Working Designs is gone...

[Specineff]

Because it always had to be the majestic, life-changing, Kafka-esque plot-ridden, 3-plus disc, 50-plus hour RPGs that they had to bring. It wouldn't have killed them to sweat small stuff.

I'm going to miss their Mr. Ed references, though.

Eh, perhaps EA will pick them up like they gobbled up Westwood.

[JBC]

Sigh...

[dave4shmups]

I just can't look at Working Designs and say that it's all Sony's fault.

Oh come on, EVERYTHING's Sony's fault! Stop and think about it for a minute. Did you ever wonder why the world is in 3D? It's because Sony has a giant cell processor at the earth's core, that's KEEPING everything 3D because they hate 2D!

C'mon man, the insurgency in Iraq, al-Qaeda, all the natural disasters that happened this year, it's all the work of Sony! Can't you see that?! And can't you see that if Vic Ireland really is a lousy businessman, it's because Sony put a force-field around him that prevented him from approaching Nintendo and Microsoft with publishing ideas?!

So the next time something goes wrong in your life, look behind your back...chances are, Sony's behind it!

[jp]

I just can't look at Working Designs and say that it's all Sony's fault.

Oh come on, EVERYTHING's Sony's fault! Stop and think about it for a minute. Did you ever wonder why the world is in 3D? It's because Sony has a giant cell processor at the earth's core, that's KEEPING everything 3D because they hate 2D!

C'mon man, the insurgency in Iraq, al-Qaeda, all the natural disasters that happened this year, it's all the work of Sony! Can't you see that?! And can't you see that if Vic Ireland really is a lousy businessman, it's because Sony put a force-field around him that prevented him from approaching Nintendo and Microsoft with publishing ideas?!

So the next time something goes wrong in your life, look behind your back...chances are, Sony's behind it!

Damn straight.

Keep up the good work.

[Fighter17]

I just can't look at Working Designs and say that it's all Sony's fault.

Oh come on, EVERYTHING's Sony's fault! Stop and think about it for a minute. Did you ever wonder why the world is in 3D? It's because Sony has a giant cell processor at the earth's core, that's KEEPING everything 3D because they hate 2D!

C'mon man, the insurgency in Iraq, al-Qaeda, all the natural disasters that happened this year, it's all the work of Sony! Can't you see that?! And can't you see that if Vic Ireland really is a lousy businessman, it's because Sony put a force-field around him that prevented him from approaching Nintendo and Microsoft with publishing ideas?!

So the next time something goes wrong in your life, look behind your back...chances are, Sony's behind it!

Damn straight.

Keep up the good work.

It was Sony who refuse a US publisher to release DoDonPachi in the US!

[russ]

Fuck. Looks like there'll be more room for repititive sports game clones in the PS3's game library. Though I've pretty much lost faith in any potential RPG developed after '00, so I suppose it's time to just kick back and enjoy all the old good stuff.

[Ganelon]

It was Sony who refuse a US publisher to release DoDonPachi in the US!

Really? More info please?

[Nemo]

There were also plenty of GBA games they could have done as well. Why not any of those?

The end result is that even when they didn't have Sony breathing down their necks, WD took longer to translate the games than it took the developers to make them. In 1995 they served a useful purpose, but in 2005 they were obsolete.

As a policy, WD only does CD-based games, that's why they never published anything for the Snes, Genesis, or N64. You may think that's dumb, but they felt like cart-based games can't afford the technology necessary to create the game experiences they wanted to create (VAs, cut-scenes, high-quality music, etc.). And I think we can all agree that WD was productive up until 1998/99, so what changed then? This is around the time when they started working on the Arc series, which marked the start of SCEA being anal about what games WD wanted to bring over. Ole Sony didn't want the 1st "crusty archaic Arc game", which was released in Japan near the inception of the PS, sold as a stand alone game at this point in time. But WD thought it would be a disservice to release the latter games without any foundation to the series, so in effect after much BS, they were finally allowed to release Arc 1, but only in the form of a package deal.

So WD is small company to begin with and they only release 2-3 games a year, and when you're banking on releasing 2-3 separate games in the form of the Arc Series but can't, this sets you back big time. Not only are they losing money by not being able to move along as schedule, but they are losing time they could be putting towards other projects. And obviosuly from here, things only got worse.

[dave4shmups]

There were also plenty of GBA games they could have done as well. Why not any of those?

The end result is that even when they didn't have Sony breathing down their necks, WD took longer to translate the games than it took the developers to make them. In 1995 they served a useful purpose, but in 2005 they were obsolete.

