[360] The future of Mistwalker?

Originally Posted by Colonel Skills

They've pretty much consigned themselves to failure by their choice of platform.

Eh, this was already touched on in the NeoGAF shit-fest that thread is, but it was a poor decision on Mistwalker's part to initially align themselves and be funded by Microsoft. They should've started with some low level projects on the DS that weren't grandiose productions (i.e. ASH, which was the first 256 MB cart on the DS). Mistwalker themselves are really to blame for their potential downfall.

Their best bet if their Xbox 360 games failed (which, they pretty much have), would've been to try and set up shop with Nintendo. Given how frugal and conservative Nintendo is, I doubt they're willing to take another risk with Mistwalker after ASH severely flopped.

I don't know, they have AWAY and Blue Dragon DS still, but I don't foresee either of those making waves. AWAY is just another dungeon crawler with a neat gimmick, and Blue Dragon isn't exactly a lucrative IP -- plus Blue Dragon DS game is an RTS/RPG, a genre that has never been received well in the Japanese market. Well, actually, that isn't entirely true, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings did 500k this year in Japan. However, that's Final Fantasy. If Blue Dragon DS can do 200-300k, I'd personally consider it a relative success.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Django!

Doesn't Monolith Soft have a pretty decent foothold in the industry? Most people were pretty happy with Baten Kaitos. While we're talking about it, do you know who did more work on the title? Monolith Soft or Tri Crescendo? They're both credited with the game.

I know there was a pretty positive reaction to XenoSaga as well. Obviously Nintendo sees something worthwhile with the studio.

Monolith Soft. is also an actual development studio, though, not a production house like Mistwalker.

The topic of "which developer had more input on Baten Kaitos: Monolith or Tri-Crescendo?" is volatile and has been debated before in the past. Most signs seem to point towards Monolith Soft., however. The credits on hand at Moby Games corroborates that.

Finally, the truth behind Nintendo purchasing Monolith Soft. is really quite funny, and, doesn't equate to much other than "well, they're another dev house under our wing." When Bandai was having serious financial troubles last gen, Nintendo invested in them, and bought about 2.6% of the company. Following the Namco Bandai merger, Nintendo held around 1.3% of the company. This stock was, basically, just sitting idle, and was useless for Nintendo since the original reason they even invested was so Nintendo could be the majority shareholder (they would have only needed about 5% of the company for that to happen, at the time) and make Hiroshi Yamauchi as president of Bandai. Anyway, in the end, Namco Bandai "purchased" back Nintendo's shares by giving Nintendo majority control of Monolith Soft. (Nintendo owns 80% of the company).

Originally Posted by Django!

The fact that Blue Dragon was outsourced to the fucking company that made BLINX 2 sort of, y'know, shows a bit about how much they really give a shit.

While Artoon certainly doesn't deserve any accolades for their previous games (Vampire Rain, BlinX, etc.), they haven't made entirely only shit. Yoshi's Island DS isn't a bad game, neither is King of Fighters EX: Neo Blood on the GBA, and Blue Dragon is definitely a good game, though very basic and traditional. However, yeah, the majority of games they've put out thus far have been shit.

There's nowhere I can't reach.