UK Shmups releases unusual yes? popular no?

df0notfound · Post by **df0notfound** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 10:13 pm

Anyone know why we get things like Gunbird, Shikigami, Strikers, that dragon ex thing, and so on released over in England and the west in general however things like DDPDOJ which should be much more popular never make it over?
Is it that things like dragon thing ex is cheap so they pick them up on the off chance and cave would want a decent sum of case for DDPDOJ?

sjewkestheloon · Post by **sjewkestheloon** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 9:11 am

basically yes. who gives a damn within shmup companies if a compilation hastily put together for a few quid bombs? i'm not complaining though as europe has some absolute quality releases and i've not nearly mastered what's available. as soon as i've 1cc'd the two gunbirds i'm going to reward myself with a jap ps2 and ddpdoj

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 9:43 am

Aye, that seems to be the case. It's a real shame...

If only gamers still had a bit of taste, eh?

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 8:52 am

well you never know xplosiv seem to be on a bit of a ramage recently with new signings speicaly with shmups so we might get a few more over here before the PS2 is done if you catch my drift.

M0nk3y · Post by **M0nk3y** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 9:46 am

I got an absolutely mint copy of PSone Strikers 1945 II from GameStation for £3. It's not exactly an ancient game. It's just no-one seems to care.

AAA · Post by **AAA** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:40 am

Its a sad sad thing.

The UK game market is now very unbelievably saturated by 'hip' brands, bought by what us poms/limeys call 'chavs' (trailer trash).
Peer pressure and materialism are big things with UK kids, is important for them to have the next coolest thing so they can show off to their friends.

A great example of a UK hit is FIFA Street. Take trashy uneducated Nike-endorsing sports heroes and put them in a hip urban setting etc. Add relevant soundtrack and voila.
Even games like Splinter Cell, which were seen as having that required cool factor a couple of years ago, are now becoming a bit of an acquired taste, the gamer's choice, on the UK High Street.

Well crafted gameplay, art and scoring systems are much lower needs/wishes -
SHMUPS are perceived to be 'like MegaDrive games', seen as not being with the times etc and having no 3D graphics is seen as a cardinal sin.

Let em keep their shite I reckon.

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 12:00 pm

Haha, I suppose "chavs" do form a large part of the market in the UK these days, and spend far too much of their money on dross like Driver 3 and Full Spectrum Warrior, but I don't think any "blame" can be placed squarely on their shoulders. I know quite a lot of more educated gamers who would generally rather gouge their eyes out than play something like R-Type. I think this really has become an unpopular niche genre, even amongst more serious gamers, but as a huge fan I've never really wanted it to rise to dominance or anything. There's room for everything, and as long as the developers we try to support are able to live comfortably, I'm happy. To tell the truth though, I don't have the faintest idea how any of them are doing, financially!

MovingTarget · Post by **MovingTarget** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 2:01 pm

Its unlucky, shmups could have been very popular at this point in time.

Xexyz · Post by **Xexyz** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 3:34 pm

Well, at least the UK get's Strikers and Gunbird compilations! Us North American folk are affected by the same trends in the video game industry. Everyone flocks to Madden 06 and 187 Ride or Die, yet they leave gems like Gradius V on the store shelves to forever collect dust. Shmups are even fewer over here. We actually got Castle Shikigami II, non-butchered by Xs Games nonetheless! But do you know how much it retailed for new? $9.99. Thats like what, 5-6 Euros? I doubt XS Games will ever consider porting another shmup again, even though the've finally decided not to butcher them!

I'm eternally greatful that importing is not illegal.

kidneythief · Post by **kidneythief** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 3:41 pm

AAA wrote:Its a sad sad thing.

The UK game market is now very unbelievably saturated by 'hip' brands, bought by what us poms/limeys call 'chavs' (trailer trash).
Peer pressure and materialism are big things with UK kids, is important for them to have the next coolest thing so they can show off to their friends.

A great example of a UK hit is FIFA Street. Take trashy uneducated Nike-endorsing sports heroes and put them in a hip urban setting etc. Add relevant soundtrack and voila.
Even games like Splinter Cell, which were seen as having that required cool factor a couple of years ago, are now becoming a bit of an acquired taste, the gamer's choice, on the UK High Street.

Well crafted gameplay, art and scoring systems are much lower needs/wishes -
SHMUPS are perceived to be 'like MegaDrive games', seen as not being with the times etc and having no 3D graphics is seen as a cardinal sin.

Let em keep their shite I reckon.

wow that just doesn't happen here in North America... [/sarcasm]

But hey, sooner or later people are going to get tired with extremely story/graphics oriented games. Just like the way the music industry phases from extremely happy pop music to extremely angsty/counter culture/etc. One thing is popular until everyone has had more than enough of it, and they switch. The only problem is, arcades are pretty much dead in North America, or at least where I live, with the largest arcades being in the lobby at the movies! If there was some kind of revival for arcades, I can see a complete 180 degree flip in the trend.