As a policy, WD only does CD-based games, that's why they never published anything for the Snes, Genesis, or N64. You may think that's dumb, but they felt like cart-based games can't afford the technology necessary to create the game experiences they wanted to create (VAs, cut-scenes, high-quality music, etc.). And I think we can all agree that WD was productive up until 1998/99, so what changed then? This is around the time when they started working on the Arc series, which marked the start of SCEA being anal about what games WD wanted to bring over. Ole Sony didn't want the 1st "crusty archaic Arc game", which was released in Japan near the inception of the PS, sold as a stand alone game at this point in time. But WD thought it would be a disservice to release the latter games without any foundation to the series, so in effect after much BS, they were finally allowed to release Arc 1, but only in the form of a package deal.

So WD is small company to begin with and they only release 2-3 games a year, and when you're banking on releasing 2-3 separate games in the form of the Arc Series but can't, this sets you back big time. Not only are they losing money by not being able to move along as schedule, but they are losing time they could be putting towards other projects. And obviosuly from here, things only got worse.

Yeah, releasing games on CD is always cheaper then any cartridge format.

Well, from that article on 1up.com, it sounds like Ireland is only interested in releasing RGP's that come out for the J-360-what about the shooter that Treasure will be doing for the 360 in Japan??

I'm not dissing WD's work, they did some great stuff, but they hadn't released anything but RPG's since Silpheed 2.

[Ganelon]

I'm not dissing WD's work, they did some great stuff, but they hadn't released anything but RPG's since Silpheed 2.

Err, it's Silpheed 3. The original was on the PC.

Anyway, the only thing WD released since Silpheed: TLP was Growlanser so you can't really fault them for not caring more about shooters recently.

[Fighter17]

It was Sony who refuse a US publisher to release DoDonPachi in the US!

Really? More info please?

I read it somewhere before that late in the PS life cycle (when the PS2 came out), some publisher wanted to bring DoDonPachi to the US, SCEA saids no and that was it.


Edit: THE LINK! From "The history of SNK" from Gamespot:

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6089278/p-23.html

From the article:

"As for SNK NeoGeo USA Consumer Corporation (man, that's a lengthy name)--company president Ben Herman was proud to announce the impending release of the King of Fighters 2000/2001 double pack for the PlayStation 2, as well as the intention to release home versions of Metal Slug 3 and SVC Chaos later on. The King of Fighters 2000/2001 pack is out now, but Metal Slug 3 has met with resistance from Sony Computer Entertainment America's concept approval department. SCEA has a long history of denying licenses on 2D-based games. Goemon, Dodonpachi, and Soul Hackers are but a few of the many games denied a US release by the company's approval department, despite the fact that these and the majority of other rejected titles were released in Japan without incident."

[jp]

It was Sony who refuse a US publisher to release DoDonPachi in the US!

Really? More info please?

I read it somewhere before that late in the PS life cycle (when the PS2 came out), some publisher wanted to bring DoDonPachi to the US, SCEA saids no and that was it.


Edit: THE LINK! From "The history of SNK" from Gamespot:

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6089278/p-23.html

From the article:

"As for SNK NeoGeo USA Consumer Corporation (man, that's a lengthy name)--company president Ben Herman was proud to announce the impending release of the King of Fighters 2000/2001 double pack for the PlayStation 2, as well as the intention to release home versions of Metal Slug 3 and SVC Chaos later on. The King of Fighters 2000/2001 pack is out now, but Metal Slug 3 has met with resistance from Sony Computer Entertainment America's concept approval department. SCEA has a long history of denying licenses on 2D-based games. Goemon, Dodonpachi, and Soul Hackers are but a few of the many games denied a US release by the company's approval department, despite the fact that these and the majority of other rejected titles were released in Japan without incident."

While I don't like the 'Pachi games or Cave period, I must say that it amazes me that more people don't feel the way I do about Sony.

[Ganelon]

I read it somewhere before that late in the PS life cycle (when the PS2 came out), some publisher wanted to bring DoDonPachi to the US, SCEA saids no and that was it.

Very interesting, thanks.

[Fighter17]

Really? More info please?

I read it somewhere before that late in the PS life cycle (when the PS2 came out), some publisher wanted to bring DoDonPachi to the US, SCEA saids no and that was it.


