For Capcom, publishing a game on the scale of “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney” is an exception. They are a company of blockbuster, mass-appeal hits.

Atlus, on the other hand, isn’t. Catering to a niche demographic interested in very Japanese, very hardcore RPGs, Atlus is candidly aware of their smaller appeal.

They’re okay with that, but it isn’t without drawbacks. Fans often complain how difficult it is to find their products even at launch. “There’s no malice in it,” said Atlus public relations lead Aram Jabbari to Multiplayer. “I wish we could produce to demand.”

Sometimes Atlus just doesn’t know when a title is going to go outside their internal expectations. With last fall’s “Odin Sphere,” the publisher stuck to their traditionally conservative estimates when finalizing production orders for the game’s launch, when the title was suddenly hit with an enormous amount critical acclaim and fan attention.

As a result, demand outstripped supply, and retailers didn’t have enough copies of “Odin Sphere” to truly satisfy everyone at launch.

Atlus admits they didn’t realize the game’s potential (sounds familiar to Capcom’s reaction to “Dead Rising”), but Jabbari is quick to point out that when you’re dealing with a publisher as small as Atlus, every dollar counts.

Often times there are factors outside of Atlus’ control that spur a title back to relevancy. “Trauma Center: Under The Knife” — which launched in October 2005 — finished its retail run by the mid-2006, but the launch of DS Lite “skyrocketed” demand. As I learned from Capcom, producing new DS games isn’t like flipping a switch; two months can pass before new copies show up.

It doesn’t make any sense for Atlus to produce in excess, either. While Capcom may be keeping hundreds of thousands of “Devil May Cry 4″ games sitting in a warehouse in case Best Buy wants a re-order, that doesn’t fit Atlus’ model.

“It’s a lot better to come up five percent short of total sales, as opposed to having 25 percent excess product. With that [extra] 25 percent, you’re going to have markdowns,” said Jabbari.

This helps explain why most Atlus products are hard to find if you wait more than a week to start shopping around. The company remains conservative to protect itself. Sure, that might tick off a few late adopters, but it ensures that Atlus lives to release another game.

Sometimes the company can’t even explain why gamers are unable to track down a game. Chalk that up to the continued flourishing of new retailers. Atlus’ internal numbers may show there are 2-3,000 copies of “Disgaea” at GameStop stores, but that doesn’t mean very much when there are hundreds of GameStop stores in North America.

“That makes it very hard to find the game; less than 50 percent of the [GameStop] stores will have a copy of the game,” said Jabbari.

I proposed two possible solutions to Jabbari: digital distribution and Atlus selling their products directly to consumers through an online store of their own. While good ideas, he admitted, both come with hang-ups.

The problem with digital distribution is that Atlus fans are obsessed with having something tangible, he said. They want to put Atlus’ latest game on their shelf, not in a hard drive. You can’t put extra goodies in a box that doesn’t exist.

And the problem with running a store is sheer resources. They can’t possibly offer the same level of customer service as an Amazon or GameStop. Jabbari admits they’d love to deliver directly to the consumer, but they can’t promise a retail solution on the same scale they’re used to. It would just create new problems.

The real solution is somewhere in-between, he said. Give fans a retail product to pick up, but offer the game online as well, preventing it from ever really disappearing.

When that solution becomes viable, however, is up in the air. Atlus is closely watching the successes and failures on Xbox Live, WiiWare and PlayStation Network before making a move. It probably won’t happen anytime soon — but they’re interested.

Readers, would you give up having boxed games in exchange for the opportunity to eliminate the chance of a game ever going out of print?