Why was Chaos Field, Ikaruga etc never released on the PS2?

[gingerj]

Actually I believe treasure simply asked around who would want to publish Ikaruga and Infogrammes said Oui and asked if they could do it on the cube.Mind back then the cube wasn't kiddy yet it was going hardcore.

I think Milestone chose the cube because they found a GC dev kit that had just being tossed out of Konami's window

What a load of crap you spoke.

Not one person has mentioned that Nintendo have got a tight relationship with Treasure. They've worked on a couple of projects before Ikaruga was published on the GC. Thats teh best reason I've come up with. Anyways who cares? The game is on top wodnerful platfroms surely you must own one of them. If you dont then maybe you should question what you're looking for in the gaming world.

[system11]

I always thought it was because PS2's terrible texture memory limitation would have made Naomi ports annoying to create or less than perfect.

Oh god not that again.

Take a look at GT4. Go on. Nice to look at isn't it? Quite a few textures too.

The problem is, the PS2 is hard to program properly - or at least, requires an entirely different approach. Porting Naomi -> DC is incredibly easy for obvious reasons. The GC architecture is fairly traditional, I don't think it would have had Ikaruga otherwise. The PS2 has a fairly crazy architecture where the textures essentially have to be streamed through it (that's how it read anyway from a description!). Too much hassle I guess.

[Blade]

I just said 'screw it' and bought myself a gamecube and a few games, I'll get Ikaruga eventually.

IMO PS2 is in its dry season right now, except maybe Devil May Cry 3....

I just caved and got a cube...am I a traitor? =P

[highlandcattle]

I just said 'screw it' and bought myself a gamecube and a few games, I'll get Ikaruga eventually.

IMO PS2 is in its dry season right now, except maybe Devil May Cry 3....

I just caved and got a cube...am I a traitor? =P

No just a gamer

[visuatrox]

Well seems like I probably eventually have to get a Dreamcast , although this is going to run expensive.. Importing a dreamcast, high shipping prices, 25% vat on top of that, buying some kind of a/v switch, and then hunting down the games I want (border down and Ikaruga) all this going to add up to a pile of cash... that I could use for buying games on the consoles I already own

[captain ahar]

looking around on videogameimports vat really looks like a killer. i am so happy that i don't have to pay it. my condolences to those that do.

[Badaro]

The PS2 has a fairly crazy architecture where the textures essentially have to be streamed through it (that's how it read anyway from a description!). Too much hassle I guess.

AFAIK the idea is that the PS2 has very little texture memory but insane bandwidth, so instead of loading all textures to memory you have to load only the immediately necessary ones, and constantly swap textures around.

And yeah, this probably makes any porting job a bitch, unless the game was already designed using a cross-platform library.

[]s Badaro

[TWITCHDOCTOR]

I always thought it was because PS2's terrible texture memory limitation would have made Naomi ports annoying to create or less than perfect.

Oh god not that again.

Take a look at GT4. Go on. Nice to look at isn't it? Quite a few textures too.

The problem is, the PS2 is hard to program properly - or at least, requires an entirely different approach. Porting Naomi -> DC is incredibly easy for obvious reasons. The GC architecture is fairly traditional, I don't think it would have had Ikaruga otherwise. The PS2 has a fairly crazy architecture where the textures essentially have to be streamed through it (that's how it read anyway from a description!). Too much hassle I guess.

I believe Bloodflowers may have a good point about this discussion right here.
Add to that, the possibility that maybe Treasure didn't want Ikaruga to be released as a budget $19.99 game...cause we all know Sony could care less about 2D type games on their console, UNless they are budget titles like Castle Shikigami 2 or classic compilations, like Midway Arcade Treasures.
Its all about the "Big Bling-Bling" with Sony.

So yea, Ikaruga was a full priced game on the Dreamcast, and it was easier to create the port in the first place.
The Cubes version, retailed for $29.99...still kind of "budgety" in my opinion. I think sales wise, Iky did better on the Cast, rather than the Cube.

[gameoverDude]

Border Down is DC exclusive because G.Rev is a small team and porting to the DC from Naomi was super easy and cheap. Porting it too another console would probably take up too much of their time/money.


And I believe Treasure stated that same reason for not going through with the Ikaruga port to PS2... because I know at one point they were talking about it.

G.Rev wouldn't necessarily have to be the ones to port Border Down though. If I were the boss of G.Rev, I'd be glad to allow Taito to port it. They seem the most interested in shmups out of all the bigger companies at the moment- bringing over Mushimesama which we were all fearing would not see a home system.

[Kiken]

I believe Bloodflowers may have a good point about this discussion right here.
Add to that, the possibility that maybe Treasure didn't want Ikaruga to be released as a budget $19.99 game...cause we all know Sony could care less about 2D type games on their console, UNless they are budget titles like Castle Shikigami 2 or classic compilations, like Midway Arcade Treasures.
Its all about the "Big Bling-Bling" with Sony.

