Are we going to see more NEW shmups on consoles or not?

[ROBOTRON]

Lets face it...the PS3 mainly caters to FPS and sports games...its possible they might revert back to allowing 2D games on their platform, but it'll be years down the line. The Play-Asia shmup...I was shocked Sony might allow this to be made for PS3...I'll believe it once I see it though.

I don't hate the PS3 or Sony...I hate PS3's price...Sony took a big gamble in producing a machine that is priced "out of reach" for the average consumer. Can u say "Neo-Geo"? The only reason why that console survived as long as it did is because it had the arcade portion of the company supporting it (which was a success). Still, had the average consumer been able to afford a Neo-Geo, it would've been a huge success...and supported much more.

I think Sony would've been better off just putting a regular upconvert DVD player in the unit and maybe the machine could've been priced lower. I understand PS3 games are on Blue-Ray...but I'm sure they would've fit on a regular DVD.

I have a friend that has a PS3...I've seen nothing worth the price of the system...YET.

[Motorherp]

its possible they might revert back to allowing 2D games on their platform, but it'll be years down the line.

This rumor really has to die. I don't know where people are getting it from but its blatant fabrication. Sony are NOT banning 2d games on the ps3. Its not a case of developers waiting to be allowed to release 2d games but waiting for it to be profitable for them. At the moment there just isn't the market for 2d. This is a new console and as a result the bulk of the market are early adapters, the technology hardcore. They want to see what the machine is capable of doing and as a result 2d games would go un-noticed. Similarly Sony is focusing its internal development efforts on pushing the boundaries of graphics on consoles to show off what its new machine can do.

Lets face it...the PS3 mainly caters to FPS and sports games

They said similar things about ps1 and ps2 but still 2d games persist. Just be patient and give it a while. Like I said above, developing 2d games for the ps3 right now would be suicide for any studio, they might as well just burn their money and get it over with faster. This will change though just like it always has done in the past.

I kind of agree with you about price though. It is an expensive machine, but its not actualy too far removed from the pricing of its main competition the XBox 360 which most people dont seem to have a problem with. The sticking point for people is that the ps3 is one large figure that you have to pay all at once, but you get what you pay for. If you add in all the extras and subscription etc you need for the XBox 360 to bring it in line with what you get with the ps3 the price difference is actualy pretty small.

Anyway, the price will come down eventualy, and the game line up will get better. Throughout the history of consoles its always been the same story. The initial line up is always a little poor with the exception of a few gems, but things always look a great deal better by the second or third generation of games on the machine. I guess time will tell.

[ubersaurus]

Honestly though you only need the 360's Live fee if you plan on playing online. If you just want to download the shooters on the Arcade service, you can do it out of the box with an internet connection.

I wouldn't expect to see much in way of disc releases on the 360 or the PS3, but downloadable shooters seem more than likely-they've already happened.

Could see disc games on the Wii though. It looks to be on the road to becoming the number one console system in Japan for the next console generation, and if that happens it'll get all the weird japanese games. And that would include shooters

[sfried]

Folks have been saying the genre is dead for years but now it's more dead than ever.

Perhaps it has something to do with "spazzed up" elitist players that can't mention a shmup without the word "danmaku" on it.

Something about it tells me we need to revisit/go back to basics. Even people have their limits in 2D handeye coordination.

[-Bridget-]

Remember, sony is dissing any 2d game for PS3 even if it's perfect 2d game >> so don't except any 2D hi-res full-fledged release.... it means no cave porting stuff

That is complete rubbish. I dont know where that rumor came from but for some reason the recent popularity of Sony bashing has blinded people to the obvious truth. The ps1, ps2, and psp all have many many ports from the arcades, remakes of classics, and brand new console specific 2d games. In fact the ps2 has got to be the all time best machine for shmup collecting. Why would you possibly think Sony hate 2d? In fact there's already quite a few games either available already or in development for the ps3 which although they use 3d graphics they have 2d gameplay. Obviously it might be a while till the market opens up enough to make it profitable for 2d graphics since the ps3 is new and everyone is wanting to cash in on the wow factor of the new level of graphics which is available. This honeymoon period will eventually end and the market will look appetising for 2d games again.

