Shou wrote:
tldr - this is a product for arcade operators and is priced accordingly - consumers are welcome to purchase if they are inclined to/overwhelming demand in Japan, even at this price point
To answer some of the questions posted recently:
1. This product has always been targeted to arcade operators. It is not a consumer grade product. However, we have made it possible for individuals to buy the product unlike other companies like Taito, Sega, namco, etc.
2. Pricing is for arcade operators. Once you have the motherboard, software kits are lower priced than kits from even 2 decades ago.
As a collector like many here, I do understand it is out of range for most. This is for operators and also for us as a business to not just survive but to take the platform to the next stage with bigger titles and more features.
There are hobbyist priced products like what NG DEV TEAM or Airframe has put out that are available to anyone. Having a price point like these products means you are not going to be signing a game like Aka & Blue or Psyvariar much less even having a chance with Cave, Arc, Capcom, SNK, etc. If the price is too low, it means their potential profit is too low for these big boys to consider. They are mostly public companies who have real business opportunity costs and will choose making 10 mobile games over a "real" game.
No one here has mentioned it but the Japanese price for our product is actually almost 50% higher than the overseas price and yet even at that price point, there is overwhelming demand. Taito, Capcom and namco locations have already placed preorders and demanded to be first.
Why is that?
The competition still costs more and has 30-50% forced revenue share. Also, the main fighters do not even have console parity. (Tekken 7 FR R2 doesn't have Negan and there is no talk of upgrading it to Season 3. Ops bought it for $8000 and are SOL) Consumption tax in Japan has already recently increased to 10% which affects operators and also the government has been heavily promoting the use of cashless payments which have additional overhead.
Japanese arcade revenue per 100 yen a game revenue now looks like this:
10 JPY - consumption tax
30-50 JPY - game manufacturer
5 JPY - cashless payment vendor
With only 35-55 JPY left in profit, it's no wonder why operators cannot afford to run this kind of business anymore.
Articles in the Japanese mass media have been coming out left and right since the tax hike which I have linked a few here that summarize what I wrote above.
https://ryukyushimpo.jp/news/entry-999336.html
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=2019 ... kokudb-ind
namco's latest game is Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (IP put on top of a Fornite clone) and it starts at $15,000 with large revenue share for even early adopters. They actually didn't receive 1 single preorder outside of namco's own locations. That's how dire the market is now.
3. While some games do come from platforms like Steam, the actual games themselves and production going into them is not the same.
For example, Shikhondo was ported to consoles by an external developer who didn't accurately do it and you'll find that the bullet patterns, slowdown etc are different.
The EXA version, Red Purgatory, contains a true vertical mode, new rebalanced gameplay developed by the original creator, new voice recordings in both Japanese and English and new sound effect recordings done by WASi303 from Success. Then, it is battle tested in Japanese arcades to optimize it for both players and arcade owners. This isn't a simple port.
I don't recall many complaints when a doujin port like Trouble Witches on TypeX was 150,000 JPY when it's 1500 yen on a physical disc for PC. Now, in the used market, it goes for more than the original retail but it's just a port.
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In closing, we started this project a little over 2 years with little more than a dream that arcades are still viable and that we can be that catalyst to reverse the downward trends in the industry.
We went from no hardware to a real platform in less time or budget than what the big boys can do.
Taito and Sega were put on notice - Taito even sent their staff to monitor every Japanese show event and location test we did. Taito started to attempt to block us from signing titles. Taito and Sega tried to block us from getting a booth at JAEPO.
They fear this change as no new player has been able to challenge them on their home turf.
We are arcade first, we live and die by the mission to make arcades great again.
We are EXA.