Will the PS3 ever get some shmups (outside of the PSN)??..

[dave4shmups]

It's really surprising to me that there hasn't been at least one, even in Japan! And, with most, barring more PSN exclusives, going to the 360, will the PS3 ever get any shmups? I don't know if the 360's selling better in Japan then the PS3-I do have a hard time believing that it will win Asia, OT.

[neorichieb1971]

Its not worth them learning the cell technology in order to make anything really. It would cost them more money to learn the architecture than to program the game.

If someone created middleware i'm sure it would make things a bit easier but for now PS3 is firmly planted in the premiership of "dead cert" winners. Shooters are not coming into that category anytime soon.

The 360 is more PC ish from my information, at least from a programming side.


Oh, and another thing, smallest Blu ray is 25gb. Do you really need that for a shmup? PSN is handling 10 gig games.

[Taylor]

There are a few shmups on PSN, but they stay on the JP store. The disparity is there, though.

XBLA has XNA, I guess. If you want to make a PSN game you need a few grands worth of development kit and if you’re making a niche product the cheapest option will be more attractive. I doubt the architecture is a major turn off for a professional coder working on a low-spec shmup.

Sony did say they were working on something like XNA, but I’ve not heard anything about it since.

Tales of V-thingy came out in Japan a few months ago and the 360 out-sold the PS3 that week for the second time ever... It's still way behind.

[dave4shmups]

There are a few shmups on PSN, but they stay on the JP store. The disparity is there, though.

XBLA has XNA, I guess. If you want to make a PSN game you need a few grands worth of development kit and if you’re making a niche product the cheapest option will be more attractive. I doubt the architecture is a major turn off for a professional coder working on a low-spec shmup.

Sony did say they were working on something like XNA, but I’ve not heard anything about it since.

Tales of V-thingy came out in Japan a few months ago and the 360 out-sold the PS3 that week for the second time ever... It's still way behind.

That's just it, if it's way behind, why the lack of shmups? Is the cell processor really that hard to program for? I figure that the PS2, even when it came out, didn't have the development hurdles that the PS3 has, due to the cell processor. I wonder if at TGS, which starts in early October, we'll hear anything about Gradius V?

[Strider77]

i wonder if sony is making it difficult for 2D titles on the PS3 for now, I know in the past they have b/c they want to give the PS hardware an high tech image.

still i hadn't thought about the cell processor issue. i suppose there aren't a generic development environment yet?

[jp]

There are a few shmups on PSN, but they stay on the JP store. The disparity is there, though.

XBLA has XNA, I guess. If you want to make a PSN game you need a few grands worth of development kit and if you’re making a niche product the cheapest option will be more attractive. I doubt the architecture is a major turn off for a professional coder working on a low-spec shmup.

Sony did say they were working on something like XNA, but I’ve not heard anything about it since.

Tales of V-thingy came out in Japan a few months ago and the 360 out-sold the PS3 that week for the second time ever... It's still way behind.

That's just it, if it's way behind, why the lack of shmups? Is the cell processor really that hard to program for? I figure that the PS2, even when it came out, didn't have the development hurdles that the PS3 has, due to the cell processor. I wonder if at TGS, which starts in early October, we'll hear anything about Gradius V?

In general, ports of shmups don't have to sell very well in order for the companies involved to make their money. And with all the shmups already on and coming to the 360 in Japan, it just makes more sense for those smaller developers to port their stuff to the easier-to-handle-360 and just install the shmup fanbase on one console.

I mean really, good sales for a shmup port is like, 5000-10,000. If they sale that much then the two guys who sat around and ported the game made their money and probably made enough to port something else.

Also, please note that the Wii has sold like fucking hot cakes in Japan. Millions of them. Its the dominate console there. But Shikigami no Shiro III sold FOUR TIMES as many copies on the 360 in Japan.

[gundamalpha]

In general, ports of shmups don't have to sell very well in order for the companies involved to make their money. And with all the shmups already on and coming to the 360 in Japan, it just makes more sense for those smaller developers to port their stuff to the easier-to-handle-360 and just install the shmup fanbase on one console.

I mean really, good sales for a shmup port is like, 5000-10,000. If they sale that much then the two guys who sat around and ported the game made their money and probably made enough to port something else.

Also, please note that the Wii has sold like fucking hot cakes in Japan. Millions of them. Its the dominate console there. But Shikigami no Shiro III sold FOUR TIMES as many copies on the 360 in Japan.

