Why/How did the XBox 360 become the console for STGs?

[bcass]

the xbox360 architecture is so similar to a pc though, I'd venture a guess that developing for it is just a lot easier.

Indeed. The 360 is just DirectX. In fact, the Xbox was originally going to be called the DirectX Box.

[neorichieb1971]

Ideally there shouldn't be a console of choice for any genre. Unfortunately economics will prove that by making 360 so much the biased preferred platform there is even less incentive to go the other way.

[Sumez]

the xbox360 architecture is so similar to a pc though, I'd venture a guess that developing for it is just a lot easier.

Indeed. The 360 is just DirectX. In fact, the Xbox was originally going to be called the DirectX Box.

True, the Xbox has drivers based on DirectX, but hardware wise it's still quite different from a PC. Not as much as a PS3 I suppose, but you can't just port over PC code and expect it work work - the X360 requires a much more data oriented programming structure if you don't want the RAM to cause frustrating bottlenecks.

[Observer]

So the bottom line is that they would've saved dozens of costs, region lock drama, retail and more by bribing Valve, porting shit to PC (you save yourself from Microsoft certifications, PS3 dealing, etc.) in a couple of days and proceeding to become an eroge dev?

I mean, if you are gonna play the piracy card, just google for each and single 360 Cave port to find isos and disc images of them...

Whatever. So, wait, if I read correctly Cave might be trying to test the waters and release a PS3 port, right?

[mrsmiley381]

Whatever they actually do to make porting the game easier was implemented by Horii, and Cave's developers should be capable of implementing their own solution once they understood the problem.

Sometimes, you can't really understand a problem until you've cranked out several crappy solutions.

Considering I just spent a week trying to create a custom barcode creation system, I can agree. After writing a hundred lines of junk code and comments I switched in two dozen lines of code, another two dozen of comments, and actually fixed my flawed logic. On a similar note, 360 development is a bit easier than PS3 development if only because of the tools available. The only tool I've ever used with PS3 support was Unity3D, and that has a ton of overhead. On the other hand, I've used XNA, which is commonly used for XBLA and PC development, and that's as easy and delicious as my daily breakfast. The PS3, on the other hand, uses a cell processor or some crazy nonsense, so I wouldn't want to deal with that. It seems like most of the reasoning in this thread for Cave's 360 support is accurate. If those tools were anywhere near as easy to use as XNA, then Cave definitely wants to stick with the 360.

As for Sony not allowing 3:4, that's completely idiotic. They lost a ton of user personal data to hackers, yet people still kept their consoles. I imagine a user playing one "crappy 2D game" that demands 3:4 would not cause Sony to lose all support for the system due to "poor licensing control" or whatever you'd call it.

[bcass]

I'm not so sure Microsoft offer the same sort of comprehensive 2D libraries in C++ as they do for C# (XNA). However, I'm assuming that the tools that M2 provided Cave are some sort of dev-friendly equivalent of XNA but for C++.

That said, I reckon that most of Cave's games could be done using XNA if the artificial file size limit was increased. Even given the overhead of managed memory, it still provides very impressive performance.

[Bee Cool]

Another strike against the Wii, is that because of its limited RAM and CPU capabilities Cave couldn't do crazy arrange modes ala Ketsuipachi, not even mentioning in HD. This is sort of a tangent, but how well does the Wiimote work with a TATE'd screen.?

[mrsmiley381]

Another strike against the Wii, is that because of its limited RAM and CPU capabilities Cave couldn't do crazy arrange modes ala Ketsuipachi, not even mentioning in HD. This is sort of a tangent, but how well does the Wiimote work with a TATE'd screen.?

If you were actually using motion controls it would be fine assuming the sensor bar is not rotated like the screen. At that point only the view would be rotated, so the game itself would function the same. If the bar is attached to the TV, however, the axes for the remote would also be rotated and I can't imagine it being too difficult to do a simple piece of code to handle that, but I honestly feel like that would be a waste of time. So, in the end you would have a tate-screen and tate-sensor option, assuming we're handling this from an all-case style of design.

As for console limitations, I really don't know how the Wii would handle intense games. It largely depends on the efficiency of the hit detection code and how much video power is being used, among other factors. There are ways of reducing hit detection time at the cost of some RAM, so it really depends on the game and the team behind it. Remember, Super Contra runs on a 1.5 MHz CPU so it's only got so much on screen at any time and suffers from flicker. Recca runs on the NES/Famicom which has a 1.79 MHz CPU and has a ton going on while suffering from flicker. Please note, however, that Super Contra and other games have to do code updates every frame to check on collision with the ground, whereas Recca does not. So, like I said, it depends on the game, its code, and its team.

This does make me wonder how far you could push the Wii, though.

[bcass]

Apart from lack of HD resolutions, the Wii is easily capable of doing most of Cave's games IMO. It has superior technical performance to a PS2 and that was said to be able to run Ketsui perfectly (aside from memory issues with the last stage). As far as displaying the graphics in the original arcade resolutions, the Wii would have been the ideal home for Cave's ports. Thank God it didn't get any however as its online system isn't fit to lick Live's ass.

[Bee Cool]

It's one thing to be able to run a PGM game no problem but another entirely to handle the high end SH3 titles as well as DSIIX. Just because the Wii could theoretically handle these games, doesn't mean the coders would have done as good of a job as possible, I would have hated every Cave port this gen to be Mushi or Ibara quality.

Also, something that is nice, but wasn't a factor for Cave and other shooting companies back then, is that all of the major fighting game titles have ignored the Wii save TvC, thus all of the high end arcade sticks are for PS3 and 360, which removes the necessity to mod your stick.

[bcass]

Just because the Wii could theoretically handle these games, doesn't mean the coders would have done as good of a job as possible

It would likely have been M2 providing the dev tools as M2 have already undertaken a significant amount of 2D work on the Wii.