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[O. Van Bruce]

Moozooh, wouldn't that be avoided by monitoring game environment via internet and steam interface? I think they will likely ensure that those things wouldn't happen.

Besides, what is really important in a scoreboard are the first 10 or 20 replays and those can be subject to constant scrutiny not only from Valve but also from the users...

[Cagar]

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[Zengeku3]

HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL SUPPORT A PETITION FOR CAVE GAMES BEING ON STEAM?

Playing an STG without a keyboard feels to me like dipping your hands into boiling oil so count me in. I cannot say anything with certainty of course, but i believe that Cave expanding onto the PC market would allow themselves to sell to a lot more costumers like fans of doujin STG's and perhabs new-shmup players who might not want to buy a 360 in order to access a game they are sceptical about.

How many copies needs to be sold to have a steam release of stuff profitable anyway? Anyone here know anything about that?

[ZenErik]

I always prefer physical releases, but I'll still support Cave if they go digital only... I'll just be very disappointed at the same time.

[moozooh]

Moozooh, I think training-mode is way better than savestates.

You think. I don't. Neither do people who prefer savestates to training modes in ports of Ketsui and DOJ.

You're really claiming that PC-gaming has a big problem since there's no standardized hardware? CPU spike? These things you're talking about haven't bothered me in over hundred years of playing shmups on MAME.

Because you're playing on a gaming PC purchased by your parents, or living alone on a very generous paycheck, right? Some people, especially those who have grown with consoles, prefer not spending money on gaming features they know they won't need, or those that wouldn't be worth it. Again, many people have underpowered laptops as the main PC because it's more suited to their purposes, and they don't think a gaming PC is a worthy investment. Hell, I spent what amounted to two of my monthly salaries at the time on the PC I'm using right now, and I don't have time to play games that could tap out its potential. And the PC parts equivalent to what I'm using now cost less than half the price I paid. My Japanese Xbox, on the other hand, costed me 200$ + shipping 3.5 years ago, and dropped 50$ since then.

[Cagar]

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[O. Van Bruce]

I always prefer physical releases, but I'll still support Cave if they go digital only... I'll just be very disappointed at the same time.

Don't think so... there is a lot of games released on steam that have also physical copies.

[moozooh]

games, which you COULD play with that PC?

Could not. None of the games I've played on my Xbox have been released on PC.

Then I realized that some games are better played on consoles when my friend and I spent an hour configuring a USB controller to work together with a keyboard in Touhou 9 when the exact same setup worked flawlessly on another system. Again, there are many advantages to using consoles or emulation rather than Steam. I will repeat it until you understand, because you evidently try to convince me Steam is the best of the three and my preferences are somehow invalid.

You're not making ANY sense. Re-read your posts please.

Lol.

Maybe you should reread them first and understand that some things are different for other people than they are for yourself? Stop assuming things for others. You're extremely tiring.

[Cagar]

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[geremy]

Quite a few of these arguments seem to be predicated on assumptions.

-Steam couldn't be made to support savestate? Really? I highly doubt that. Why would a developer provide this capability though?
-Most PCs couldn't run as fast as SH3? Really? Maybe if those PCs were emulating an SH3 running an SH3 ROM, but (while I could be wrong) I doubt that XBOX 360 ports are in emulation with the original arcade ROM. They are coded natively making them more efficient.

Personally I'd rather have steam than consoles for several reasons:
1) I can have the game installed on several computers, and not have to move a disc between them.
2) When my computer gets old and I replace it my games still work.
3) If I lose my games in a hard drive crash/disc breakage/etc I don't have to re-purchase, I can simply download again.
4) Steam seems to allow updates to be pushed out much more frequently than consoles.
5) I trust Valve much, much, much, much more than I trust microsoft, sony and Nintendo combined.

I can see how you could oppose Steam if you already have a large investment in the consoles, but really it is the far better solution. For developers, it's cheaper to develop for (unless you are being financed by Sony/Microsoft) and easier to push patches/updates. No physical media is obviously way cheaper as well.

[moozooh]

Steam couldn't be made to support savestate?

Why would they support them, exactly, when it's perhaps the most powerful cheating tool ever? That it is also perhaps the most powerful practice tool ever would be secondary to an establishment looking to actively prevent cheating. And obviously Cave won't be bothered. That is an assumption, yes, but really.

Most PCs couldn't run as fast as SH3? Really? Maybe if those PCs were emulating an SH3 running an SH3 ROM, but (while I could be wrong) I doubt that XBOX 360 ports are in emulation with the original arcade ROM. They are coded natively making them more efficient.