About the PS2 shooters released in the UK, I only have this to say to you: Lucky Bastards. The only domestic PS2 verticle shooters i've got are MOBILE LIGHT FORCE 2, and SILPHEED. I guess shikigami isn't that bad, but I'd rather have shienryu explosion :O

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 9:13 pm

Well we all know how to blame for this don't we GAME! GAME are the biggest high street video game retailer in England in fact I would almost say they are an monopoly whom only really have one real rival which is Gamestation and they are only still alive because they dabble in retro stock and niche titles that GAME won't dare to put out on the shelfs like "ZOO PUZZLE" for the PS2 for example.

Simple matter of fact is that unless it's a big brand name like Nintendo or EA with a big Franchise like FIFA or Mario GAME don't want to know because they don't like taking risks by giving less mainstream titles shelf space but they will lend shelf space to budget titles thus thats the only way we are going to see any shmups here in the UK which is not going to motovate people like Tatio or Capcom to release their latest Shmup title on our shores because they will take a loss because they won't be able to charge more than £10 realisticly if they want shelf space at GAME .

kidneythief · Post by **kidneythief** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 1:50 am

It's not like it's realistic to sell a shooter for 50 USD either... Shooters are pretty much perfect for the buget selection, except maybe console-only shooters, which are pretty rare nowadays. The developers will usually have made a fair profit in the arcade side of things if they even consider porting to console, so you have that to take into consideration. Also consider the demographic of the arcade-going population. Around here, it's more common to find arcades in lower class neighborhoods, especially down town. People have less money, and it's not realistic for them to shell out 50 bucks for a console game, if they even own a console. They play games at the arcade because there aren't many alternatives.

So if you're saying that because arcade developers are caucious of porting succesful arcade games to console at the budget level, then perhaps these companies need to hire some better sales consultants. It's fairly cost effective to port an arcade game to its console counterpart, (system 246 and other PS2-type variants can easily have their titles translated to the PS2, of course theres the naomi/dreamcast, and other arcade platforms based on the naomi. Theres also the PC-like Type X which could easily have titles ported to the PC-like Xbox). So you have a cost-efficient method of porting already-developed video games to the home console, so what if you can't sell them for the same price as an RPG or FPS game, because the production costs are extremely low in comparison, and additionally the target audience would generally prefer not to pay the premium cost for such a game. This is of course not including collectors, who I don't believe were ever the target audience of the video game market, or at least in most cases.

There, finished my rant. Somebody fax this to Taito then :O[/b]

Post by **Icarus** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 1:56 am

Xexyz wrote:I'm eternally greatful that importing is not illegal.

Not if Sony have something to say about it.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 2:03 am

Cave is probably like SNK, too proud to have its titles localized as low-priced bargain bin items, which are typically thought by people to be poor, crappy games meant to lure cheap gamers. If I were Cave, I sure wouldn't want to have a reputation in the US as cheap shit.

kidneythief · Post by **kidneythief** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:40 am

SNK has plenty of bargain bin titles.

The NEO GEO AES carts are different because A) They have expensive RAM chips containing the game data, and B) because game collectors are dick heads which has resulted in inflated second hand prices. However, consider all the neo geo DC ports, IE KOF 98 to 2002, last blade 2, garou mark of the wolves, twinkle star sprites, most of which could be obtained for under 40 bucks (of course you would naturally expect to pay more for imported titles, which is kof 2000-2002, and twinkle star sprites). Their conversions for other platforms are fairly cheap too.

Anyway, my point is SNK isn't "proud" or anything, its just that back in the 90s it was fairly expensive to manufacture games the way they had been,.

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 12:11 pm

Well games like R-type final and Gradius V get away with being sold for around £15 now but it's strictly a pride/money thing for the companies (SNK definatly not being one of these companies since it pretty much makes a living now releaseding their "classics" for budget prices).

I would have to say that despite my previous post they could'nt sell a shooter here for more than £20 as supposed to £10 although I think game perfer it at £10. And I can't remeber who said it (EDIT: kidneythief) but I think they are right when they say that these games could become semi-popular again if they did release them for £10 to £15 a time since many more people would be tempted to buy them, perhaps retro shmup packs are the way forward?

kidneythief · Post by **kidneythief** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 2:06 pm

this is a generation that values high poly counts and hundreds of hours of "Gameplay" over any actual fun factor, so I sort of doubt that most kids would go for that sort of thing. There are plenty of older fans of the genre, what they really need is to capture a new audience.

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 2:19 pm

this is a generation that values high poly counts and hundreds of hours of "Gameplay" over any actual fun factor, so I sort of doubt that most kids would go for that sort of thing. There are plenty of older fans of the genre, what they really need is to capture a new audience.

This is where the real difficulty is. I have a 9 year old brother who, through my guidance and vitriolic "state of the industry" rants

, has grown to love a lot of NES and SNES era games, but he doesn't really like any shooters as he finds them too hard (I suppose kids and busy careerists nowadays are more interested in the quick fix... a lot of modern shooters require major skill-honing and memorization... this is probably one of the major reasons for the success of the DS). Strangely enough, he loves Blazing Star, but I think the immense difficulty of a lot of shooters, their rather po-faced "hard for the sake of being hard" nature and particularly the goading and unwelcoming attitude of the more recent stuff puts thousands upon thousands of people off.