Instead of looking for scapegoats for the demise of the shmup scene you've really got to look at yourselves first. Ask yourself just how many brand new and not second hand shmups have you bought in the past? If you can count em on one hand you only have yourself to blame.

Actually Sony has been doing the anti-2D thing since the PS1 era.


That's not opinion; that's simple fact.


They were giving 3rd party developers a hard time, basically because they only wanted the "cool" 3D ones on their system..... anything that wasnt 3D wasnt so well supported by Sony.

Sony, as usual, just worried about their bottom line.....


It's not that good 2D games werent to be found there, moreso just that Sony made an ass of themselves in the process.


I could explain this a bit better, but honestly I just dont feel like going into detail here.


But skip ahead to today.......

.....Sony, STILL as usual, worried about their bottom line........



What more need I say?

Well, nothing, cause I dont feel like it


Hoboy, yeah, caffiene kicking in here.

[Motorherp]

Complete nonsense. I've been having a good dig around to try and find the root of these rumours and yet absolutely everyone so far I've found who spreads this rumour doesn't back it up with any evidence or logical thought what so ever. Its one of those chinese whispers that started as someones outrage because one particular game didn't get a release and now people think it's insider knowledge and so gleefully spread it to the 'naive' in forums to try and earn kudos points. So Sony have decided not to release a few 2d games in America that got releases in Japan and Europe. That really says more about the American games buying market than it does about Sony's stance on 2d games. If Sony really wanted to ban 2d then why release the games at all, and why are there so many of them on all its systems?

<insert name of company, individual, or charity here>, STILL as usual, worried about their bottom line

Fixed

[-Bridget-]

Complete nonsense. I've been having a good dig around to try and find the root of these rumours and yet absolutely everyone so far I've found who spreads this rumour doesn't back it up with any evidence or logical thought what so ever. Its one of those chinese whispers that started as someones outrage because one particular game didn't get a release and now people think it's insider knowledge and so gleefully spread it to the 'naive' in forums to try and earn kudos points. So Sony have decided not to release a few 2d games in America that got releases in Japan and Europe. That really says more about the American games buying market than it does about Sony's stance on 2d games. If Sony really wanted to ban 2d then why release the games at all, and why are there so many of them on all its systems?

<insert name of company, individual, or charity here>, STILL as usual, worried about their bottom line

Fixed

They still have to release SOME, of course. They're not stupid.

Also, it's not that they refuse the games; its that they make it harder on the developers to put those games out.

It's kinda like how Nintendo often has bad 3rd party relations as a whole, except more specific.

Sony does these kinds of things...... because they're Sony.


Their recent track record of evil deeds speaks for itself. I used to think EA was bad..... now I dont even THINK about EA anymore, not after recent stuff Sony did.



Also, believe it or not, I actually DO have physical evidence here, on what I'd stated before. I got that info originally from a few magazine articles I'd read, which I then researched into further using the Net.


HOWEVER, Im also VERY lazy and I dont feel like continuing any sort of debate here; honestly, this topic just doesnt interest me too much.

I've done my Sony rant/arguement on so many other boards.... that's not why Im here. Im here to talk about shmups.



I spend alot of time following the movements/decisions of all of the various publishers and developers out there, and that includes the "Big 3", Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. That's what I do; that's where my interest lies. Is why I know about this at all.



Of course, wether anyone believes me or not...... is not really my concern. Well, not right now anyway.



Sorry, lol, but Im seriously just too damn lazy to provide the evidence you ask for.

I *could* go upstairs and find the magazines I speak of, and scan them into this computer or something like that, to show.


But that'd require that I move

Now, we cant have that, can we?


