Victor Ireland’s Gaijinworks to help Sunsoft in the US
Some of you may remember Mr. Ireland from his glory days as head of the greatest video game publisher of all time; Working Designs (that’s fact people… deal with it)! These days, he’s pretty quiet. His new company, Gaijinworks, has done little to bring attention to itself. Even the website is just a logo. Besides doing the localization work on Miami Law, Gaijinworks hasn’t really done anything.
However, according to a recent article by Gamasutra, seems as though that’s about to change. Sunsoft is looking to invigorate its brand in the US and Victor and Gaijinworks are stepping up to help.
Victor’s relationship with Sunsoft goes way back to the Saturn days when Working Designs localized, improved and published Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean. The game was an RPG that came out in mid-1997 when the Saturn and Playstation were in the middle of their battle for 32-bit console supremacy and the (OMG!!) N64 had been out for just under a year.
Looks like that relationship will continue to grow and thrive, starting with a Sunsoft staple; Blaster Master. Seems as if Mr. Ireland will be helping Sunsoft get that ass-rapingly difficult gem of a NES game on to the Wii’s Virtual Console. The game is set to hit later this month and will run you a messily 500 Nintendo Space Bucks. According to Mr. Ireland, Blaster Master is only the beginning.
“My relationship with Sunsoft and [Sunsoft CEO] Yoshida-san goes back more than 15 years, and when this opportunity presented itself to help Sunsoft return to the US console market, it was a natural fit for both our companies,” says Ireland. “This first Wii release is a great start, but there is one upcoming announcement in particular that will demonstrate just how serious Yoshida-san is about rebuilding the Sunsoft console gaming brand here. Game fans are going to be pretty happy when they hear about it -– I know I was.”
You know what… I would LOVE to see the crazy Waku Waku 7 hit a download service! Make it happen Vic!
Later people.
Chris, Waku-Waku 7 finally did a great home port as part of the Sunsoft collection (along with the Galaxy Fight) from SNK, as part of their Neo-Geo online collection for the Playstation 2. Most of the games in this line never did get home releases, and are practically begging for a company like Gaijinworks to bring them over. Then again, if Ireland’s behind it, we’d get the game like eight years later. :P
Oh I didn’t even know that. I’ll have to look into that.
But yeah… let’s hope that if Gaijinworks does get behind some games, they are a little more punctual than WD was.
Would still like to see it on a download service though… with some online support. I know… wishful thinking.
But I have a lot of fun memories of us playing that game at Swap. XD