Rising Star USA “Does Not Affect Us In Any Way” Says Xseed

Following yesterday’s announcement that Rising Star USA had bought out Marvelous AQL’s assets in North America to set up their own publishing business in the territory, we got in touch with localization publisher Xseed Games — who are owned by Marvelous AQL — to ask if Rising Star’s new presence in the U.S. would affect their operations in any way.

“Rising Star’s expansion into the North American market does not affect us in any way,” Xseed’s Director of Publishing, Ken Berry, replied in an e-mail. “We have worked with them many times in the past where the games we localize into English for the North American market we hand off to them for a European release later, and that relationship will continue.”

He added: “We have never licensed anything they publish in Europe for North America before, so chances are anything their new U.S. branch publishes is something that we wouldn’t be publishing anyways.”

While Xseed are owned by Marvelous AQL, Rising Star Games do not have a formal affiliation with the Japanese publisher, and have merely used their assets in North America to set their own operation up, so Marvelous could withdraw from the region. Prior to 2010, Marvelous had a 50% stake in Rising Star Games.