No, I didnt think so. *lounges even further into the chair*



Honestly, I dont really have any favorites among the Big 3.


Microsoft makes a good system, and has good games on it; but they dont market it in the way that they should be, and it hurts their userbase.

Nintendo's business decisions for the past couple years have been "sack full of hammers" level of stupid. But boy do they make good hardware (and they ARE starting to turn things around, I'll admit).

And Sony is the single most evil company I've ever encountered. But though their methods are bad bad bad, they do have the game list that counts, and I still use my demonic-and-not-entirely-there PS2 quite regularly.


They all have their pros and cons, same as any publisher.


Im not the type of gamer to just stick to ONE and ban all others; No, I'd rather have all 3, and I tend to have the money to do that.


In fact, the only reasons why I DONT have a Wii or a PS3 right now, is that I'd rather wait a bit for the game libraries to expand a bit. The 360 had the same problem when it launched as well (I have one now though).



Hoboy, sorry, Im rambling again, I do that. Didnt mean to yammer this much, but it's late and Im bored.....



Again, though, I'd rather just talk about our favorite genre here, not what Sony does and doesnt do.

Now that Im done rambling, that is

[Motorherp]

Just because it's printed in a magazine doesn't make it fact. They speculate just as much as your average Joe's on the forums and dont usualy have access to any extra insider knowledge.

I think there's only one grain of truth to all of this but it's not what you think. There was a time when 3d console hardware was new. Sony wanted to push the boundaries of console graphics to establish itself amongst the scene, but unfortunatley there just weren't enough talented 3d games developers out there since the focus used to be on 2d. As a result Sony lended extra support to studios attempting 3d in order for them to be able to recruit and train in order to push these boundaries. Of course this extra attention wasn't given to 2d developers since they didn't need it, it wasn't neglect or hate. To be honest I think this whole issue has been worked backwards and been manipulated for use as ammo by sony bashers.

[Ceph]

That actually makes a lot of sense. I've also never seen anything official regarding this rumored anti-2D stance. Of course Sony wanted to show off the superior 3D capabilities of their PS1; after all that was what separated it from the competition at the time.

Nonetheless there are probably more than a hundred* 2D-games for PS1 and still quite a few for PS2.



*Of which I own ~40, Sony's own Gunner's Heaven being one of them

[EOJ]

There's definitely never been any anti-2D policy with Sony Japan on the PS1 or PS2. You can release pretty much whatever you want in 2D on the PS2, and it'll get approved. Heck, it seems half of the PS2's libary in Japan is just a bunch of 2D dating/adventure sims.

Sony USA has refused to approve some 2D stuff for the US. I don't know their official policy, but it's well-known that some games were rejected solely because they were 2D.

[tviks]

New Gradius series for PS3.....keep hope alive

Damn straight.

[God]

Hopefully all the Turbografix games on the Wii may spark some interest from the corn fed idiots jamming buttons aimlessly like morons on Madden games.

Not a chance. It's going to take quality to get mainstream attention (look at Ikaruga) not 8-bit shovel-ware. Not manics either... IMHO the fate of the genre is mostly in Treasure's hands.

R-Type and Gradius are "shovel-ware"?

No...but in general the 8-bit era was high in quantity, low in quality...and I'd be shocked if even the best of those games helped cause mainstream interest in modern shmups.

some people like to romanticise that games are art, but videogames is an industry.

It's Both

define art

Any creative work.

so the wise thing is to support your favorite shmup developer with your hard-earned $$$

A handful of pity purchases of games count for nothing.

Developers will only create games if there is a market for them. If you dont buy the games, there is no market, and hence no games get made. You might feel it's just pity purchasing but if enough supporters buy the games then it creates a market, even if only a small one. Studios are often attracted to small markets as well as large ones since although the potential for super high returns isn't there it can work out a safer bet since there is less competition too. People have to learn that the biggest way they influence the development studios and evolution of the games scene is how they spend their money.

