It's over, CAVE is dead... or maybe not...

[Faith]

I don't see how it could not be an Exa release. Fuck that.

Time to buy more lottery @_@"...

Anyway... will need it... since everyone decided AI take all jobs!!~

[EmperorIng]

Time to revive the thread, with the news that Tsuneki Ikeda has retired from Cave, with the cited reason being something related to family medical(?) issues. Apparently, he left the position months ago, but it was only recently, inadvertently leaked via a tweet from Cave employee Mihara.

End of an era. I hope he can get the rest he so craves. He looked dead inside running Cave these last few years to be honest.

And apparently, Cave has acquired Success. That news completely slipped out of my radar, but they became the majority stakeholder in Success in December of 2024!

[BulletMagnet]

And apparently, Cave has acquired Success. That news completely slipped out of my radar, but they became the majority stakeholder in Success in December of 2024!

That's certainly one for the shmup tabloids; Cave's sudden and recent re-emergence from whatever proverbial, er, dark, hollowed-out recess it's been hiding in for the past few years has certainly taken some unexpected turns.

[KAI]

Being a Cave fan is the worst emotional rollercoaster ever.

Mihara posting that all of a sudden, so weird man. Wish we knew more about what is happening inside Cave right now.

[Jonpachi]

I dig some minor digging, and it seems that Success proper spun off a side company called Success Plus in 2022 and that's what Cave acquired. It's apparently a subsidiary focused on amusement/pachinko/animation work.

[Ms. Tea]

Looks like City Connection are returning to the well at least one more time: they just announced Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets Boosted. Like their previous 360 Cave game ports, it's the same as th 360 version except with a new arrange soundtrack. Comes out for Steam, Switch and PS5 in October. https://www.gematsu.com/2026/05/cave-in ... tch-and-pc

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci7AquBluNM

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4229 ... s_Boosted/

[Faith]

it's the same as th 360 version except with a new arrange soundtrack.

Fk really hope they fix the input lag because on 360 ver it is quite horrible even on Xenia x_x"...

[ttiki]

Fuck yes, go keep'em coming please

[Emerl]

it's the same as th 360 version except with a new arrange soundtrack.

Fk really hope they fix the input lag because on 360 ver it is quite horrible even on Xenia x_x"...

The screenshots seem to not have whatever ugly upscaling/filter the 360 version has, so I'm not sure if it'll be identical.

[cul]

I'm simply really confused by the fact that Cave is still alive. How do they do it, were the sales of that dumb mobile game so good? Is it still selling?

Cave actually has their hands in a lot of stuff. They are now a media/marketing/investment firm. Besides being masters of shmup development, someone in the company had some serious business acumen and knew how and when to pivot as the arcade market died out.

Do not really trust Wikipedia for this. I echo the musings of others in this thread as to how Cave is still around and what they actually do.

So, I did some really shallow digging and I had a quick look at their latest interim consolidated financial statements for Q3 FY2026, dated February 28, 2026.

Total balance sheet: JPY 8.9 billion (approximately USD 56 million).

Let’s have a look at their assets (i.e., what they have/own), as this is usually a good way to determine what a company really values in terms of what it has or does:

-Out of those JPY 8.9 billion, they are sitting on JPY 6.7 billion in current assets, consisting mostly of cash (JPY 3.9 billion) and trade receivables (JPY 1.3 billion).
-They have around JPY 2.1 billion in total investments, which includes the stakes in their subidiaries.
-More to the point of the current discussion, what is really interesting is that their total intangible assets (think intellectual property here) are valued at JPY 142 million (yes, with an “m”). In other words, in their bookkeeping, they value their entire IP portfolio at around USD 891,646. They also appear to have recorded a JPY 2.1 billion loss on intangible assets since FY2025.

Based on the information they publicly provide, they are really active in two business segments: video games, and live streaming. This is actually supported by their income statement, most of their income comes from sales. So, at first glance you would think that with a current market capitalization of JPY 4,1 billions (USD 25.7 millions) they are quite cheap and may wonder why a larger game publisher has not tried to acquire them yet for those juicy IP.

