Are there Western Superplays ?

[noiseredux]

I re-read Arcade Fever over the weekend, and was thinking about the whole Superplay thing. Obviously in Japan those DVD's are a huge thing. But it occured to me... even if it's not popular in the US, is it even a thing that exists? I don't mean youtube, etc. I mean are there any companies in the US that produce superplay DVD's of US players? Just kind of curious.

[moozooh]

Sites like Speed Demos Archive, TASVideos, and probably many others that featured high level gameplay in one form of another, contemplated releasing best-of compilations. To my knowledge, none of the initiatives have taken off after all.

[DrInfy]

Any company to try that, would have to be truly mad. There's hardly any market for shmups, let alone superplay DVD's and even finding players to play those superplays would be pretty damn hard. Besides I doubt that they are "huge" thing even in Japan as when looking at xbox360 leaderboards in Futari, the characters used in top spots are completely opposite to what was in the actual Superplay DVD's.

[noiseredux]

yeah maybe "huge" was the wrong word. I just meant by comparison. There's a market for shmups and shmup-related items in Japan. There's a much smaller market in the US. Though I'm not sure it would be completely nuts to produce superplays here. I mean there are at least a bunch of us here and on other forums who are fans of the genre. We'd probably be interested in such a thing if such a thing existed, no?

Of course it would be a niche thing with a small print run. Though DVD's are certainly cheap enough to produce these days.

You bring up a good point though -- the hardest thing would be finding players I think.

At any rate, I wasn't really thinking so much about the logistics of should they exist as much as wondering if they already did and I just didn't know about it.

[Casper<3]

Evo DVDs are the closest thing to high level play thats been released in the US

I'm sure if someone was talented enough, they could record one of their runs and burn it for an independent style release. ...but leaderboards kind of do that already.

Speaking of... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjEfYP_e ... ture=g-u-u

[colour_thief]

I swear Speed Demos Archive released a few, but hardly anyone bought them and then they stopped.

[rancor]

I remember back in the late 80's when Blockbuster Video used to rent some Superplay VHS tapes. I specifically remember Wizards and Warriors for NES, but my memory isn't so clear on the other ones. No idea who made these, but they featured the "Nintendo World Team", or some shit like that. Professional Nintendo honkeys with jackets and hats who wore fingerless gloves as they played. They had names like "Blaze" and "Thor" like they were American Gladiators. I thought they were totally badass at the tender age of 10 or so. I'd love to know where they are now.

edit: Found one!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Aackerlund

[noiseredux]

you're awesome, rancor. Haha.

[apatheticTurd]

I remember back in the late 80's when Blockbuster Video used to rent some Superplay VHS tapes. I specifically remember Wizards and Warriors for NES, but my memory isn't so clear on the other ones. No idea who made these, but they featured the "Nintendo World Team", or some shit like that.

oh lol, those things. Let's not forget Skip Rogers, WORLD VIDEOGAME CHAMPION either.