Regarding Dragon Ball Kai: Ultimate Butoden's Localization

[Super Sayian Prime]

Or rather lack there of.

I'm sure most of the fandom interested in video games are slightly concerned over the nonexistent news of this game coming to North America, or other non-Japanese speaking territories. The fighter by (now closed) Game Republic for DS seemed to offer deeper customization options, and was a tonne of fun to play. Which is why it pains a lot of people to not hear of any potential English version.

I don't think the lack of localization has anything to do with Game Republic closing. They developed the game for Namco Bandai, and thus Namco Bandai owns the code to the game. In fact, Game Republic's very last video game, Knight's Contract, was just published in Japan today by Namco Bandai, despite the studio ceasing to exist for months at this point.

No, I think the problem lies within simple software environments. Publishers from the likes of XSEED, NISA, and even Capcom have all stated that the current DS software market in the US is fairly volatile. It's difficult to get niche games into stores. Which makes it difficult to justify the expenses in ordering ROM Cards from Nintendo. This is partially due to a large increase in competition in retail outlets, making shelf space an often fought after cause. There's so many games, but only a limited amount of space. It's even worse when considering that the DS is now a last generation platform, and stores by either demand of the public, or Nintendo will phase out DS shelf space in favour of 3DS software. Making it even more competitive.

As well, I get the inkling that the Nintendo DS Dragon Ball video games may have never sold well. I don't really have proof for this feeling other than some leaked NPD reports from NeoGAF stating that Attack of the Saiyans debut month was under 20k.

[Kaboom]

If there truly was some sort of cut-off point where they stopped localizing these handheld games, I really, REALLY wish it had been AFTER this game, not before. Ultimate Butoden really looks like something very fun and unique, but here it looks like we're going to miss out. Fortunately, I've heard it's not hard to play in the original Japanese, and if I figured out Jump Ultimate Stars, I can't see why this would be much different. So next time I'm at a convention or something I'll definitely look for it.

[Chuquita]

I wanted this game so badly, and the fact that it might never be localized is a disappointment to me.

I don't want to have to import (infact, I've never imported a game before. I bought Jump Super Stars at a local Best Buy once when they were stocking imported games for a brief period) but if I don't hear any news about this by the end of the month, I'm going to start hunting for a place to buy it before it starts becoming too difficult to find.