While I wouldn’t consider it anything remotely official yet, a few things have led to hinting that visual novel company Jast USA is working towards potentially acquiring the license to and publishing Nitroplus and 5pb’s visual novel Steins;Gate to the English-speaking market. This first started on the translation project blog of S;G Project who are in the middle of doing a fan-translation of the game, where on their recent post HERE hinted that:
Yes, there is a possible JAST deal.
No, the project is not stalled, nor has the possible JAST deal “stolen the patch away from you”.
Website Siliconera picked this up and posed the question to company CEO Peter Payne to see what was going on. In an email, the following quotes were extracted:
“Yes, we’ve talked with Nitroplus about the possibility of bringing out Steins;Gate in English.“
“Although it’s complicated as there are two different companies involved, i.e. Nitroplus and 5pb, and we need the agreement of both.“
“In order to make a title like Steins;Gate be really successful, we need the support of major download software distribution platforms such as Steam; something that’s been lacking when it comes to these titles so far“
Nitroplus and Jast USA have an ongoing relationship, having had the opportunity to release titles such as Deus Machina Demonbane for which I reviewed several months back HERE. However there is apparently differences in how both companies want to act – with Nitroplus acting a bit more conservative and waiting to wait a while between titles to see how sales are, while Jast USA themselves want to release their promising titles at a faster rate which has enabled them to offer a sizable lineup for 2012 onward. Two of the titles on the list Saya no Uta and Hanachirasu have already been confirmed for being published this year.
Of course, it is not only Nitroplus but 5pb which acted as the Japanese publisher of the game that they would need to entice. However 5pb seems to be more welcoming of their titles seeing international releases as of yet, with titles such as Phantom Breaker by 7sixty due over the next few months and titles such as Corpse Party already having seen success in the English market. With any luck Jast USA will be successful in getting this out to the English fans, but lets save the victory party until after it is officially announced.