Well, you're not doing your homework. The code for these games is not native to x86 CPUs Steam runs on, it's native to Hitachi SH3. They are ported to other systems, not rewritten natively. Which makes systems about an order of magnitude more powerful, such as the first iPad, considered insufficient for that new iOS DOJ port by Cave themselves. These are all facts, not assumptions. That's just how it is.

Moreover, to cheapen development costs, many oldschool console ports that can be found on Steam for five bucks are ROMs wrapped in a feature-stripped emulator. They could be rewritten, sure, but why bother and spend money on that?

I'm not opposed to Cave games on Steam, but only if it's not chosen instead of X360 for the ports, for games that not (yet) have them.

[SuperSoaker360]

I think moozooh is right with the whole "standardized hardware" point. There are millions of PCs - nearly all of them are made up of at least one different piece of hardware. Then there are millions of consoles - just about all of them are made up with the same mass-produced hardware that is standardized to RUN these games properly.

CAVE releasing on Steam would require more fine-tuning on their games to run on different kinds of PC hardware whereas CAVE releasing a console port would mean only fine-tuning their games to run on one specific console system specification. I'm not too tech-savvy but this is how I see it. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I still like the idea of CAVE coming to Steam, though.

One can hope.

[Uzumakijl]

The thing is... I really doubt cave would bother making the games "SteamWorks", That means adding all the online features and stuff, And if they did it probably wouldn't be worth the effort, Most people will want their games for 4.99 or 2.50, They are too used to Steam sales, And i'm not sure how much would that benefit cave, Unless they ported the iPod versions.

I for one, would pay around 20ish for whatever port they decided to put on steam, but i'm one of the few.

[Cagar]

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[Zengeku3]

I for one, would pay around 20ish for whatever port they decided to put on steam, but i'm one of the few.

Surely people aren't such cheapskates? 20? I wouldn't mind paying 60-80 for a good quality game (and i'm a student, it's like i'm rolling in cash or anything). I'm sure that people wouldn't mind paying a price of 20-30 for the games.

[Cagar]

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[spineshark]

Yeah good luck selling that angle. These days people have been trained to spend >$10 on a game that's less than two hours only if it's being sold by some self-righteous douchebag who claims to have some deep message to share.

[Smraedis]

To quote myself from the April Fools thread

I think the real reason why CAVE won't do this is as they would have to reduce the price for the whole collection to $5 after a month.

Aren't they selling their ports for IOS at 10 or 5 Euros?

I mean every single game in one bundle for $5, like what happens on steam sales, and not $5 for individual games.

[Zengeku3]

Yeah good luck selling that angle. These days people have been trained to spend >$10 on a game that's less than two hours only if it's being sold by some self-righteous douchebag who claims to have some deep message to share.

What do you mean 'selling that angle'? I don't understand how it could be more complicated than having the games being distributed at 20-30 euros each. I don't think the target audience when Cave makes releases are people who aren't willing to drop a little money on a videogame. I don't understand why people would be less eager to spend 20 euros on a PC game via steam than they'd would be to spend a larger amount of money for the 360 version.

I mean every single game in one bundle for $5, like what happens on steam sales, and not $5 for individual games.

Can Valve do that without the consent of the developer? Surely the devs and the publisher would make some sort of business agreement beforehand?

[spineshark]

Most people don't understand the appeal anymore of a short game that you get better and better at, as opposed to a long game where you get to the end and that's the end. Especially if they have infinite continues. I talked to people around when Futari 1.5 came out on 360 who said they wanted a feature like Ikaruga's home versions where you started with only a few credits per game which slowly increased so that they felt like they had to "work" to beat the game. Without irony.

[Cagar]

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[psoslayer]

What if steam don't want cave?

[geremy]

Most PCs couldn't run as fast as SH3? Really? Maybe if those PCs were emulating an SH3 running an SH3 ROM, but (while I could be wrong) I doubt that XBOX 360 ports are in emulation with the original arcade ROM. They are coded natively making them more efficient.

Well, you're not doing your homework. The code for these games is not native to x86 CPUs Steam runs on, it's native to Hitachi SH3. They are ported to other systems, not rewritten natively. Which makes systems about an order of magnitude more powerful, such as the first iPad, considered insufficient for that new iOS DOJ port by Cave themselves. These are all facts, not assumptions. That's just how it is.

Moreover, to cheapen development costs, many oldschool console ports that can be found on Steam for five bucks are ROMs wrapped in a feature-stripped emulator. They could be rewritten, sure, but why bother and spend money on that?

I'm not opposed to Cave games on Steam, but only if it's not chosen instead of X360 for the ports, for games that not (yet) have them.

