Given the rabid popularity of Radiant Silvergun.....

jpolz · Post by **jpolz** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:02 am

You would think it'd be worth Treasure's time to port it over to a current system and release it in the US & Europe.

I so want to play this game, but PC emulators aren't up to the task, Saturn are diffcult to mod, and I'm not paying $400 for a original copy.

They did it with Ikaruga, why not RS?

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:08 am

Well, RSG's "rabid popularity" exists largely only in the shmup community...not to mention that even if they did try to release it to a wider audience, shmups aren't as popular as they used to be, and many likely wouldn't be interested in the genre to begin with, no matter how good this one game is supposed to be. Heck, look at all the praise Gradius V, Ikaruga, etc. are getting from the critics in general, as well as most of the gamers who play them, but still you see few shmups being released, especially in the West, since it's simply a risky monetary venture no matter what game you're releasing.

Not to mention that the eBay sellers and import shops who are making a fortune off the Saturn version would revolt and burn Treasure's HQ to the ground.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:13 am

Just buy a damn AR cartridge and shell out $150 for a copy. If it's not worth it to you to play what you might think is the best shooter ever, find a new genre.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:16 am

I smell yeat another "RSG is overrated! It sucks!" "Does not!" "Does too!" debate brewing...

*heads for the hills*

tehkao · Post by **tehkao** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:16 am

It think it takes quite a bit of effort to port a game from the Saturn to a different console...the Saturn hardware is built differently from most other consoles and I imagine it would take a lot of re-coding...maybe it's just not worth the effort.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:16 am

Also, most shmups for Saturn don't use extra RAM and there are other alternatives to the Action Replay 4M like the ST-Key if you don't want the extra RAM. However, the Action Replay 4M is worth it for the extra RAM, especially if you plan on getting fighting games for the Saturn. Both the AR4M and the ST-Key are easy to find and are probably a cheaper alternative to modding. I also heard that the Game Shark allows for imports. Is this true?

LoneSage · Post by **LoneSage** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:22 am

Instead of creating another RSG topic, I'll just ask it here: How many copies of RSG were produced for the Saturn? I've heard 5,000, but I see way too many of them for sale around the interweb..

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:12 am

$400? Yeah if you are desperate enough to buy it new and sealed. Otherwise I was able to (re) buy a near mint and complete copy for $150 in January. No spine card but who cares? Spine cards are just glorified product tags. You can probably get it cheaper for that as long as you are man enough to get it in less than amazing condition. It's a great game and doesn't need to be all nice 'n shiny to be enjoyed.

Blue Lander · Post by **Blue Lander** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:23 am

Awhile back I heard a rumor that Treasure was working on a "Treasure Chest", a collection of their best games ported to a modern system. Sounds like wishful thinking to me, but has anybody else heard of it?

If RSG gets ported to another system, there's going to be a lot of angry collectors here who'll be pissed that their Saturn copies went down in value.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:35 am

LoneSage wrote:Instead of creating another RSG topic, I'll just ask it here: How many copies of RSG were produced for the Saturn? I've heard 5,000, but I see way too many of them for sale around the interweb..

According to Silver Translations, it's 50,000. 5,000 is more in the ballpark of Panorama Cotton or something like that, which you see less frequently.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:41 am

Blue Lander wrote:Awhile back I heard a rumor that Treasure was working on a "Treasure Chest", a collection of their best games ported to a modern system. Sounds like wishful thinking to me, but has anybody else heard of it?

If RSG gets ported to another system, there's going to be a lot of angry collectors here who'll be pissed that their Saturn copies went down in value.

I remember reading the Treasure Chest news on Gamefan.com at least 4 1/2 years ago. The apparently ditched it pretty fast.

Andi · Post by **Andi** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:13 pm

Neon wrote:Just buy a damn AR cartridge and shell out $150 for a copy. If it's not worth it to you to play what you might think is the best shooter ever, find a new genre.

That seems a little harsh. And silly.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:21 pm

Harsh, perhaps. I was a bit sleep deprived. But silly? No, people need to quit bitching and buy the game. If you don't like it, you can easily re-sell. If it is your favorite shooter (not for me, but a lot of people) it would be worth the money. So just buy it.

That, or start a petition for a port

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:42 pm

Treasure almost seems to have a policy of making games primarily for the least popular systems (MD, Saturn, N64, DC, GC).

Anyway, the price tag is nothing since as stated, you can sell it back and get all your money back (maybe sans the shipping, which you can consider to be a rental fee).

brokendivide · Post by **brokendivide** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:46 pm

The prices fluctuate quite a bit. I sold mine for £200 ($385 ish, pretty steep), but bought it for around £80 ($155). Keep an eye out for an incomplete one, if you're not desparate to play it in a hurry. And just resell if you don't like..

If you don't want to mod or import, get a cheapy 2nd hand one (if you're worried about the small possibility of mucking up your only saturn anyway..) make a backup of RSG and do the disc-swap trick. Not perfect, but it works, and ultimately you'll get to play RSG.

jp · Post by jp » Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:59 pm

Radiant Silvergun sold 50,000 copies in Japan. If only 5000 copies existed it would be more rare than Shinrei Justatsushi Taromaru and as rare as Crows: The Battle Action... and it would probably be worth several times as much as it already is.

And Treasure was going to port it initially to the PS1, but they didn't because it would have taken up too much time and the end product wouldn't have been as good anyways. So they scrapped it.

