Xseed Games, the American publisher responsible for the localization and domestic release of niche Japanese games like The Last Story and the Ys series, announced today that they’re changing their name to Marvelous USA.
The company was rebranded in order to show its closer connection to its parent company, the Japanese publisher Marvelous AQL. While the Marvelous brand isn’t particularly well known in the States, in Japan the company has made a name for itself by publishing games like the original No More Heroes and the Harvest Moon/Rune Factory series, as well as a number of popular anime series’, such as Princess Tutu and Senran Kagura.
The company also announced that it has acquired Atlus Online, which was previously a division of Atlus USA. The company has been renamed Marvelous Online, and Marvelous plans to use that team’s online experience (gained from games such as Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine and Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent,) to help them expand into the online market.
The last game released under the Xseed Games label was last month’s Pandora’s Tower, the last of the three Wii exclusive “Operation Rainfall” games. The first game to be released under the Marvelous USA brand will probably be Killer Is Dead, Goichi Suda’s latest bat-shit crazy action game, which is scheduled to be released sometime later this year for the Xbox 360 and PS3.