Marvelous USA Inc., which was previously known as Xseed Games, is an American company that creates and distributes video games. It was started in 2004 by people who had previously worked at Square Enix USA. The company's purpose was to help make Japanese video games easier to understand for people in the United States.
In 2011, Xseed Games became part of a Japanese company called Marvelous. This partnership allowed Xseed to continue helping adapt and publish video games and related materials for the American market.
By 2024, the company only used the Xseed Games name for games that were published by other companies, not by Marvelous USA Inc. itself.
History
In 2007, AQ Interactive, Inc. announced that it would buy Xseed Games, with the transfer of ownership completed by June. The agreement was signed on April 24, and the ownership transfer was finalized on June 26.
In 2008, Xseed Games worked with Marvelous Entertainment (MMV) to publish games together in North America. At E3 2008, MMV USA and Xseed Games separated the games into two groups: those that would be published together and those that Xseed would publish alone.
On April 1, 2009, AQ Interactive announced that it would increase its ownership of Xseed Games from 55% to 90% on the same day.
On April 14, 2009, Xseed Games announced a partnership with Japanese developer Nihon Falcom to help translate and release several games, including Ys Seven, Ys: The Oath in Felghana, Ys I & II Chronicles, and the Trails in the Sky trilogy, for the PlayStation Portable in North America. Later, in 2012, Xseed Games released Ys: The Oath in Felghana and Ys Origin on the Steam online store.
In March 2013, the online business unit of Index Corporation’s Atlus Online Division was bought by Marvelous AQL and moved to Xseed. On April 6, MarvelousAQL announced that the company’s trading name, XSEED JKS, Inc., would be changed to Marvelous USA Inc. The Xseed name would be used for video games, while the Marvelous Online name would be used for mobile and social games.
In October 2019, company co-founder Ken Berry was named president, CEO, and CFO.
In August 2024, Marvelous announced a major change in how Marvelous USA would operate. The Xseed Games name would now be used for games made by other companies, while the Marvelous USA name would be used for games made by Marvelous.
Controversy
In 2019, Brittany Avery, a former Xseed localization producer, found out she was not credited for her work on the improved PlayStation 4 version of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel. This happened after she left the company in 2018. Xseed shared its rule that employees who are no longer with the company when a game is released are not credited. This practice, also used by some other companies, faced a lot of criticism.