Atlus artbooks for sale?

[Jackstar]

You know guys, I've been thinking since Elizabeth of 2kgames did this for Bioshock. Originally the replacement artbooks for broken Big Daddies were given free as a compensation; but eventually the material was expanded until it has become a full fledged artbook that is retailing for $25 per copy. Capcom has been selling their own artbooks as well in the States so will Atlus fans pay for dedicated artbooks published by Atlus?

Naturally if we're paying for it, there has to be more content than the swag from pre-ordering we've been getting. I don't mind popping down $20~$30 for a softcover 180~250 page artbook printed on high gloss paper, and shell out another $10 for a hardcover version. The variations I would like to see are themed artbooks focusing on a series (SMT comes to mind first), or artist centric artworks.

I had to hunt down the Japanese version of Odin Sphere's artbook, and it is a great shame that it still remains a Japanese exclusive.

What do you folks say? Yay or nay?

[Vincent Alexander]

I'd like to see them throw as many of their Atlus games into one large, hardcover book. I'd cough up a good amount of money for it too.

[Fuyukaze]

I think for the time being Atlus will not be anouncing any plans for an art book. Later on, that's a different story though. Atlus online is one step, perhaps artbooks will be another? I'd pay up to $30 for a good thick artbook myself.

[Enzeru]

A nice, hardcover, 150-page artbook with artist commentary I would pay about 40 bucks for, but that might just be me.

[Sanctine]

No reason to. People willing to buy artbooks are usually willing to pay the extra to get them imported.

The artbooks are made with the artists' input, which would be hard for a company like this since these are all Japanese games. Not worth it, and if they would attempt to make something nice without consulting the original artists, it would not be true to the source.

[poiuiu]

Eh, I prefer to just grab any artbooks I need overseas rather than waiting for any localised ones (I'm looking at you Udon); and besides, it gives me an excuse to import stuff I cannot really afford. :p

[Pibbman]

I can understand importing, but I think when it comes to artbooks for games, the input and thoughts the artists had while doing this is quite huge in itself. Personally I'd definitely get artbooks for games I like, while I'd probably be willing to get some that aren't translated, the ones that are would be more valuable to me.

[Vicious1915]

I really really wanted a Megaten artbook that contained info from Shin Megami Tensei If... After looking through the sample scans I found that there was a TON of info from that game and others in the series (all earlier games). Since I can't read Japanese, I didn't buy it... This is one reason I'm in full support of localized art books. If the info contained in it was minimal it would have been fine, but literally, a third or more of the book was textual data. I'd pay $50 for soft cover books such as these, and up to $75 for nice, hardbound editions. There's a lot of game-related merchandise we never see in the U.S., and I'm sure there are a lot of U.S. gamers that would pay for this merchandise.

[SlaughterX]

I would like to own all of the Kazuma Kaneko art boosk that came out in Japan, but when each book costs as much as a new 360/PS3 game I always have second thoughts... If Atlus USA could release them domestically for an affordable price I would defiantely bite.

[Hamel]

I would like to own all of the Kazuma Kaneko art boosk that came out in Japan, but when each book costs as much as a new 360/PS3 game I always have second thoughts... If Atlus USA could release them domestically for an affordable price I would defiantely bite.

^ This

if that would happend I would love Atlus even more

[slayn]

I would like to own all of the Kazuma Kaneko art boosk that came out in Japan, but when each book costs as much as a new 360/PS3 game I always have second thoughts... If Atlus USA could release them domestically for an affordable price I would defiantely bite.

You could pretty easily afford them if you went one month without buying a new pair of shoes :).

[poiuiu]

but when each book costs as much as a new 360/PS3 game I always have second thoughts...

Art books, unlike the typical flavour of the month titles, will almost always hold their value over time whereas games will drop in price in mere weeks after launch. Wait a month or two, and you can have your flavour of the month and that wonderful picture book you're eyeing, which mind you the latter is more likely to go out of print than most of the former category.

