The L.A. Times today reports that Atari US has filed for bankruptcy. By doing so, the company hopes “to break free from their debt-laden French parent.”

Atari S.A., located in France, has control over each of its subsidiaries including Atari Interactive Inc. and Atari U.S. Unfortunately, the company’s overall revenue has seen a downturn over the past couple of decades.

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Some Japanese developers have unsuccessfully produced video in order to appeal to western gamers. The staff behind Namco Bandai’s Tales franchise, however, has avoided this path.

Series producer Hideo Baba told Shacknews that he and his team “really try to look within ourselves and try to improve ourselves” instead of “trying to copy Western developers”:

Baba said:

“With regards to the Tales franchise, we’ve never made an effort to ‘westernize’ it. We feel that Western developers are good at certain things, while Japanese developers are good at other things. Rather than us trying to copy Western developers, we really try to look within ourselves and try to improve ourselves. The Tales franchise has been a personal struggle to better ourselves and the franchise.”

Baba also spoke a bit about Japanese game development overall:

“I feel like a lot of Japanese developers, especially ourselves, we’ve really taken an effort to go back to our roots. We look at what we started with and what we’re good at, and we really tried to make an effort to strengthen what our foundations are.”

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D3Publisher has a peculiar game in development for the Japanese 3DS eShop. Just read the title and you may get a brief understanding as to what this one is about: “@Simple DL Series: Vol. 7: Assault the Cheating Boyfriend!”.

Yes, this download is all about cheating boyfriends. You find evidence and confront the cheaters.

Sound fun? Here’s what you can expect:

– Play as a girl who thinks her boyfriend is cheating
– Search his home for evidence
– Adventure game-like elements
– Use evidence to point out contradictions in your boyfriend’s story
– 3DS gyroscopic sensor used to throw items at your boyfriend
– Hold L+R and shake the 3DS to do so
– 4 boyfriends to defeat: Masato (23 years old), Seiji (27), Toru (18), and Toshio (?)
– Masato: meet him in the city where he picks you up with his sociable personality
– You unintentionally let your guard down and start dating Masato
– Because of your busy schedules you only see each other once a month and you see Masato walking with another woman
– Each boyfriend has his own story and multiple endings depending on how you fare in the confrontation portion

@Simple DL Series: Vol. 7: Assault the Cheating Boyfriend! Caught You Red Handed will be available on the Japanese 3DS eShop on January 30 for 300 yen.

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Namco Bandai has announced a surprising localization today: Project X Zone. The Capcom, SEGA, and Namco Bandai mashup 3DS title is coming to North America and Europe this summer.

You can probably thank Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada for Project X Zone’s arrival overseas. In September, Harada said he was pushing hard for localization.

We’ve posted the official announcement below.

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This week’s ESRB updates are as follows:

The Croods! Prehistoric Party! (3DS/DS) – E
Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS) – T
Chimpact (DS) – E

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A new Detective Conan game is in the works for 3DS. Made by Zero Escape developer Spike Chunsoft, Detective Conan: Marionette Symphony is set to launch on April 25.

The game will let players take on the roles of Conan and rival Harley Hartwell. Marionette Symphony offers logic reasoning gameplay, allowing players to see cases from two different perspectives.

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Straight from the creator’s mouth, Bertil Hörberg has confirmed that Gunman Clive’s 3DS eShop release has outsold the iOS version.

Gunman Clive launched on iOS back in April. The 3DS version, on the other hand, has been out on the European eShop for only a month and the North American store for just two and a half weeks.

For now, the Android release remains the best-selling version. But most sales on the platform sales stem from a featured promotion which has since ended, and the 3DS edition is still a very new game on the eShop.

There’s more talk about Gunman’s Clive’s sales here.