Don't mean to doubt you but may I know where you got that data? I'm very interested in Japanese games' sales figures but don't know where to look for. Thanks.

[subcons]

Also, please note that the Wii has sold like fucking hot cakes in Japan. Millions of them. Its the dominate console there. But Shikigami no Shiro III sold FOUR TIMES as many copies on the 360 in Japan.

That is a pretty interesting point (assuming it's accurate). Kind of makes sense though. Wii appeals to everyone, gamers and non-gamers alike. 360 just appeals to more serious gamers.

What's the difference in user base between PS3 and 360 in Japan? Anyone have those numbers?

[Strider77]

yeah that does make sense...

anyone who owns a 360 is a hardcore gamer (in japan), they don't want to miss out on "x" game and disregard the popularity of the system. i suppose that's alot like a neo-geo owner as far as a comparison.

i didn't think about the wii.

[D]

They should just make ps2 ports with 480i, 480p and 240p modes.
Problem solved!
They don't want to make profits, they want to make our lives miserable.

[innerpattern]

yeah that does make sense...

anyone who owns a 360 is a hardcore gamer (in japan), they don't want to miss out on "x" game and disregard the popularity of the system. i suppose that's alot like a neo-geo owner as far as a comparison.

i didn't think about the wii.

The Wii is a freak of nature among consoles. I think most of it's sales are simply novelty (OMG it's like really workin' out an playin sportz an shit!) and cheap price, especially with the price disparity between the other consoles. The rest of the sales are from small children, a very influential and powerful market segment.

Hardcore gamers don't fit into that equation.

[lgb]

we'll hear anything about Gradius V?

Gradius V's getting a port to the PS3?

Also, please note that the Wii has sold like fucking hot cakes in Japan. Millions of them. Its the dominate console there. But Shikigami no Shiro III sold FOUR TIMES as many copies on the 360 in Japan.

That I thought was strange. If more people have Wiis, then why did the 360 version sell more? They came out at the same time, so no unfair disadvantages there...

[Endymion]

Oh, and another thing, smallest Blu ray is 25gb. Do you really need that for a shmup?

No it isn't. There are plenty of BluRay games for PS3 that are smaller than 25GB. By the way, MGS4? It's 28.5GB.

[Strider77]

They should just make ps2 ports with 480i, 480p and 240p modes.

I'm not sure the PS2 can really handle perfect ports on all these games now. Especially Raiden 4 for sure.... but the newer cave ports.

Even better would be just to add a fake scanline option in the 360 ports with no filtering. Call it a day after that. They'd be perfect if you were using a HDTV.

[D]

They should just make ps2 ports with 480i, 480p and 240p modes.

I'm not sure the PS2 can really handle perfect ports on all these games now. Especially Raiden 4 for sure.... but the newer cave ports.

Even better would be just to add a fake scanline option in the 360 ports with no filtering. Call it a day after that. They'd be perfect if you were using a HDTV.

So maybe lower the poly count a bit or rough up the textures a bit. As long as the image is at least progressive. Non-progressive stuff makes me mad. There is not one 2D game the ps2 cannot do. Well maybe something with a higher resolution than 480p. But 480p and below the ps2 can handle anything 2D ever made. Somebody correct me if I am wrong. I can't imagine otherwise.

[Strider77]

then why did the ketsui port get canned?

I think that's a pretty bold statement. I would go as far to say if you had someone VERY dedicated like arika was then you just may pull it off on PS2.

I think it's more along the lines of you not wanting to buy a 360 for the ports seeing how much you complain about anyhting that's not HD. You want it on PS2 to throw in that PS3 of yours for the built in scaler more than anything else.

Folks are just gonna have to deal with the 360 being the choice for shooters now. Like it or not, it's just the way it is. Just like the PS2 your gonna either need a modded 360 or a japanese one.

It's nothing new, most of us here are multi console folks to start with. plus own a few odd ball consoles to boot. PC engine, neo-geo, satrun ect.

Raiden 4 would SUCK on PS2 though... well it would and could be totally playable but the 360 port is gonna look better than the arcade and have more stages. I'll take the 360 port over a PS2 any day when it comes to 3D... that's a no brainer.

I don't think the PS2 can handle any 2D game ever made in progressive though. That's a different thing all together.

[zakk]

I mean really, good sales for a shmup port is like, 5000-10,000. If they sale that much then the two guys who sat around and ported the game made their money and probably made enough to port something else.

People keep saying this, but the only way anyone is making money on sales of 5000 is if they're essentially paying themselves shit, or they have a real job and do the porting work in their off time.