[Vicious1915]

but when each book costs as much as a new 360/PS3 game I always have second thoughts...

Art books, unlike the typical flavour of the month titles, will almost always hold their value over time whereas games will drop in price in mere weeks after launch. Wait a month or two, and you can have your flavour of the month and that wonderful picture book you're eyeing, which mind you the latter is more likely to go out of print than most of the former category.

Keep in mind that atlus games usually have limited printings, though. It's very easy to wait a month or two and have to hunt it down online...but since most folks seem to play games and re-sell them, then I guess it's not a problem, I just want all my games new.

[Jackstar]

How about this model? A monthly/bimonthly magazine style artbook with a different concept in mind, for example

Atlus Chronicles #1: Featuring SMT III:Nocturne art
Atlus Chronicles #2: Featuring Digital Devil Saga art
Atlus Chronicles #3: Featuring Trauma Center art
Atlus Chronicles $4: SMT monster designs part I (Kazuma Kaneko book 1)
Atlus Chronicles #5: SMT monster designs part II (Kazuma Kaneko book II)

and so on and so forth for the other Atlus flagship titles like Persona 3/4, Growlanser etc. Of course, they could talk to Success and Sting as well...I'm kind of sore that Operation Darkness didn't get anything, so this is a thinly disguised attempt to get my OD artbook. :p While Knights in the Nightmare is getting an artbook, it will be nice to see more artworks for the other 2 Department Episode games getting the same treatment, albeit retroactively.

I'm all for artists' inputs in these issues, with developer interviews and anecdotes to share with their fans. For an extra $5 for the "complete" edition, it will be great if Atlus NA threw in the respective OSTs as well.

*I'm going to get pointed to Namco Bandai for this, but those Japanese Super Robot Taisen Original Generation pre-order artbooks are awesome! I'm talking about both the GBA and PS2 iterations.

[poiuiu]

Keep in mind that atlus games usually have limited printings, though. It's very easy to wait a month or two and have to hunt it down online...but since most folks seem to play games and re-sell them, then I guess it's not a problem, I just want all my games new.

That will be the case if there were more PS360 Atlus titles, but as it stands there's only two for 360 and both are more or less throwaway titles. The titles mentioned by the quoted poster are implied to be the monthly blockbusters which usually have hundreds of thousands if not millions of copies in circulation. These will not go out of print, unlike art books which will ... not get quite nearly as much.

And getting current games new is no problem either since you NA gamers get some of the best game deals to be available for any gamer. Just a handful of examples, Mirror's Edge got drastically slashed just a month after release, Bioshock PS3's price was halved recently, Endwar got multiple price drops (as do other Ubisoft titles), etc etc. And even with the case of a game like Gears of War 2 or Killzone 2, depending on where you buy them, a used copy is more or less new but without shrinkwrap. This is one of the great things about the second hand market: shopping around. :p

But for Atlus titles tho, while you're correct where they have limited printings and will sell out sooner rather than later, but Atlus of today is different from the massively (more) niche Atlus of the early PS2 era and before. Higher profile titles like the Persona games will just about always be available, and if the demand is there, they WILL reprint the game like SMT3: Nocturne, DDS1, Persona 2 PSX (which had two reprints iirc), and Odin Sphere's GH rebranding/reprinting. And this is one of the other reasons why I love 'em. :)

Jackstar: You can save yourself a lot of time and patience if you just do what every other hardcore fan does and just import the damn things. Cause unlike monthly mags, these books use thick high quality paper, bright inks, and are from the source.

[Vicious1915]

But for Atlus titles tho, while you're correct where they have limited printings and will sell out sooner rather than later, but Atlus of today is different from the massively (more) niche Atlus of the early PS2 era and before. Higher profile titles like the Persona games will just about always be available, and if the demand is there, they WILL reprint the game like SMT3: Nocturne, DDS1, Persona 2 PSX (which had two reprints iirc), and Odin Sphere's GH rebranding/reprinting. And this is one of the other reasons why I love 'em. :)


This has become very true...
I've been a Persona fan since '96, but I didn't start building my collection until about 2005. At that time, I began to become fascinated with the series as a whole, and had a hard time finding games I had missed. Now it's admittedly much easier.