The end result of any plan to support the genre should be an increase in sales but the brute force method of increasing sales, just buying the games ourselves... it's such a small thing, like picking up a piece of trash to fix the environment. Charity support-the-scene style purchases are going to count for who knows maybe dozens of purchases...while companies probably expect to move something more like tens of thousands of units (anyone who actually knows feel free to jump in).

Another analogy, it's like merely voting versus political activism. Someone who was serious about keeping the genre alive, voting with his dollars is the smallest thing he could do.

Tho, I could be wrong about the scale. How small do these small markets get?

[Motorherp]

But trying to use that as an excuse to stop supporting the scene with your cash is just rediculous. In the end the scene is failing because people stopped spending their money on it in the first place. The smaller the market gets the less games that get made and the less publicity the scene gets which reduces it even further. To stop this degregation you have to continue to support the games by purchasing them, and I mean first hand celophane wrapped. If the fans make a increased effort to show their support where it counts the market will grow, market analysts will see this growth, developers will be attracted, more releases means more exposure, and the scene will in turn increase. You cant sit on your arse and expect it all to happen for you. If you want to see the continuation of shmups then make an effort to buy them. I bet there's a fair ratio of people here who dont have at least 5 first hand purchases under their belts. Imagine if every shmup fan went out and bought the next released game to show their support, I reckon it would be a very significant increase in sales.

With regards to market size, its fuzzy. Although I'm well informed on commercial games developments this is for big projects, I'm not so sure when it comes to commercial shmup development. Things vary, but lets say on average that profit per unit sold is £5, and the average wage is say £30k pa for mixed artists and coders. Gradius V sold 32,000 units which means it could have supported a team of five developers for a year. Given they've built this on an existing engine and these kind of games are substantialy easier to create than modern 3d games this seems doable.

PS: Now is actualy a really good time for people to consider low development cost games such as this for ps2 and xbox since they are at the end of their life time. Less games are getting made for them which means the markets are bigger since more people are likely to snap up what they can get and are more likely to consider crossing genres for something new. So now would be a really good time to show your support more than ever to encourage some developers to take this option

[jpj]

God: "any creative work"?

if i piss my name into the snow, i'm an artist? maybe a cardboard box is art? a bin? a dumpster? they've all been designed and drawn before being produced. maybe you walk around in total wonderment at everything.

have another go, but less broad, eh

(still trying to think who would have a small enough willy, or a big enough napolean complex, to have a 2nd account with that name........)

[God]

I don't dispute that sales are important for the genre. My assertion is that charity purchases are a poor method of boosting sales.

From my dictionary:
Art:
1. ...creativity of man as distinguished from the world of nature
5. Creative work or its principles...
6. Any branch of creative work...
7. Products of creative work...
Creative:
2. having or showing imagination and artistic or intellectual inventiveness

Those examples are too utilitarian to qualify as art.

[szycag]

if i piss my name into the snow, i'm an artist? maybe a cardboard box is art? a bin? a dumpster?

see: Andy Warhol

[PPA]

If Cave will make Ketsui. DaiOuJou, Galuda , Mushi and Ibara downloadable on the LIVE ARCADE for 8-19$ i think theyll make good money...


Besides, it could be a good strategy for Bill Gates to beef up sales in JAP

[moonblood]

correct me if Im wrong but wasn't arika denied a ps3 dev kit when they wanted one for a beefed up ketsui port, isn't that anti-2d? or was it all 'the game is too old & niche' ?

[Motorherp]

What's this, guilty until proven innocent? The truth to the story is that Arika tried to port Ketsui to the PS2 but it wasn't powerful enough. No matter how hard they tried they couldn't get rid of unacceptable slow down in stage 5. The bit about ps3 is fabrication as far as I can tell. At least I can find no reference to any attempted ps3 port anyway except for people on forums speculating as to why they didn't attempt a ps3 port after their failure. The reason they didn't try is most likely for those I gave above, ie at this stage in the ps3's life cycle they'd be commiting suicide. Source about the ps2 port here -> http://mihara.sub.jp/top/blog/sb203/log/eid796.html.

