As I’m sure many of you are aware Project Rising Beetle isn’t just devoted to covering the latest Medarot news from Japan and around the world. The blog was initially started in support of an ongoing localization campaign to try to push for western releases of the games. Over two years later our efforts have yet to bare fruit.

One of the biggest blows to our campaign happened earlier this year when the publisher we were primarily targeting stated that they had “no plans to localize any current Medabots games.” We pushed hard to get Natsume’s interest because they have a long history with the property. Their Japanese parent company Natsume Atari originally created the series with Imagineer in the late 90s. This relationship eventually led to the US branch picking up western publishing rights to the franchise. When Natsume passed on localizing Medarot DS, Medarot 7, and most recently, Medarot DUAL some fans took it to mean that a potential localization would not be profitable. Natsume has recently refuted that claim on Twitter, stating that “We never said we were concerned with sales.”

@ThatStonerBoo We never said we were concerned with sales. — Natsume Inc. (@Natsume_Inc) November 18, 2013

So if project viability is not holding the localizations back, what is? Well, there is the off chance that someone else licensed the games before Natsume. Of course if that were true, I suspect there would have been a public announcement by now. What I am about to say is entirely speculation. I would rather it not be parroted as fact elsewhere, but perhaps Imagineer and Rocket Company simply are not interested in licensing the games out? That is unfortunately the only logical conclusion I can come to. I have tried contacting the Japanese publishers, but I have yet to receive a response.

Via: Twitter