[Jackstar]

Jackstar: You can save yourself a lot of time and patience if you just do what every other hardcore fan does and just import the damn things. Cause unlike monthly mags, these books use thick high quality paper, bright inks, and are from the source.

This would work better if I actually know Japanese. I have done my share of importing (notice I have firsthand knowledge of Japanese Odin Sphere, GBA and PS2 SRT: OG pre-order bonus artbooks?), but all I get are the artworks and plenty of Japanese characters that make no sense to me. I'm also aware of the high costs involved in printing, hence I made the suggestion to pay for them in my very first post. :D

To repeat myself, I'm just throwing ideas out for Atlus NA to consider, seeing as how other companies are doing this fan service as well. If there's money to be made and fans are pleased in the process, why not?

[Jinkies]

The problem would be if the cost justifies the means. Sure, there is money to be made and fans pleased, but exactly how much? How much money would they be making and how many fans would buy? Atlus could end up losing money than making a profit from this. Especially if you want high quality and quatity/translated artbook than a regular pre-order artbook.

[Jackstar]

The problem would be if the cost justifies the means. Sure, there is money to be made and fans pleased, but exactly how much? How much money would they be making and how many fans would buy? Atlus could end up losing money than making a profit from this. Especially if you want high quality and quatity/translated artbook than a regular pre-order artbook.

Correction, I'm not the only one who would like to see this happen, even though I am going by the tiny sample size in this thread; I believe there are quite a number of Atlus fans who will pay for dedicated artbooks.

As for costs, I don't have the figures, and indeed if the project is worth the risk is up to Atlus NA to work it out. But I look at Persona 3's artbook, and recollect that it was recalled near P3's launch date due to a misprint of sorts, and the artbook was reprinted. So what happened to the misprints? An educated guess would be the material got recycled, or Atlus NA absorbed the costs.

Further at this date, Amazon is selling new copies of P3:Fes with the old P3 artbook, which leads one to think that it either got reprinted, or there were some surplus copies lying around (including the slipcase) where Atlus can hand over to Amazon for their Fes + artbook + slipcase packaging.

Next I look at Capcom's artbooks (Okami and Megaman series) and I have to ask if the 2 series are that popular to justify localizing artbooks as well. The Street Fighter softcover artbooks are priced reasonably; only the hardcover variants are (imo) overpriced. As for Bioshock, we'll have to wait and see just how fast the new artbooks sell out. But then in Bioshock's case, the installed fanbase is much larger than most IPs so if a charge that the comparison against low print Atlus games is unfair, that is certainly an acceptable criticism.

So yes, I agree that some fundamental market research is necessary before Atlus NA commits itself. If the findings are such that this is a money losing prospect, I'll be happy with the status quo of having mini-artbooks and OSTs for future Atlus releases in America.

[simside]

I've got a handful of artbooks, but I'm always most disappointed by the import game books. The ones I have are not 180 pages long, they are usually around 100 pages and have a lot of filler. The books Atlus releases here are nice because they're bundled with the game/are free and contain all the artwork an import book would have, which is really the only part I care about. For instance, the Luminous Arc 2 book is only a little shorter than one of my import books, but it's got all the art.

I haven't actually seen the preorder bonus book Atlus released in America for P3, but the Japanese P3 Visual Data book I have is only marginally longer than the P4 book that Atlus bundled with the game in the US, and it has all the same types of information. The Japanese book is slightly higher quality just because of the way it was printed, but if the difference between free and $35 is a dust jacket, I'm good with the usual methods.