But if you look a bit closer, you realize that by their own book keeping they value their IP at less than USD 1 million. I'm going to spoil the beans here but IP is where you expect to see the value in a video game/live streaming company, whether it is technology it develops or brands it can market.

I mean, sure, but all of that is still downstream of getting the games to sell in the first place. Re-releasing games without any reason to think they'd sell more is also a far worse option if the companies stocks are in bad shape, not the other way around. In my opinion the issue really lies first and foremost in actually presenting the games in a way which will even make "normies" capable of understanding the appeal, not marketing. We had a ton of shmup marketing 10 years ago with all of the new shmups on steam, and that did translate to good sales (Ikaruga 128k, CCWI 78k, Mushi 45k, all by 2018) but 99% of the people who bought those ports never actually appreciated the games, and never moved on to playing shmups after that, so there was no real point. What could CAVE even realistically do now in terms of marketing to get even a tenth of the buzz that there was back then? Compare to Zeroranger - the devs said in a recent talk they sold 45k and the game essentially plays very similar to most shmups just with progress saving.

Tying up to what I wrote above, I fully agree but would go even further. During the 2000s shmups golden era the target demographic for shmup was a niche of a niche. Outside of Japan, the vast majority of games were not even available to play. Situation got a bit better in the 2010s port/revival/Touhou era, but as you said, it still translated to little sale and did not expend the playerbase. What actually expended the playerbase were games that modernized or hybridized the bullet hell mechanics with other genres (e.g., Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, and all those godawful auto-shooters).

The brand/nostalgia recognition is simply not there for classic shmups. What is even the current market for golden era shmups ports? A few dozen thousands people worldwide?

In that context, why would you even bother porting older IP? It is sad but I think their business decisions have been right considering the cards they have been dealt with. If anything, they should triple down on mobile games and loli-nonsense. This is why I am quite suprised of this announcement for Mochi/Pink Sweets. I really would like to see the agreement between Cave and City Connection for this.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I'm simply really confused by the fact that Cave is still alive. How do they do it, were the sales of that dumb mobile game so good? Is it still selling?

Cave actually has their hands in a lot of stuff. They are now a media/marketing/investment firm. Besides being masters of shmup development, someone in the company had some serious business acumen and knew how and when to pivot as the arcade market died out.

Do not really trust Wikipedia for this. I echo the musings of others in this thread as to how Cave is still around and what they actually do.

So, I did some really shallow digging and I had a quick look at their latest interim consolidated financial statements for Q3 FY2026, dated February 28, 2026.

Total balance sheet: JPY 8.9 billion (approximately USD 56 million).

Let’s have a look at their assets (i.e., what they have/own), as this is usually a good way to determine what a company really values in terms of what it has or does:

-Out of those JPY 8.9 billion, they are sitting on JPY 6.7 billion in current assets, consisting mostly of cash (JPY 3.9 billion) and trade receivables (JPY 1.3 billion).
-They have around JPY 2.1 billion in total investments, which includes the stakes in their subidiaries.
-More to the point of the current discussion, what is really interesting is that their total intangible assets (think intellectual property here) are valued at JPY 142 million (yes, with an “m”). In other words, in their bookkeeping, they value their entire IP portfolio at around USD 891,646. They also appear to have recorded a JPY 2.1 billion loss on intangible assets since FY2025.

Based on the information they publicly provide, they are really active in two business segments: video games, and live streaming. This is actually supported by their income statement, most of their income comes from sales. So, at first glance you would think that with a current market capitalization of JPY 4,1 billions (USD 25.7 millions) they are quite cheap and may wonder why a larger game publisher has not tried to acquire them yet for those juicy IP.

But if you look a bit closer, you realize that by their own book keeping they value their IP at less than USD 1 million. I'm going to spoil the beans here but IP is where you expect to see the value in a video game/live streaming company, whether it is technology it develops or brands it can market.

