The Death of a Video Game

I thought I'd post a follow up on the research it took to find out whether the Xbox title Rent A Hero No. 1 was released in North America.

Here's the story, as best as I can piece it together from various sources around the web:

Rent A Hero No. 1 was a game centered around a teenager who moves into a new town and is mentored by a crazy old professor into becoming a Hero and saving the small town from impending disaster. The game had very quirky humor and was intended to appeal to audiences familiar with titles like Sierra's Space Quest series. The game was originally developed by Sega for the Dreamcast in 2000.

The Xbox version of the game, developed by Coolnet Entertainment, was licensed to Sega for distribution in Japan and International markets, but licensing for North American distribution was granted to AIA USA, Ltd.

At the 2003 E3 show, AIA received a large number of orders from retailers for the game, which was to be released in late summer that same year. But localization of the game into U.S. English suffered a number of production delays, pushing the street date out to February 2004. In September of 2003, there was a glut of Xbox titles languishing on retailer shelves, causing many retailers to cancel their orders for the delayed Rent A Hero. AIA found themselves finally ready to go into manufacturing with fewer than 10,000 units on order.

Unfortunately, Microsoft will not grant a license to any Xbox game targeted for North American sales that does not have retail support for at least 10,000 units. Microsoft would not allow Coolnet/AIA to go forward with the North American version until they had retail support for the minimum number of units.

In September 2003, AIA issued a press release stating that release of the game had been postponed:

On behalf of AIA USA, Ltd. we are regretful to say that Rent A Hero No.1 has been postponed. At this time we cannot give out a definite release date. Due to the market structure AIA was unable to release Rent A Hero No.1. It is an unfortunate matter that the market has changed so drastically in such a short period of time.

In late 2004, AIA USA, Ltd. was shut down by its parent company, AIA Japan.

The latest information I can find indicates that Coolnet is still looking for a new publisher and a strategic publication date for the title.

So, it turns out that despite any evidence to the contrary, the game was never released in North America. In fact, it has only been released in Japan. Release to all other international markets was also postponed.