Frontwing has released the PS Vita version of Sharin no Kuni: The girl under the sunflowers, announced the developer in a Kickstarter update.
“The direct cause of the cancellation of the development of the PS Vita version of the game was the overdue delivery date of the development contractor, but the final responsibility for the situation, including the management of the contractor, lies with the project team, or to be more precise, Frontwing, which is the main organizer of the project and is in charge of development management, ”Frontwing said in the update.
Sharin no Kuni: The girl under the sunflowers first launched for PC in November 2005 in Japan, followed by Xbox 360 in October 2010, PSP in February 2012, PlayStation 3 in February 2013 and Android in August 2014. The computer version is expected to appear in English in March.
Here is Frontwing’s full message about the cancellation of the PS Vita version via r / visualnovels:
It is with great regret that we decided to announce that, although there have been last minute adjustments to the development and production schedule with all parties involved until very recently, it has been confirmed that one of the most important rewards for this project the PS Vita version of the game (both physical and digital) will not be able to meet the deadline for its production. As such, we will cancel and refund the PS Vita version of the game on the PC one for all eligible fans and pre-ordered store buyers.
We apologize to our fans who are very much looking forward to playing the game despite the repeated delays.
Please note that at this stage we will not accept any cancellations for the PC version as we believe it will be successfully released and delivered.
Details on the cancellation of the PS Vita version
We believe that we should be as open as possible about the circumstances that led to the cancellation of the development of the PS Vita game version, and as such, we will share with the fans the circumstances that led to this.
From the beginning, the PS Vita development schedule has been affected by the delays in the development of the PC version, but here we will focus on the developments over the past year and a half after the change of publisher.
In the July 2019 update, we announced that our publisher agreement with Limited Run Games (LRG) has been dissolved and that from that moment on we will be collaborating with Hong Kong publisher Eastasiasoft Limited. The reason for this change was to prevent the PS Vita production from ending in North America within the same year. The project team knew that by changing the publisher to another region, the deadline for production would also change, so we outsourced the pre-production and game development of the PS Vita version to a certain development company that has a license to Develop PS Vita games. , and arranged the schedule to meet the deadline.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic and the changes it has brought to workplaces around the world have affected the schedule, the completed master data of the game would be delivered by October 2020 at the latest.
At the last minute, however, the date was changed and the game was not delivered to us in October due to circumstances with the development company, and the project team was only able to confirm the actual product in November. Even more problematic than that was the fact that at that stage it was confirmed that the game contained many bugs, including fatal flaws, and that additional development time was inevitable.
Even at this stage and during all this time, however, we have repeatedly asked the development company to set a clear deadline for mastering the PS Vita version to manufacture the cartridges by the end of the year. We set up a production scheme for production through discussions with Eastasiasoft, shared this information with the development company and the development company replied that they expect to meet this deadline.
Until the last minute, the project team still believed that the production of games would end and enter the production phase, but eventually the multiple problems that kept appearing during the development, and the extra time needed to solve each one, led to the developer not being able to meet the deadline discussed with Eastasiasoft. We are currently negotiating the liability issues arising from the development contractor’s failure to meet the delivery date.
Even after last year’s delivery date expired, the project team studied and searched through various channels, including Eastasiasoft, during January, but in February it became clear that we had to abandon production of the PS Vita. version, and that’s why we’re making this announcement.
One thing we would like to make clear is that the estimate and development estimates we have reported so far in updates and comments were never untrue: it was always based on the information we shared during our meetings with the development company we outsourced the project to. We believed we could deliver the PS Vita version to everyone until the end.
As you can see, the direct cause of the cancellation of the development of the PS Vita version was the overdue delivery date of the development contractor, but the final responsibility for the situation, including the management of the contractor, lies with the project team. , or to be precise, Frontwing, which is the main organizer of the project and is in charge of development management.
We would like to make it clear that AKABEi SOFT2, Eastasiasoft Limited, Limited Run Games and Tokyo Otaku Mode Inc., previously mentioned as project members, have no role or responsibility in delaying or canceling the game, including the PS Vita version. Remember that you do not contact these businesses separately with complaints or inquiries.