TGS: Marvelous Plans U.S. Office Within Two Years

Author: by Brandon Sheffield, Tokyo

As part of a longer interview to be released at a later date, Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada spoke about Marvelous Entertainment’s future plans for the Western market. The company has already opened a satellite office in the U.K. (Rising Star games), and plans to open a U.S. branch within the next two years. Upon inquiring whether the company would create a new office in the U.S. Wada remarked “Yes, but we might leave Harvest Moon with Natsume. All the new and original titles we’ll be trying to launch in Japan, we’ll want to launch ourselves in the U.S.” He added that this move would happen in the next two years. “We’ll bring a couple of people from Japan to manage, but of course we need somebody in the U.S. who already has connections and relationships with retailers and distribution channels,” he said, “which is why we are hoping to find a partnership with someone who’s already in the U.S.” Most recently Marvelous partnered with Ubisoft to release Suda51’s new title No More Heroes, but has worked with a number of other publishers in the U.S., from Atlus to Natsume. New titles in Japan from Marvelous include Project O (working title), survival horror game Rainy Woods, and Oboro Muramasa Youtouden, from the creators of Odin Sphere.