Rainbow Moon headed to Vita in 2013 following "hundreds" of requests
Rainbow Moon is on the long road to release on Vita as EastAsiaSoft kick off development of a portable version of the PlayStation Network exclusive RPG.
EastAsiaSoft’s Nils Ngai told IGN that the company has been toying with the idea of a port for some time, and feels the success of JRPGs on PSP is likely to carry over to the Vita. Moreover, the fans demanded it.
"The final decision to bring Rainbow Moon to PS Vita was made because of the game’s success on the PlayStation 3 and really strong user feedback. During the last couple of months we have received hundreds of requests, which ultimately influenced our decision,” he said.
The Vita release is intended to be a direct port, but EastAsiaSoft is looking for opportunities to use the portable console's features, like Cross Save.
"Transferring your save between the PS3 and the PS Vita is an awesome feature and it’s a perfect fit for content heavy games like Rainbow Moon," Ngai noted.
"Having said that we just recently started development and at the moment we are only focusing on the game’s port, which is actually a lot more work than most people might assume.”
EastAsiaSoft expect the port to release in 2013 and hasn't made a decision regarding price - although it knows it can't afford to implement a Cross Buy scheme.
"I know there are a few mainly first party releases that can afford to bundle both games together in one release but unfortunately this won’t be possible for us. Because we aren’t using any third party engine or framework that was already designed to work on both platforms, we estimate that it will take us roughly nine months to port Rainbow Moon to the PS Vita, which is a very substantial amount of time," Ngai said.
"Although we can’t afford to do a completely free download for all buyers of the PS3 game, we are definitively looking into discounted options for customers that wish to purchase both release versions at the same time. We won't be charging double the price if you want to buy both releases at the same time."
Rainbow Moon was the best selling PSN game of its launch month.