Atlus: “No plans” for Catherine in North America

Posted February 24, 2011 by Matthew Lee in News.

Update: Despite Atlus’ comments, Catherine has since been announced for a North American release.

If you’re waiting for Atlus and Team Persona’s bizarre erotic horror-arcade puzzler Catherine to be localised, you may have to wait a little longer: Atlus’ US PR has told BeefJack, very apologetically, there are currently no plans for a North American release.

“Catherine is a Japan-only game and there are no plans for a NA release at this time. Sorry about that!” reads the statement.

Catherine has currently been doing very well for itself in Japan, comfortably beating Marvel vs Capcom 3 to the top of the all-formats chart, though it’s anyone’s guess how much of this was down to the scantily-clad ladies on the box.

I’m playing the import, and I can tell you it’s certainly a great game… though complaints from Japanese players about its difficulty are not exaggerating. Seriously, it makes Demon’s Souls look like a walk in the park. We’ll bring you a longer writeup on BeefJack just as soon as we can.

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Comments (25)

  1. fine with me, hell i dont even know what it is

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    midget (February 24th, 2011)

    • Then you, sir, are missing out.

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      Saul Alexander (February 25th, 2011)

      • how? i bet 15 out of 20 people dont know what the heck game this is.

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        Beefy Mario (February 25th, 2011)

      • Probably 19 out of 20. And they’re missing out, too. Quality has little relationship to popular knowledge.

        I’ve no idea how this game is to play, just yet, but the premise and the trailers make it look startlingly different to any other game I’ve ever seen. To me, that’s the first sign that it’s worth a closer look.

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        Saul Alexander (February 26th, 2011)

      • that just goes to show how unpopular this game is…

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        Beefy Mario (February 26th, 2011)

      • *Whoosh*

        Or are you being sarcastic?

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        Saul Alexander (February 27th, 2011)

      • actually no… im saying this as a fact.

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        Beefy Mario (February 27th, 2011)

      • I agree this is probably gonna be one of those games that if not released outside of japan will be upsetting, the fact it sold out so quickly means it clearly has a lot of interest.

        @chris
        Just because the game is only released in japan does not mean it’s unpopular, the gaming industry as a whole still believes japan is where they will make there money with games. I don’t know much about catherine but that’s what has me so interested in the game.

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        asojax (February 28th, 2011)

  2. I’m calling bullshit on this one. If Demon’s Souls — and hell, even Steal Princess — made it over, this one will too. It’s probably way too early for Atlus to be planning for a US release; just because they don’t have plans now doesn’t mean they won’t in the future.

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    Iriscal (February 24th, 2011)

    • I admit I’d be very surprised. Still, in that case a ‘No comment’ would have done just as well, or they could even say ‘Sorry, it’s too early for us to have made any decisions one way or the other’ themselves. It’s just it’s the first HD title from members of Team Persona – if they announced Persona 6 I’d expect Atlus US to bring it over double-quick even if (for some reason) it flopped in Japan. ‘No plans’ has me thinking at the very least they’re a bit concerned about how well it would do.

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      Matthew Lee (February 24th, 2011)

      • There’s probably some truth to that.

        But the flip side of it is, this actually gets a bit more buzz/hype, then straight out announcing plans, or not being sure.

        Shall be interesting to keep up with this, that’s for sure.

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        Tren (February 24th, 2011)

      • I suspect the worry would be how the sexual content will go down in the US. But that’s okay – just release in Europe and Australia! We want you to!

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        Saul Alexander (February 25th, 2011)

  3. Really was looking forward to this game. Oh well, time to learn Japanese I suppose.

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    Tim (February 25th, 2011)

  4. oh that guy can stick it! and the idiots at cave too! nobody forces them to release their games region-locked! and especially when they don’t even plan to release it abroad, it makes no damn sense!

    i am so outraged by this stupid region-locking mentality of some japanese companies that i registered just to write this -_-

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    sh4dow (February 25th, 2011)

  5. http://hey-hey-listen.com/2011/03/catherine-confirmed-by-atlus/

    Game CONFIRMED AND AMAZON LINKS!

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    catherinefan (March 1st, 2011)

  6. just received my atlus faithful newsletter detailing north american release summer 2011^^ (already ordered import version, but will get this one too when available)

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    Toru (March 1st, 2011)

  7. We did actually post a story about the game coming out in the US. But you guys are obviously not checking the site enough to know this http://beefjack.com/news/catherine-arriving-this-summer-in-us/ Went up on the same day that everyone knew.

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    Emily King (March 5th, 2011)

  8. Please Atlus, I would very much appreciate you bringing this over here…as well as Disgaea 4. Please, I’m being nice about this, don’t make me get violent

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    O_O King Afro Thunder (March 17th, 2011)

  9. I have actually noticed Catherine being offered for pre order on amazon, many many times, maybe its a fluke, but I hope not… at http://www.amazon.com/Catherine-Playstation-3/dp/B004P7VGF2/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1301015114&sr=1-1

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    O_O King Afro Thunder (March 25th, 2011)

  10. Here’s the import link, so there are TWO different pages, here, I think its coming stateside…http://www.amazon.com/Atlus-CATHERINE-PS3-Japan-Playstation-3/dp/B004O9ONEW/ref=sr_1_2?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1301015114&sr=1-2

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    O_O King Afro Thunder (March 25th, 2011)

    • Yeah, it has actually been confirmed now – see the update at the top of the post.

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      Saul Alexander (March 25th, 2011)

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