Edit: Some further digging (on this very site btw since someone here has posted a full translation of Arika's statement) has revealed that the official word from Arika is that they didn't attempt a ps3 port since they dont have the expertise or experience needed to program for such a system due to it's increased complexity.

[Veracity]

I'd personally rather see new arcade ports drifting onto the PC, since I pretty much need to keep one of those around, anyway. PS3 and 360 getting them would be nice enough for those that want one, anyway, but I'm in no hurry to buy yet another largely useless box of transistors just for the sake of a couple of shooters, and I'm not sure there's anything else on either platform I much want, at least not in the medium term. Wii would probably be preferable from a tightwad perspective, since it's at least cheap - the Tumiki Fighters port going to that might indicate a glimmer of hope.

Apart from a smattering of Type X titles (which I guess have ease of porting in their favour), though, no-one seems much interested in developing for PC. Don't know if this is down to a perception that piracy's even easier there than on consoles, difference of market, or what.

If you're specifically interested in ports, there don't seem to be all that many arcade developers left with much interest in the genre to produce the raw material, anyway. Cave's still trundling along, but has presumably decided focusing exclusively on selling to arcades makes better business sense than chasing whatever returns it used to get out of console ports. Other than that, there's what, Takumi, Success, AlfaSystem and Treasure still active? Probably more, I admittedly don't keep close tabs on upcoming releases. Oh, Konami was working on a new Parodius-ish thing, too, right? Still, doujin releases seem to have long since overtaken arcades in volume terms, albeit maybe not so much in quality.

[MX7]

*Sony's own Gunner's Heaven being one of them

QFT

Guuners Heaven, or Rapid Reload as we know it over here is probably the most self conciously classicaly styled game i've seen on the PS1. Also see self conciously 16 bit-ish games such as Grandia (also on Saturn but ported to PS), Disgaea, Suikoden II, XII Stag, loads of retro compilations, and thats just the games on my shelf, all released in PAL territories.

[sideshow]

Imagine if say Ketsui was ported to the PS3, the game would be like 400MB with a 10GIG dummy file to put it on a bluray disc. Not exactly taking advantage of the bluray media unless they include a slew of addition HD video content.

[chempop]

Was Drill canned for DC? That game looked promising, I liked the colors, patterns, and music in the trailer.

[Endymion]

That actually makes a lot of sense. I've also never seen anything official regarding this rumored anti-2D stance.

Why would you, a consumer, see anything official regarding Sony's intercorporate approval process?

But trying to use that as an excuse to stop supporting the scene with your cash is just rediculous. In the end the scene is failing because people stopped spending their money on it in the first place.

I don't know about you, but I stopped spending much of my money on new 2D shooters when they started sucking en mass. And apart from the occasional gem here and there, they still do. Big surprise the sales are in the poo?

Guuners Heaven, or Rapid Reload as we know it over here is probably the most self conciously classicaly styled game i've seen on the PS1.

It was also one of the earliest, 1995 I'm pretty sure. That it was only released in Japan despite being such a nice game speaks to their policy just a bit I think.

[Ghegs]

Guuners Heaven, or Rapid Reload as we know it over here is probably the most self conciously classicaly styled game i've seen on the PS1.

It was also one of the earliest, 1995 I'm pretty sure. That it was only released in Japan despite being such a nice game speaks to their policy just a bit I think.

Bzzt, wrong. It was released in PAL as well. Rapid Reload is the PAL name of Gunner's Heaven.

[Endymion]

In that case are you willing to admit that Sony's American branch stifled non-3D games on their systems? I'd say Rapid Reload for the PAL market is wiping up as many scraps as you guys can get over there, and likely done solely because Sony had the game to control and publish.