Edit: THE LINK! From "The history of SNK" from Gamespot:

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6089278/p-23.html

From the article:

"As for SNK NeoGeo USA Consumer Corporation (man, that's a lengthy name)--company president Ben Herman was proud to announce the impending release of the King of Fighters 2000/2001 double pack for the PlayStation 2, as well as the intention to release home versions of Metal Slug 3 and SVC Chaos later on. The King of Fighters 2000/2001 pack is out now, but Metal Slug 3 has met with resistance from Sony Computer Entertainment America's concept approval department. SCEA has a long history of denying licenses on 2D-based games. Goemon, Dodonpachi, and Soul Hackers are but a few of the many games denied a US release by the company's approval department, despite the fact that these and the majority of other rejected titles were released in Japan without incident."

While I don't like the 'Pachi games or Cave period, I must say that it amazes me that more people don't feel the way I do about Sony.

It gets even worse: The SCEA hit list for the PS2:

http://alwaysgame.com/bboard/q-and-a-fe ... rum&topic=

Psyvariar (tba)
DoDonPachi Dai-Oujou (Agetec)

On the rumors blocks of the page, but I have all the details on Psyvariar.

XS Games was trying to bring both Psyvariar packs into the US, but SCEA saids no. It's not a rumor block, it was a real block because XS Games said this themselfs on their message boards.

Note: The hit list was made in 2004.

[sethsez]

Sony is stupid for blocking certain games. I don't think anyone disagrees here (though if people don't like this practice, blame Nintendo for introducing it to gaming in the first place).

However, Vic claims that the Goemon situation was the final nail in the coffin. In other words, that was WD's last hope.

Okay.

So why did he choose a game that Sony had already rejected?

Konami had wanted to bring it over. Sony said no. Did Vic think Sony would listen to Working Designs when Konami was turned down? Why would you stake the future of your company on a game that was an almost guaranteed failure? Especially when it isn't even a good game (one of the worst games in the series, and just a pale shadow of Mystical Ninja 64)?

It just makes no sense. The company was on its last legs, and Vic decided to pursue a bad game that Sony had already stopped a much more influencial company from releasing. "Stupid" is the first word that comes to mind.

[Turrican]

One thing I didn't get is why quit WD, if he plans to stay in business on 360. He could have kept WD together jumping on the 360 wagon...

[Nemo]

So why did he choose a game that Sony had already rejected?

Konami had wanted to bring it over. Sony said no. Did Vic think Sony would listen to Working Designs when Konami was turned down? Why would you stake the future of your company on a game that was an almost guaranteed failure? Especially when it isn't even a good game (one of the worst games in the series, and just a pale shadow of Mystical Ninja 64)?

It just makes no sense. The company was on its last legs, and Vic decided to pursue a bad game that Sony had already stopped a much more influencial company from releasing. "Stupid" is the first word that comes to mind.

I agree that doesn't make sense other than they already started working on it, and basically had nothing to lose by pursuing it at this point. Not that it would have made or broke them anyways, it was more about not letting their time go to waste and at least putting something out there for fans.

[BulletMagnet]

Did you ever wonder why the world is in 3D? It's because Sony has a giant cell processor at the earth's core, that's KEEPING everything 3D because they hate 2D!

Dave, you done been sigged.

[BrianC]

Sony is stupid for blocking certain games. I don't think anyone disagrees here (though if people don't like this practice, blame Nintendo for introducing it to gaming in the first place).

However, Vic claims that the Goemon situation was the final nail in the coffin. In other words, that was WD's last hope.

Okay.

So why did he choose a game that Sony had already rejected?

Konami had wanted to bring it over. Sony said no. Did Vic think Sony would listen to Working Designs when Konami was turned down? Why would you stake the future of your company on a game that was an almost guaranteed failure? Especially when it isn't even a good game (one of the worst games in the series, and just a pale shadow of Mystical Ninja 64)?

It just makes no sense. The company was on its last legs, and Vic decided to pursue a bad game that Sony had already stopped a much more influencial company from releasing. "Stupid" is the first word that comes to mind.

I don't get why Working Designs wanted THAT Goemon game so badly. Even the New Age PSX game would have been a better choice.

[gameoverDude]

Damn SCEA and their lust for generic, cookie cutter 3D platformers. I wish the Japanese parent company would take the reins- whoever is currently at the helm of the acceptance department needs sacked.

WD did do a couple HuCards on TG-16: Parasol Stars & Cadash. That's it for their cart based games.

Telling SCEA to totally fuck off and becoming a 360 exclusive developer would be a better idea than staking the company's future on Goemon. Taito's Over-G (the new Energy Air Force), SnR, or anything else from G.Rev that may come up later sound like decent picks.