So yea, Ikaruga was a full priced game on the Dreamcast, and it was easier to create the port in the first place.
The Cubes version, retailed for $29.99...still kind of "budgety" in my opinion. I think sales wise, Iky did better on the Cast, rather than the Cube.

You're comparing the Japanese market to the US one. Please compare like markets to themselves.

In Japan, the Cube version was around $60 upon release. A PS2 port would have gone for the same amount.

In the US, things are different, but this doesn't really play into Treasure's earnings as they aren't distributing their games outside of Japan. They just sign a liscencing deal to Infrogrames or Sega (or whoever) in that region and get a fair share for the agreement. At that point, the liscencee can choose to charge whatever they feel is adequate for their specific region.

[icepick]

And yeah, this probably makes any porting job a *****, unless the game was already designed using a cross-platform library.

Hmm! This is sort of other-side-of-the-coin, but would this mean that titles like Shikigami no Shiro II and Psyvariar 2 might've been produced with such cross-platform libraries (or at least, with multiple target platforms in mind during development)? And, if so... Maybe this is why Ikaruga and Border Down look somewhat stunning on the DC, and why Gradius V looks somewhat stunning on the PS2, while the multi-platform titles look sort of "nice/very nice"? That is; Developing for a specific platform yields clear qualities, strength and limits, while developing for multiple platforms (on a regular-sized budget) necessitates more conservative and general use of hardware...

I wonder if Giga Wing Generations would've been easier to port to Xbox. It's almost too bad that the XB is mostly popular only in the Western world, since we could concei... Oh, wait. Nvidia. ATI. Hmm. Maybe the next XB.

Let's see another series come back, developed exclusively for GameCube/Triforce! Galaga?

(Way off-topic, here. Sorry about that.)

[dai jou bu]

I thought the reason these two mentioned games are on the Gamecube now was because Sega's hardware team made it easier to port NAOMI games to the Gamecube,hence the reason the Monkey Ball series was on the system for awhile now before it hit the other consoles later on.

[japtor]

The Cubes version, retailed for $29.99...still kind of "budgety" in my opinion. I think sales wise, Iky did better on the Cast, rather than the Cube.

cube version came out at $39.99. not sure how the dc version sold, but the last us numbers i saw were around 35k, maybe 45k.

I thought the reason these two mentioned games are on the Gamecube now was because Sega's hardware team made it easier to port NAOMI games to the Gamecube,hence the reason the Monkey Ball series was on the system for awhile now before it hit the other consoles later on.

that wouldnt make it any easier or harder to port games, means nothing when it comes to porting implications. gc monkey ball was also upgraded over the arcade version iirc. they didnt bother with the others probably because they thought they wouldnt sell (and few years later when they finally decide to port, they sure as hell didnt sell). sort of like them porting vf4 to only the ps2. wish they made a gc virtua tennis, would go along with beach spikers, in a random sega kind of way.

[serge]

titles like Shikigami no Shiro II and Psyvariar 2 might've been produced with such cross-platform libraries (or at least, with multiple target platforms in mind during development)? And, if so... Maybe this is why Ikaruga and Border Down look somewhat stunning on the DC, and why Gradius V looks somewhat stunning on the PS2, while the multi-platform titles look sort of "nice/very nice"?

I'd like to point out that GradiusV IS produced with a cross-platform library.
But yeah you're right, no matter what tools are used it's possible to push your original target hardware, making it more difficult to make a good port.
Ultimately it's all about people and not the tools they use.

Some more random facts, based on the data files in the PS2 versions:
Shiki2/PS2 uses "Dreamcast-native" data format for its models;
Psyvariar2/PS2 uses formats of high-level libs provided by Sony;
In both cases this means they didn't use any cross-platform tools, but both ports were done "from scratch".

[icepick]

dai jou bu: I read that same thing just yesterday, but I totally didn't put two and two together. That seems to make sense to me, in the sense that [at least] source code for NAOMI titles would at least have somewhat of a head start in being compatible with Triforce and farther down the line, GameCube!

Ultimately it's all about people and not the tools they use.

Some more random facts, based on the data files in the PS2 versions:
Shiki2/PS2 uses "Dreamcast-native" data format for its models;
Psyvariar2/PS2 uses formats of high-level libs provided by Sony;
In both cases this means they didn't use any cross-platform tools, but both ports were done "from scratch".

Well, that is interesting! I suppose that that fact hasn't changed that people (and effort, and budget) are still the deciding factor. Because, I mean... I couldn't imagine Gradius V going to anything in addition to the PS2, even if being made with a cross-platform library were in fact to mean that it somehow could.

Ha ha; I just thought (not seriously) about starting a topic about asking why GV, DDP DOJ and Espgaluda were never released for the GC/XB/DC.

(Save your cans and tomatoes; I know, I know... "PS2's the most popular console right now, games being released for it is a given from a business strategy standpoint"... Amongst other reasons?)