Also, the Kazuma Kaneko books are pretty import-friendly. I just got the first one. It's huge, and all the drawings are labeled in English. The only writing is in the monster index in the back (a brief paragraph for each monster in the book). Plus it comes with a pencil board, and only retails for around $30 or so. Import shops will jack up the price, but it's really not that expensive if you look around. If Atlus USA were to translate that index and have it re-printed in America, it would probably cost around $50 and not be quite as high-quality just because to reproduce the printing methods here would cost an arm and a leg.

[Vicious1915]

The problem would be if the cost justifies the means. Sure, there is money to be made and fans pleased, but exactly how much? How much money would they be making and how many fans would buy? Atlus could end up losing money than making a profit from this. Especially if you want high quality and quatity/translated artbook than a regular pre-order artbook.

Correction, I'm not the only one who would like to see this happen, even though I am going by the tiny sample size in this thread; I believe there are quite a number of Atlus fans who will pay for dedicated artbooks.

As for costs, I don't have the figures, and indeed if the project is worth the risk is up to Atlus NA to work it out. But I look at Persona 3's artbook, and recollect that it was recalled near P3's launch date due to a misprint of sorts, and the artbook was reprinted. So what happened to the misprints? An educated guess would be the material got recycled, or Atlus NA absorbed the costs.

Further at this date, Amazon is selling new copies of P3:Fes with the old P3 artbook, which leads one to think that it either got reprinted, or there were some surplus copies lying around (including the slipcase) where Atlus can hand over to Amazon for their Fes + artbook + slipcase packaging.

Next I look at Capcom's artbooks (Okami and Megaman series) and I have to ask if the 2 series are that popular to justify localizing artbooks as well. The Street Fighter softcover artbooks are priced reasonably; only the hardcover variants are (imo) overpriced. As for Bioshock, we'll have to wait and see just how fast the new artbooks sell out. But then in Bioshock's case, the installed fanbase is much larger than most IPs so if a charge that the comparison against low print Atlus games is unfair, that is certainly an acceptable criticism.

So yes, I agree that some fundamental market research is necessary before Atlus NA commits itself. If the findings are such that this is a money losing prospect, I'll be happy with the status quo of having mini-artbooks and OSTs for future Atlus releases in America.

So this FES + artbook bundle...

Is it a new "boxed" set? I saw the mention of a slipcase... If there's a better edition of FES then I'd like to have it. I shop with amazon a lot and see Person 3: FES mentioned a lot as I browse, but I've never noticed a new special edition of it.

Also, I can say that I would pay for the art mags you speak of. I collect everything I can for the games I love, so I'd definitely pay for the mags as well as import the Japanese artbooks.

Not that one buyer makes a difference, I'm just showin' your idea my support.

[Jackstar]

So this FES + artbook bundle...

Is it a new "boxed" set? I saw the mention of a slipcase... If there's a better edition of FES then I'd like to have it. I shop with amazon a lot and see Person 3: FES mentioned a lot as I browse, but I've never noticed a new special edition of it.

Well my understanding of it is that there isn't a "new" edition of P3:Fes, more like a value edition of Fes. As one reviewer wrote (http://www.amazon.com/Persona-FES-Soundtrack-Artbook-Playstation-2/dp/B001G0MG8W/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1241194325&sr=8-9):

To sum it up, I was disappointed: the "bonus materials" are the same as the ones included in the original release of the game, not updated for Fes. Its effectively the same as the original release except there's the updated Persona 3 FES in the box instead of the original Persona 3. An AMAZING deal if you're just getting into the game, but not worthwhile (and actually quite frustrating) if you're a fan hoping for new swag.

Dean Moriarty


... and considering it is out of stock and speculators are marking it up to 230% (it was only $30 at one point!!), I would echo the view that it isn't worth it any longer, especially if you already have the original P3 and Fes.

I appreciate your cast of vote in favor of dedicated artbooks. Let's just hope that Atlus NA can manage costs somehow and craft a nice compromise between quality and price to please their fans. ^

[Candle Jack]

A nice, hardcover, 150-page artbook with artist commentary I would pay about 40 bucks for, but that might just be me.


Me too.