Sounds like Picotto Knights hasn't been doing too hot in Japan:
How is Picotto Knights doing? [Picotto Knighs is an online enabled belt action RPG from Game Arts.]
Kazuki Morishita, CEO: I’m glad you asked about this. The idea of monetizing through stamina and continues was originally part of Picotto Knights’ gameplay.
Oh, really? It was in development for that long?
We changed the features for Picotto Knights multiple times. Well, sort of. We kept pushing back the release schedule because I wanted to change a lot of stuff in the game.
How has it been doing in Japan? It’s interesting because it’s a free to play game for Vita, a model that’s just starting to emerge for the platform with Picotto Knights and Samurai & Dragons.
As you said, the free to play market for consoles is a different market. We were confident the business model will transition to consoles well. We got enough data as an experiment for this new idea. Since it was on the Vita, we believe if the Vita sold as much as smartphones did it would have done much better.
Acquire is doing more Vita too with MIND≒0 can you tell us more about that game?
MIND≒0 isn’t a game I’m directly involved in so I don’t have much information about it. I’m directly involved with the GungHo titles and Game Arts titles. Acquire is still handling their studio.
The game reminded me of Class of Heroes with a Persona vibe. Will GungHo Online Entertainment America bring this over?
The idea was it’s a fantasy, dungeon crawling RPG and we played with the art style a little bit. No specific plans for now since we haven’t started the localization phase. Since it is a GungHo group title we will talk about it internally and see if it makes sense.
http://www.siliconera.com/2013/05/24/gungho-ceo-talks-about-picotto-knights-working-with-grasshopper-manufacture/
Kind of a rubbish interview really. But news is slow lately!