About a year ago OXM did a small 'where does your $60 go' thing, the breakdown was as such:

Retailer Cut: $12
Microsoft Licensing and Manufacturing: $12
Marketing: $7
Development Costs: $20
Publisher Overhead: $9

Look at those numbers, you essentially lose $24 of every sale without any choice in the matter. So basically there's approximately $30 left to split between the publisher and the developer

Assuming a company doing 5000 unit sales of niche games is more or less self publishing, they are in a slightly better position. Let's just assume they get the entire $30. So now they have $150,000 to pay two programmers, pay the rent, pay utilities, pay any possible licensing fees (not relevant if it's their own game, unless they have to pay fees for any technology licensing), amortize the cost of the dev kit(s) (which can be up to 5 figures!), etc etc. There's just not going to be that much money left at the end.

It gets even more grim when you consider a port like RFA. It had two discs which bumps up the manufacturing cost a bit, so they got even less money. AND it contained the INH dvd, so they had to give some money to those guys. There's also a very real possibility they owed someone licensing money for the RF IP. Hard to tell there though. Oh and it sold pretty badly.

The reality is these projects aren't really money makers. They either get funded via other more profitable parts of a company and looked at as a mechanism for generating consumer goodwill/brand recognition or it's being done by two guys who begged their management to let them do it and promised up and down it wouldn't cause other products to slip dates. i.e "I will do this when I'm done with real work and I will do it for free"

Basically be really glad there are nerds out there who really love this genre and essentially make sacrifices to make it more accessible.

[D]

I think it's more along the lines of you not wanting to buy a 360 for the ports seeing how much you complain about anyhting that's not HD. You want it on PS2 to throw in that PS3 of yours for the built in scaler more than anything else.

01 You can't upscale 480p ps2 games on the ps3!
And that's not something I'd want either. 480p is fine! Hell, even if you play all your ps3 and 360 games on 480p, that still looks OK, too. Try it, you'll be amazed, but besides the point
02 True, I don't want to buy a 360. Then again, it might make some sense, when are these cave shmups coming?
03 How high is the possibilty they get cancelled? Has Cave/Arika ever released anything shmuppy on any m$ platform?

[dave4shmups]

Oh, and another thing, smallest Blu ray is 25gb. Do you really need that for a shmup?

No it isn't. There are plenty of BluRay games for PS3 that are smaller than 25GB. By the way, MGS4? It's 28.5GB.

What?? Then why was it done on two BluRay discs?? But, Disgaea 3 anyone? That looks like it could have been done on a CD-ROM.

As far as why the Ketsui port got canned, it had something to do with Mihara porting the game to the PS2, I can't remember what.

My bad, I meant Gradius VI-I don't know that that's been totally canned.

I know that the PS3 is harder to program for, but if it has a larger install base then the 360, why not spend the extra time and port some shmups?

[Observer]

Oh, and another thing, smallest Blu ray is 25gb. Do you really need that for a shmup?

No it isn't. There are plenty of BluRay games for PS3 that are smaller than 25GB. By the way, MGS4? It's 28.5GB.

What?? Then why was it done on two BluRay discs?? But, Disgaea 3 anyone? That looks like it could have been done on a CD-ROM.

As far as why the Ketsui port got canned, it had something to do with Mihara porting the game to the PS2, I can't remember what.

My bad, I meant Gradius VI-I don't know that that's been totally canned.

I know that the PS3 is harder to program for, but if it has a larger install base then the 360, why not spend the extra time and port some shmups?

At this rate I would prefer CD (or DVD if needed) releases for PC if the games are so damn small. Especially if so many 360 stuff is PC-based why the hell they wouldn't milk the franchise with PC ones. Piracy is not an excuse, people will pirate everything no matter the platform anyway.

Of course, I'm mainly biased due to Raiden III and Shikigami No Shiro III, which I thought were great ports, especially the former... and because I would love to see some of the 'big' stgs for PC besides the truckload of doujin ones. *cough RAIDEN IV cough*

Not only would be cheaper (and easier) to get, I would be first in line to buy 'em since both the original Xbox and the 360 were not released in my country (thank you, Microsoft) and the ones around are bare bone US imports at gold price.

Back to PC, Exception is built around C++ and it's open source. Comes with all the project files so you can mod it.

Recently, someone also released a Mountain of Faith-like danmaku game with a small rpg component and even offered the western fans a free download of the game and the possibility to make an english translation.