Nobody here (myself included) seriously wants the games to be any other way, so I fear we'll be decrying the poor sales of shooters for a long time to come.

kidneythief · Post by **kidneythief** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:44 pm

A re-release of raptor: Call of the shadows might do it... That's the game that did it for me back in the day (well except for playing a bunch of NES shooters at my friends houses)

Zweihander · Post by **Zweihander** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:54 pm

Bal-Sagoth -- nice "crystal flash technique" avatar. ;D

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 4:41 pm

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 4:48 pm

kidneythief wrote: Anyway, my point is SNK isn't "proud" or anything, its just that back in the 90s it was fairly expensive to manufacture games the way they had been,.

Err, I wasn't talking about SNK pre-Playmore. I think you need to get up-to-date with the present SNK. The current SNK USA wants to re-establish itself as a normal and not budget-priced or collection-based publisher. That's why it refused to bundle together or reduce the price (supposedly from $40 to $30) of SVC Chaos, Samurai Spirits 0, and KOF Neowave.

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 4:53 pm

SNK Choas is £15 over here in the UK, that's half the price of a normal game which is cool. (Although that may be Playmore's/GAMES doing!?)

sjewkestheloon · Post by **sjewkestheloon** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 4:56 pm

with regards to the reissuing of stuff in the uk like cave games, i always find that argument to be tripe. the games themselves, with a little careful thought and packaging, do not have to be percieved as bargain bin rubbish. i know that they will never gain huge appeal, but every shmup conversion to the uk ps2 that i can think of so far has had terrible box art, ridiculous names, uninformative back notes, etc. the companies that have released these games have made the products appear cheap, not the buying habbits of the public.

if cave decided to release a couple of their shmups in a pack over here in a nice deluxe box with a load of bonus stuff and some great artwork i'm sure that it would pull some income in for them. for example, we could for £30 or so have a release of donpachi and dodonpachi with some great, high quality artwork on the box, some cool ingame dev sections, an optimised port to irradicate slowdown, a superplay dvd and soundtrack. sit that bitch on a shelf and people would take notice. if it actually looks appealing and has a lot of bonus stuff people would be interested. i would pay well in excess of £30 for it too.

with that sort of priming, more people would art least become interested. then, a few months down the line, dodonpachi doj could be released with a similar treatment.

rant over to some extent, but is it only me thast thinks that the stripped down cheap as hell packages with serious flaws are going to do nothing for the average gamer. developers and porters don't deserve to sell copies of their game if they are so stupid that they don't see the necessity of including high score saves in a fucking shmup. (points at the psikyo packs and hangs head...)

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 5:37 pm

Danny wrote:SNK Choas is £15 over here in the UK, that's half the price of a normal game which is cool. (Although that may be Playmore's/GAMES doing!?)

Yeah, you lucky Brits have other publishers who are willing to license the games in Europe for a cheap release. SNK doesn't want to get involved in the Euro market so they figure any additional revenue gained from licensing their games to other companies there is alright. Unfortunately, SNK isn't going to allow another company to do that in the US, where they do have a presence.

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 7:44 pm

On a more positive note, ZOO is the puplishing company for most "quailty" 2D games over here in the UK. They have puplished titles from SAMMY (Metal Gear series) and SNK (Metal Slug and other KOF releated titles) games as well as Alien Hommid for half the price of normal games.

SteevTee · Post by **SteevTee** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 10:38 am

I was in GAME the other day buying Armored Core 3 and Neo Contra. To my surprise, the manager (speaking of Neo Contra) said to one of his co-workers "it's good to somebody buying a non-generic game for a change". He commented on how it was quite tough so he had obviously played it before. Perhaps there is still soul in GAME.

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 11:16 am

Oh good choice in games btw, Amoured Core series happens to be one of my favourate game franchises(!) ever!

SteevTee · Post by **SteevTee** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 11:26 am

Thanks, me and my mate have been getting uber excited over the grenade launcher in AC.

There is so much you can do once you get the cash.

I also recently bought Contra - Shattered Soldier from amazon which is owning me, still very good though. Takes me back to the days of playing Contra 3 on the SNES... Happy times

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 11:37 am

I was in GAME the other day buying Armored Core 3 and Neo Contra. To my surprise, the manager (speaking of Neo Contra) said to one of his co-workers "it's good to somebody buying a non-generic game for a change". He commented on how it was quite tough so he had obviously played it before. Perhaps there is still soul in GAME.

Yeah, GAME employees get far too much of a hard time from these "Leave me alone, I know more about games than you EVER could" arseholes. It's their job to shift overhyped dross. The fact is that a good number of them do know what they're talking about.

Neo Contra is a fantastic installment in the series (despite S-rank runs being far too easy to pull off

).