As for why they don't port it now:
They're small. They aren't like Sega and Nintendo where they can send some small teams out to port the entire f'ing library everytime they need some quick cash, and I imagine Treasure would rather focus on making NEW games as opposed to wasting time trying to port Saturn games.

visuatrox · Post by **visuatrox** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:06 pm

I agree that it would probably be worth re-releasing the game on a current generation console, I'm sure pretty much every shmup gamer that does not already have the game would buy it.

Sure some collectors would maybe feel cheated, but still the value would not drop that much (it would probably just drop to a more reasonable level). For hardcore collectors, re-releases, copies etc are not worth as much as the real thing..

People that snatch up all copies of rare games, just to re-sell later on Ebay are annoying. The people willing to pay more than $100 for a CD based game, are few and far between. I have been selling lots of stuff on Ebay, and no matter how rare of a game you are selling, there will usually only be a couple of buyers that are prepared to pay anything above a normal retail price of a game.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:07 pm

jpolz wrote:I so want to play this game, but...Saturn are diffcult to mod, and I'm not paying $400 for a original copy.

Missed this part, why not just buy a Saturn that's already modded?

jp · Post by jp » Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:11 pm

I'm still not sure where this guy thinks he's going to wind up paying $400 for RS. Last time I checked RS only went in the $130-170 price range.

LoneSage · Post by **LoneSage** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 9:13 pm

Awesome, thanks for clearing that 50,000 and 5,000 copies thing, jp and BM.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 11:09 pm

jp wrote:I'm still not sure where this guy thinks he's going to wind up paying $400 for RS. Last time I checked RS only went in the $130-170 price range.

Well, there is some Japanese dealer who has been trying to hock a new copy of it repeatedly for that very price the past 2-3 months. It thankfully ended with nobody buying it the last two times I saw.

Skyline · Post by **Skyline** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 11:32 pm

Dylan1CC wrote:Well, there is some Japanese dealer who has been trying to hock a new copy of it repeatedly for that very price the past 2-3 months. It thankfully ended with nobody buying it the last two times I saw.

Nope.

He's still at it.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 11:43 pm

Skyline wrote:
Dylan1CC wrote:Well, there is some Japanese dealer who has been trying to hock a new copy of it repeatedly for that very price the past 2-3 months. It thankfully ended with nobody buying it the last two times I saw.
Nope.

He's still at it.

Said he's still trying. Very, very sad. Since when did Radiant become as pricey as Sapphire?

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 2:25 am

Its a good game but not worthy of bringing out on newer consoles. Not as a straight port anyways.

If you can afford $170 go buy it, its not going to depreciate anytime soon. You will get most of your money back, if not all of it. You can't say that about anything in Ebgames or Gamestop can you?

Greywolf · Post by **Greywolf** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 2:59 am

Speaking of price, how much does the ST-V cart of Radiant Silvergun go for these days?

nullstar · Post by **nullstar** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 8:14 pm

jp wrote:I'm still not sure where this guy thinks he's going to wind up paying $400 for RS. Last time I checked RS only went in the $130-170 price range.

I've been keeping tabs on what it's going for on eBay the past six+ months. Without spinecard and advertised in good or better condition, you can nab it $120-$160, w/ $145 being about the mean. With the spinecard and advertised in same condition, It's $175-$225, with the mean hovering $200-$205. There definitely are sales where a spineless copy sells <$100 -- and ones where a complete copy sells for $300+ (and very occasionally even $400+), but I'd estimate they're pushing the third standard deviation at those ranges. (I was interested in seeing whether the price fell off after the holidays, but it's remained pretty consistent.)

(It's worth noting again that I've only followed auctions that not only advertise the condition of the game but say good or better -- about half of the RSG auctions don't, so the overall averages could very well be less than what I've discovered -- i.e. what you've quoted.)

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 8:38 pm

And Treasure was going to port it initially to the PS1, but they didn't because it would have taken up too much time and the end product wouldn't have been as good anyways.

I don't know about that but I do know that other companies were bidding on it. Activision for one, as a friend of mine at the time worked for Activision Japan. He said the license was too much though, and they would've broken even at best.

how much does the ST-V cart of Radiant Silvergun go for these days?

I saw one in Mak Japan back in the summer for like 10,000 yen.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 8:42 pm

Crave had a PS1 prototype of RSG but the big S told them to give it up since it supposedly looked crappy.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 9:36 pm

GaijinPunch wrote:
And Treasure was going to port it initially to the PS1, but they didn't because it would have taken up too much time and the end product wouldn't have been as good anyways.
I don't know about that but I do know that other companies were bidding on it. Activision for one, as a friend of mine at the time worked for Activision Japan. He said the license was too much though, and they would've broken even at best.

Wow, very interesting.

Ganelon wrote:Crave had a PS1 prototype of RSG but the big S told them to give it up since it supposedly looked crappy.

Always found it intriguing that Treasure was able to pull off something with the game that was apparently only possible on the Saturn. Was playing it a few nights ago and the crispness and brightness of the visuals never cease to amaze me. The shiny little "particles" from the explosions are a treat for the eyes.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:23 am

I actually popped it in as to be honest.. I've only farted around with it. Enjoying it though. I definitely like it better than Ikaruga, although the multiple weapons takes some serious time to get used to.

shmups.system11.org

Given the rabid popularity of Radiant Silvergun.....

Given the rabid popularity of Radiant Silvergun.....

Re: Given the rabid popularity of Radiant Silvergun.....