Then you have Ether Vapor, a doujin tribute to the big ones, Twilight RefrAIN, Siter Skain works (RayForce doujin equivalent), Diadra Empty (one hell of a game using a default 1024x728 and making your comp cry due to the rain of bullets everywhere), etc.

USB pads are quite cheap as well so the whole keyboard+mouse excuse is long gone. Maybe it's because the japs seem to dislike PCs for gaming, which is stopping to make sense when you take into account all the bandwagon of Visual Novels like Higurashi, Key stuff and the above mentioned doujin games.

No, I didn't forget of "Touhou, lulz". It also contributed to revive things for PC.

As long as we don't see Cave on Steam... j/k

edit: typos, too many. NO REFUGE.

edit2: To conclude, I would still love to see a good PS3-focused shooter that could take advantage of the console capabilities. My best bet is that perhaps a borderliner will open the path, without taking into account Lair. That or a new R-Type/Gradius/Darius.

[PepsimanVsJoe]

I know that the PS3 is harder to program for, but if it has a larger install base then the 360, why not spend the extra time and port some shmups?

This has been mentioned many times before but why would you port shooters to console that has none when you can port them to a console that has several?

I mean really now you've got arguably the biggest dog on the block(Cave) throwing their chips into the X360's pot how are you not expected to follow them?

[Endymion]

Oh, and another thing, smallest Blu ray is 25gb. Do you really need that for a shmup?

No it isn't. There are plenty of BluRay games for PS3 that are smaller than 25GB. By the way, MGS4? It's 28.5GB.

What?? Then why was it done on two BluRay discs?? But, Disgaea 3 anyone? That looks like it could have been done on a CD-ROM.

Disgaea 3 I couldn't tell you about, but every MGS4 I have seen was on a single BluRay disc. The point I was making is that just because a single layer disc can be as large as 25GB does not mean that it needs to be that large, or even that it will be, just because a dual layer disc can be as large as 50GB doesn't mean that either. This was the case with DVDs also, not every dual layer DVD is 9 GB, not every single layer DVD is 4.5 GB. It only needs to be as large as what you write to it. They could fill a BluRay disc with as little information as would fit on a CD and that would be fine, there is no reason it would not work if they wanted to do it that way.

[Taylor]

MGS4 actually makes a joke about it all fitting on one disc halfway through.

[dave4shmups]

No it isn't. There are plenty of BluRay games for PS3 that are smaller than 25GB. By the way, MGS4? It's 28.5GB.

What?? Then why was it done on two BluRay discs?? But, Disgaea 3 anyone? That looks like it could have been done on a CD-ROM.

Disgaea 3 I couldn't tell you about, but every MGS4 I have seen was on a single BluRay disc. The point I was making is that just because a single layer disc can be as large as 25GB does not mean that it needs to be that large, or even that it will be, just because a dual layer disc can be as large as 50GB doesn't mean that either. This was the case with DVDs also, not every dual layer DVD is 9 GB, not every single layer DVD is 4.5 GB. It only needs to be as large as what you write to it. They could fill a BluRay disc with as little information as would fit on a CD and that would be fine, there is no reason it would not work if they wanted to do it that way.

Ok, I gotcha. I wonder what brought Housemarque out of the woodwork, so to speak to make Super Stardust HD?

[professor ganson]

Also, please note that the Wii has sold like fucking hot cakes in Japan. Millions of them. Its the dominate console there. But Shikigami no Shiro III sold FOUR TIMES as many copies on the 360 in Japan.

That's strange. The ports are comparable, so I'm not sure what's going on there.

Apart from Everyday Shooter, which I love, there isn't much that I like to play on the PS3. I'm still hopeful that things will turn around, though.

[Kollision]

I regret the day I bought my PS3.
It sucks.
It's inadmissible that there's NO shmup at all released for it.
I hate Sony.

[jp]

Also, please note that the Wii has sold like fucking hot cakes in Japan. Millions of them. Its the dominate console there. But Shikigami no Shiro III sold FOUR TIMES as many copies on the 360 in Japan.

That's strange. The ports are comparable, so I'm not sure what's going on there.

I think the "shmup fanbase" over there is just on the 360.

Its like what Strider77 said about the hardcore gamers being the ones with 360s, which is actually what Yukio Futatsugi of PDSaga fame said as well.

Alls I know, is I gots a Otomedius LE and Raiden IV (bleh) coming on the mail this month.