I mean, sure, but all of that is still downstream of getting the games to sell in the first place. Re-releasing games without any reason to think they'd sell more is also a far worse option if the companies stocks are in bad shape, not the other way around. In my opinion the issue really lies first and foremost in actually presenting the games in a way which will even make "normies" capable of understanding the appeal, not marketing. We had a ton of shmup marketing 10 years ago with all of the new shmups on steam, and that did translate to good sales (Ikaruga 128k, CCWI 78k, Mushi 45k, all by 2018) but 99% of the people who bought those ports never actually appreciated the games, and never moved on to playing shmups after that, so there was no real point. What could CAVE even realistically do now in terms of marketing to get even a tenth of the buzz that there was back then? Compare to Zeroranger - the devs said in a recent talk they sold 45k and the game essentially plays very similar to most shmups just with progress saving.

Tying up to what I wrote above, I fully agree but would go even further. During the 2000s shmups golden era the target demographic for shmup was a niche of a niche. Outside of Japan, the vast majority of games were not even available to play. Situation got a bit better in the 2010s port/revival/Touhou era, but as you said, it still translated to little sale and did not expend the playerbase. What actually expended the playerbase were games that modernized or hybridized the bullet hell mechanics with other genres (e.g., Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, and all those godawful auto-shooters).

The brand/nostalgia recognition is simply not there for classic shmups. What is even the current market for golden era shmups ports? A few dozen thousands people worldwide?

In that context, why would you even bother porting older IP? It is sad but I think their business decisions have been right considering the cards they have been dealt with. If anything, they should triple down on mobile games and loli-nonsense. This is why I am quite suprised of this announcement for Mochi/Pink Sweets. I really would like to see the agreement between Cave and City Connection for this.

Not to mention Cave's Exa-Arcadia stg releases including DoDonpachi True Death and Akai Katana Shin + the possibility of "DoDonpachi Campaign Version" as an exclusive Exa-Arcadia title seems quite likely down the road.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Faith]

The screenshots seem to not have whatever ugly upscaling/filter the 360 version has, so I'm not sure if it'll be identical.

Are we looking at same screenshot? The screenshot on Steam have ugly blur: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4229 ... s_Boosted/

There is option on 360 port to "turn off" blur but it is still blur >.<!~

[shmuppy-puppy]

If you compare the amount of work it took to design a shmup in the early 2000s for arcade with today I guess it should be much cheaper to do so today.
You do not need to build the pcbs, you have all the programming tools, game engines, the advanced ai, global distribution possibilities via Steam, eShop and the Playstation store.
Yes, the amount of money that can be made is probably much smaller as well but look at the price tag they are aiming for (around 50 euros/usd).
If they manage to make most sales at around half of that price they still should have a sustainable business model. The games are not massive open worlds with gigabytes of content, the complexity is hardly higher than what indie devs do in their bedrooms (I know that the QUALITY is), yet they have a huge name and heritage. I really love the fact that at least they are trying again.

[Shatterhand]

indie devs do in their bedrooms

Indie devs aren't in for the money (or, to better put it, profits). They can afford to work in their free time, with no budget, no deadlines to reach milestones (or no deadlines at all), they don't have to answer to shareholders, they don't need to follow batshit crazy guidelines from people injecting money in their projects, etc. etc.

The amount of money that can be made is way smaller than it was 25+ years ago. Cave can still sell well just because it's... Cave. A lot of people would buy their shmups even if they were about kids shooting poop from their toilets or whatever, so they have that going for them. But even though they have some of the best-selling shmups on Steam, they still don't have great selling numbers.

Indie development and company development are two completely different beasts. ZeroRanger took 12 years to be made or something like that. Crimzon Clover took 9 years. Established companies can't afford to do that. I am all for Cave doing new games, that is awesome news, but it's not a very profitable genre. Unless they are doing it just for the love of the genre, it is a rough path even for the masters of it. Hope they can pull it off, after all, I don't think anyone could do it better than them.