese indie titles he finds interesting, Rodriguez says he personally wishes popular doujin series such as Touhou "would just go away." Pointing out great indie titles from Japan (aside from Pixel's) was a little difficult for Rodriguez, so I asked for his thoughts on modern, mainstream Japanese games.
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(i'm pretty sure this was when they were still "publishing" la-mulana)
 
--R

--R

Being sued right now, please help me find a lawyer
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Oct 25, 2017
12,750
ASaiyan said:
Weekly reminder that Nicalis are the EA of indie publishers.

How Tyrone swindles all these small Japanese devs into working with him is beyond me. Umihara Kawase deserves far better.
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I don't think many former EA devs talk about EA the way devs talk about Nicalis. Nicalis looks like a thousand times worse.
 
Garlic

Garlic

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Oct 28, 2017
1,687
Nanashrew said:
I imagine it's in large part due to language barriers. JP side is likely very unaware of all the things that happen on the other side of the pond and so there are very few to even warn or tell others about Nicalis's behavior as a publisher in the west.
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People should chat up the La Mulana devs, lol
 
AniHawk

AniHawk

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Oct 25, 2017
11,123
--R said:
I don't think many former EA devs talk about EA the way devs talk about Nicalis. Nicalis looks like a thousand times worse.
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i don't how/if consumers built up a negative perception around them - never really paid that much attention from that side and their games seem to review well and sell well.

the behind-the-scenes stuff is weirdly consistent though. and it's not just people who partner with them.
 
Murlin

Murlin

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Feb 12, 2019
1,048
I was hoping this would be Kawase's chance to really be an indie hit but if it doesn't even have a digital release there is no chance of that. The fact they didn't market it at all also doesn't help.

The La-Mulana debacle cemented it for me that Nicalis was terrible, but even before that we can't forget how they bungled Cave Story on Wii. They eventually made good with the PC version but the fact they handled such an amazing game so poorly really soured their image for me.

I know the JP physical release was ~60 bucks but what about the eshop version?
 
Nano-Nandy

Nano-Nandy

Member
Mar 26, 2019
2,302
AniHawk said:
i don't how/if consumers built up a negative perception around them - never really paid that much attention from that side and their games seem to review well and sell well.

the behind-the-scenes stuff is weirdly consistent though. and it's not just people who partner with them.
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There's that too. EA stuff is usually from both sides, while Nicalis usually gets bad mouthed by people after working with them, but consumers seem happy with them (and constantly praise them for their release with extras like keychains, booklets,etc.) and games review well too, while meeting sales expectations.
 
AppleKid

AppleKid

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Feb 21, 2018
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Razorrin said:
Wouldn't surprise me, considering how they "negotiated" their acquisition of Cave Story's IP from a Japanese developer with little experience with the English language.
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What is Pixel's involvement with Nicalis? After the Wiiware port I recall he quit his day job to direct Cave Story 3D (which I know Nicalis was not involved in), helped somewhat with NightSky, and then there was Tyrone tweeting that Kero Blaster 3DS screenshot. But has he spoken much about his relationship with them?
 
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OP
ggx2ac

ggx2ac

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Oct 25, 2017
3,504
blitzblake said:
Could this not be a typo/mistranslation from gematsu and it was only going to be physical?
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I'm digging around for other sites when they reported the western release, everyone reported it was releasing in the US and Europe digitally and physical for US:




Edit:
Considering all these articles are quoting Nicalis PR. You'd think Nicalis would've corrected them if it wasn't going to release digitally outside Japan.
 
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blitzblake

blitzblake

Banned
Jan 4, 2018
3,171
ggx2ac said:
I'm digging around for other sites when they reported the western release, everyone reported it was releasing in the US and Europe digitally and physical for US:




Edit:
Considering all these articles are quoting Nicalis PR. You'd think Nicalis would've corrected them if it wasn't going to release digitally outside Japan.
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Wow, you'd think it'd be the other way around.
 
Vivian-Pogo

Vivian-Pogo

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Jan 9, 2018
2,032
What reasoning would there be to not release a game digitally that has a physical release on the same platform? I don't get it.
 
RoninZ

RoninZ

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Oct 27, 2017
1,745
That's a strange move that makes no sense, you would think the publisher would want to do digital and not just physical if you want maximum profit.
 
Gunstar Legend

Gunstar Legend

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Oct 26, 2017
5,239
Contemplated getting the game back in April since English language support is listed on the JPN eShop, but held off because I wanted to support the western publisher. So much for that.

Vivian-Pogo said:
What reasoning would there be to not release a game digitally that has a physical release on the same platform? I don't get it.
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Puyo Puyo Tetris didn't get released on PS4 digitally until earlier this year, but that involved legal fuckery with Tetris Ultimate.

Other than a weird case like that...I dunno.
 
El Pescado

El Pescado

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Oct 26, 2017
1,921
I've been asking about a digital release for this in the eShop thread all week. I tweeted at Nicalis yesterday, but got no reply.
 
salromano

salromano

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Oct 25, 2017
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ggx2ac said:
I'm digging around for other sites when they reported the western release, everyone reported it was releasing in the US and Europe digitally and physical for US:




Edit:
Considering all these articles are quoting Nicalis PR. You'd think Nicalis would've corrected them if it wasn't going to release digitally outside Japan.
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This is from the PR that day:

Nicalis said:
Umihara Kawase Fresh! for Nintendo Switch will be available digitally and physically (NA only) on July 9 for $39.99 MSRP.
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Curler

Curler

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Oct 26, 2017
15,587
What's weird is that it WAS listing on the "coming soon" section of the eShop for a while. I browse it every now and then and it WAS there...
 
1upsuper

1upsuper

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Jan 30, 2018
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GreatBritton said:
I thought all games were available on the eshop? There are physical only games?!?!?
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This isn't the first time. Darius Cozmic Collection is physical only (there are two different versions of the game in fact -- one with more games) and there won't ever be a digital version. Penguin Wars had a digital release in other regions, but the digital release in the US came out about a year after the physical release. But that game had a very small publisher and they might have run into issues.
 
Lite_Agent

Lite_Agent

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Oct 26, 2017
4,572
Somewhere. I think.
ggx2ac said:
I'm digging around for other sites when they reported the western release, everyone reported it was releasing in the US and Europe digitally and physical for US:
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That's what PR said for NA, and that's how all Nicalis releases go. Digital-only in Europe unless a publisher steps in (which only happened once and never again). My guess is people just assumed it would be the same (I certainly did) because good luck getting any EU info from Nicalis.
 
sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

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Oct 25, 2017
23,475
Physical version looks very cool.

Wonder what happened with the digital version? Nicalis are awful, but I assume they don't hate money
 
Green Mario

Green Mario

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Oct 27, 2017
4,317
Kind of off topic, but does anyone know if the version being sold on Amazon includes the cool box?
Weird that there's no sign of a digital version, though.
 
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OP
ggx2ac

ggx2ac

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Oct 25, 2017
3,504
salromano said:
This is from the PR that day:
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Lite_Agent said:
That's what PR said for NA, and that's how all Nicalis releases go. Digital-only in Europe unless a publisher steps in (which only happened once and never again). My guess is people just assumed it would be the same (I certainly did) because good luck getting any EU info from Nicalis.
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And that's why I hoped Nicalis wouldn't be publishing the game in the west back then before it was announced.

Nicalis is the Harmony Gold of video games.
 
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