Bonus Post - Dragon's Crown Being Published by Atlus

The Playstation Blog has proved to be an invaluable source of information these past couple days with the God of War:  Ascension info and now this.  Now, we all know that the future of Dragon's Crown has been in a nebulous position these last couple months, and we were just sort of left holding the bag and waiting for further information.  And lo and behold, out of friggin' nowhere, here is said information.  It's almost like they said it was going to come out or something.  Now, while any news on the game's future is good news I'm sure, there are a few bits of that that will be slightly disappointing to those who carry a vested interest in the game, Chance.  And I just want you to know, Chance, that I'm making this post with you in mind, Chance.

Now, first off, the obvious bit is that, as stated a couple times now, Atlus will be handling the publishing of both the PS3 and Vita versions of Dragon's Crown, pictured above...kind of.  I'm guessing the picture was in the blog post to show that both games will be in physical format (as well as digital for Vita, obviously), since aside from that there's no real purpose or flair to it.  They will -also- have a little hand in the production of the game, apparently, which is likely pretty cool.  The post goes out of its way to mention that they will be 'key' members of the internal development team who has worked on the Persona series which...again, I don't really see the connection, but I think this is all hype fodder.  The post is very, very inclined to get you as excited as possible before dropping the two bits of unfortunate news on us.

First off, the game(s) will not see release in 2012.  I know, Chance, you're already looking for the Vadernoooo video, and it is unfortunate, but hey, 2012 is pretty friggin' packed already, right?  At least, that's been my opinion of the year, since I know friggin' six games that I -have- to buy before the bell tolls on January 1st, 2013.  The second bit of bad news is that the game "simply cannot retail for $29.99" as "it would have essentially destroyed any chance for profitability".  Now, I'm not quite sure if that's Atlus being super-up-front about things, or Atlus with a classic wink-and-a-nod approach, but I'm going to heavily lean towards the former.  The Vita version of the game is apparently going to go up on the Pre-Order pages as $39.99, the general MSRP for Vita games, which isn't much of a surprise.  The PS3 version didn't have any real mention, however, so take that for what you will.  If it's going to be a full-price PS3 game, then perhaps you can hope, at least, that some retailers will have a discount for buying both as they did for The Show just recently when it came out.

So that's really the long and short of it.  Dragon's Crown is still a thing that is happening and is now being handled by Atlus, in so far as publishing and certain producer positions are concerned.  We can expect it sometime in 2013, but with no real narrowed down scope beyond that quite yet.  When it'll retail, the Vita version will most likely be $39.99 as most Vita games have been, and the PS3 version will likely be anywhere from $39.99 to $59.99, since anything near the original $29.99 price-point just wouldn't offer a whole lot of profitability.  If we know one thing, it's that Atlus knows just how to make a game profitable, so no worries on that field.  Here's hoping we get some more information on it all sooner rather than later, because I know there are certain people who will be chomping at the bit for it.