[KNTain]

So where is that quote from Conspiracy or whoever about Espgaluda being rejected for a US release, anyway?

[Motorherp]

Guuners Heaven, or Rapid Reload as we know it over here is probably the most self conciously classicaly styled game i've seen on the PS1.

It was also one of the earliest, 1995 I'm pretty sure. That it was only released in Japan despite being such a nice game speaks to their policy just a bit I think.

Nintendo and Sega have both failed to release 2d games in America and Europe which were released in Japan. Does this make them anti 2d as well? Sony happen to release a lot of dating sims in Japan that dont get releases in America and Europe either. Are they now anti dating sim too? Of course not. The situation is the same in reverse, ie games which got releases in America didn't in Europe or Japan. You also fail to realise that the decision on whether to release in any specific territory comes down to the publisher and distributer. Many 2d games that didn't get releases outside of Japan weren't published or distributed by Sony.

Your logic is so full of holes I could drive a truck through it.

Like I said in a previous post, whether a game gets a release or not really only reflects the state of the markets in the different territories and not the companies stance on genres. If it's not a good use of any companies resources to release a game in a specific territory then it wont get released. That goes for any publisher / distributer in any industry.

I don't know about you, but I stopped spending much of my money on new 2D shooters when they started sucking en mass. And apart from the occasional gem here and there, they still do.

Sounds like you've had your head in a hole. Take a look at the shmups that got releases for the ps2 from recent years:

Raiden 3
Metal Slugs
Dragon Blaze
Radirgy
Ibara
Trizeal
Homura
Choas Field
Twinkle Star Sprites
Mushihimesama
Psikyo Shooting Collections
Psyvaria 2
Castle Shikigami 2
Gradius V
Gunbird Collection
R-Type Final
Steel Dragon Ex
etc.....

Admitidly not all of them are new games but the new ones are good. The re-releases are new for ps2 and an excellent chance to own them if you missed them the first time around.

Big surprise the sales are in the poo?

Not really when the industry is reliant on people like you to survive.

[EOJ]

Sony happen to release a lot of dating sims in Japan that dont get releases in America and Europe either. Are they now anti dating sim too? Of course not.

I'm not aware of ANY dating sim Sony has published in Japan. But there are tons by other publishers on the PS1 & PS2.

Many 2d games that didn't get releases outside of Japan weren't published or distributed by Sony.

But Gunner's Heaven, the game in question, was published by Sony. And that wasn't released in the US. Another good example is the wonderful 2D RPG Popolocrois (as well as it's sequel Popolocrois II). The original Popolocrois was canned for a US release because it was 2D, instead Sony released the horrifically terrible RPG game Beyond the Beyond for the US. Simply because it was 3D. This was noted in an issue of Gamefan many moons ago.

To say Sony USA is "anti-2D" is not really true--2D stuff does get approved and released in the USA. But to say they haven't denied games a release in the USA simply because that game was in 2D is absolutely not true.

[Motorherp]

I'm not aware of ANY dating sim Sony has published in Japan. But there are tons by other publishers on the PS1 & PS2.

Sorry my bad, but the point I'm making is that this isn't restricted to 2d games. Just because publisher X refuses to release game of genre Y in country Z doesn't make that company anti Y.

But Gunner's Heaven, the game in question, was published by Sony

But if this makes Sony anti-2d then why not all the other publishers too?

To say Sony USA is "anti-2D" is not really true--2D stuff does get approved and released in the USA. But to say they haven't denied games a release in the USA simply because that game was in 2D is absolutely not true.

This is exactly my point. It doesn't make them anti 2d, rather it's just because the American market doesn't support 2d games as much the Japanese and Eurpean ones. The decision to release or not for any distributer for any system and genre will be based on the current demand and supply of the market in that territory. This brings me back to the original reason I got involved in this thread. If you want to see more releases then support the genre by buying the games.