I don't think that most the X360 ports are emulation. Pink Sweets/Muchi Muchi Pork MIGHT be, but I doubt Futari/DFK/Akai Katana are. It doesn't make sense for several reasons, one of which being that the graphics are significantly higher resolution than the SH3 versions. I'm betting the code is ported and recompiled.

Some of the iOS ports are probably emulated, and that is why we see the releases so quickly, but (again) I'm betting that DFK and ESP II are not. They re-coded them and added the smartphone features and now they have up'd the resolution and the games still run pretty flawlessly, even on a lowly iphone 4.

[Despatche]

Forget Steam, they should start DDL on either their own site or dlsite.

[trap15]

Everyone who has posted in this thread (including me) is retarded.

[Zengeku3]

Most people don't understand the appeal anymore of a short game that you get better and better at, as opposed to a long game where you get to the end and that's the end.

Surely that's the case on the consoles too, if not moreso.

[moozooh]

I don't think that most the X360 ports are emulation.

Most aren't. I don't know where you got the idea it was otherwise; I was talking about oldschool console games on Steam (Nintendo's VC is the same though). At least one Cave port (Guwange) is emulated though; ROMs have been extracted from it.

Some of the iOS ports are probably emulated, and that is why we see the releases so quickly, but (again) I'm betting that DFK and ESP II are not. They re-coded them and added the smartphone features and now they have up'd the resolution and the games still run pretty flawlessly, even on a lowly iphone 4.

The "lowly" iPhone 4 is more powerful than the PS2 by a mile.

What I wanted to say is that for low-priced feature-stripped ports intended for powerful hardware, it's cheaper to emulate them rather than rewrite, which increases the processing overhead. Rewriting takes man-hours and/or buying/developing software solutions to automate most of the process, all of that costs a significant sum of money. With X360 and now iOS they already have a complete porting workflow and tools that lets them do most of the actual porting in a few days at most (courtesy of M2 in X360's case). They don't have such tools for PC yet, and hiring additional staff just to see whether SDOJ PC will be successful does not make sense. So, unless something or somebody gives them the idea that a series of releases will surely be profitable (and would thus warrant creating a subdivision of its own, like the guys that work on their smartphone games now), the experiment simply won't be worth the financial risks. It's also the main reason why they should look into porting it to the X360—not only the audience is there, the tools, people, and money are as well.

[NTSC-J]

Is it just me, or are these boss patterns really reminiscent of Espgaluda, but without the benefit of kakusei?

Looks damn cool either way. Too bad it'll never come to a platform I can play it on

Oh yes it will, I just e-mailed steam/valve with a very long message which includes the word CAVE at least 20 times.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

While I think PC is superior for many games, bad optimisation really is an issue with fighters and shumps that are played competitively. From what ive heard SSFIV PC isnt used at tournys for that reason. Jamestown which graphically speaking is imo probably the closest thing there is on PC to a CAVE shmup has problems with optimisation and unwanted slowdown. Also many replays on YT were perma slowmo due to fraps

That said I would welcome games by CAVE or any A list STG devs on the PC just for the open platform benefits it gives to niche and indies is invaluable, plus those who don't have a 360 can play their games.

Personally i'd like to see CAVE release their games as an legal alternative to MAME (they could even enlist help from the emulation guys, if there is any goodwill remaining between them) and add in modes or features like savestates (sega's megadrive games on steam have them so it is possible). Guwange XBLA, Fever SOS, Grev's Strania would be perfect for Steam / PC imo.

Ketsuipachi on steam? hell yeah!

[Obscura]

What I wanted to say is that for low-priced feature-stripped ports intended for powerful hardware, it's cheaper to emulate them rather than rewrite, which increases the processing overhead. Rewriting takes man-hours and/or buying/developing software solutions to automate most of the process, all of that costs a significant sum of money. With X360 and now iOS they already have a complete porting workflow and tools that lets them do most of the actual porting in a few days at most (courtesy of M2 in X360's case). They don't have such tools for PC yet, and hiring additional staff just to see whether SDOJ PC will be successful does not make sense. So, unless something or somebody gives them the idea that a series of releases will surely be profitable (and would thus warrant creating a subdivision of its own, like the guys that work on their smartphone games now), the experiment simply won't be worth the financial risks. It's also the main reason why they should look into porting it to the X360—not only the audience is there, the tools, people, and money are as well.

The X360 is an i86 platform, just like the PC you're on right now.

If they've got a workflow to port to the 360, they've got a workflow to port to PC.

Still, it'll never happen. Just look at the problems that fucking Capcom is having getting the eXceed series on Steam. If Cave sticks to what they've said about SDOJ in the past and doesn't put out an X360 port, then the only way any of us will ever play it is when it gets emulated on MAME in the year 2030, when SH-3 support gets re-added.