[RemyK313]

I've heard developers complain about the PS3. I don't know HOW related it is to just the processors... I'm almost sure it probably has something to do with Sony's fabled lack of support for the PS3... leaving developers to make their own development tools. If the PS3 developers are having a tough time making games, it probably has more to do with the way the architecture is setup (stuff like permissions, security, how events are handled) than just the fact that the processor is multiple core (a lot of shmup guys have had no problem making games for systems with multiple processors... which is just about every arcade game and every console game).

As for the 360, I know that developers have long touted Microsoft's support. I've toyed some with their XNA (which is what us smalltime guys who don't want to buy the SDK but still wanna dick around on the 360 get) and it's actually pretty easy to work with. They've extended their Visual Studio mindset over to game development... that is, make it so developers can skip all the boilerplate setup garbage and get straight into making games. So, if the 360 SDK is anything like the Visual Studio setup, then I can definitely see why developers are having such a good time with it.

But who really knows, I remember hearing that the PS2 was pretty hard to develop for, but in the end, game makers spent the time trying really hard to coax all they could out of the system. Maybe the true cause of the PS3 shortage of shmups has more to do with the popularity of other systems, than with just how difficult it is to develop for it.

Isn't it weird how Sony makes their decisions when it comes to hardware? For the PS1 and the PSP, they decided they wanted stuff that was easy to work with (MIPS) but they seemed to have thrown that out the window for the PS2 and the PS3.... weird.

[Motorherp]

I don't know HOW related it is to just the processors...

Almost certainly this is the main factor why developers are put off porting to the PS3 and favour other more straight forward consoles.

just the fact that the processor is multiple core

You make it sound like it's a simple thing but you've missed the point. The PS3 isn't multi-core in the same sense that the 360 or your PC is dual core. A PS3 SPU is more like the GPU in your PC graphics card. They're extremely fast vector processing units each of which operates on its own small local memory store. This means that programs sent to the SPU's need what ever memory they operate on transfered from main memory to the local store and the results written back when it's done. Given the bus bandwidth and speeds and the processing power of the SPU's the system is very powerful but requires that games are written in modular fashions with excellent memory management in order to make use of this power.

The kind of multi-core achitecture you're thinking of is like the 360 where each core is like the PS3 PPU, it just has more than one. That is each core works of main memory and uses a memory cache. This means that programmers need not worry so much about memory continuity and modular coding practices which invariably means that they dont and the code end ups becoming a bit of a spaghetti mess. This is why porting is so difficult because the programs you want ported weren't designed around PS3 architecture but traditional architecture and as such are very difficult to 'unpick' and modularise with isolated memory usage.

On a related note that's also why a lot of studios complained about the difficulty of PS3 development to begin with. Studios tend to have quite a large code base which they adapt to make whatever game they happen to be working on at the time. Thing is though that everyone's code bases suffered from the same problem I talked about above, they essentialy had to port their code bases to a PS3 friendly format before they could begin PS3 development.

So, if the 360 SDK is anything like the Visual Studio setup, then I can definitely see why developers are having such a good time with it.

Visual Studio is a development environment which is a completely different thing to SDK's (software development kits). Most studios use Visual Studio as their environment for all console development including PS3. In terms of SDK's, 360 uses DirectX and PS3 uses OpenlGL and an assortment of other such libraries.

[Thunder Force]

The PS3 isn't multi-core in the same sense that the 360 or your PC is dual core. A PS3 SPU is more like the GPU in your PC graphics card. They're extremely fast vector processing units each of which operates on its own small local memory store. This means that programs sent to the SPU's need what ever memory they operate on transfered from main memory to the local store and the results written back when it's done. Given the bus bandwidth and speeds and the processing power of the SPU's the system is very powerful but requires that games are written in modular fashions with excellent memory management in order to make use of this power.

The kind of multi-core achitecture you're thinking of is like the 360 where each core is like the PS3 PPU, it just has more than one. That is each core works of main memory and uses a memory cache. This means that programmers need not worry so much about memory continuity and modular coding practices which invariably means that they dont and the code end ups becoming a bit of a spaghetti mess. This is why porting is so difficult because the programs you want ported weren't designed around PS3 architecture but traditional architecture and as such are very difficult to 'unpick' and modularise with isolated memory usage.

On a related note that's also why a lot of studios complained about the difficulty of PS3 development to begin with. Studios tend to have quite a large code base which they adapt to make whatever game they happen to be working on at the time. Thing is though that everyone's code bases suffered from the same problem I talked about above, they essentialy had to port their code bases to a PS3 friendly format before they could begin PS3 development.

Nice to see an informed post on the subject.