Ginga Force (Qute, Xbox360)

[Last_Dancer]

I still think Microsoft Japan should have given Nitro+ major moneyhats to keep Steins;Gate (and future Science Adventure VNs) a 360 exclusive.

Steins;Gate is on PC too, it never was a 360-exclusive game.

Steins;Gate sold more then 300.000 units in Japan across PSP/PS3/PC/360, and only around ~30.000 of those sales where on 360, do you really think any sane japanese Publisher will ever again only go to the worst platform possible in Japan, ignoring their Fans and ignoring their money, and do you really think Microsoft can afford to compensate all the losses made by going 360-only?

Look at Mistwalker, Money from Microsoft, games where a huge failure because of wrong platform, now developing Ios games

Look at Cave, 360-only, now near death, too proud to admit they choose the wrong console, now developing Ios games

Moneyhatting ruined so many Genres and Developers in this Gen, Microsoft should be proud

[DragonInstall]

I always wondered by 360 did so poorly there. Was it mainly because..... "Baka Gaijin invading our console gaming realm, will not support."

[Cuilan]

I still think Microsoft Japan should have given Nitro+ major moneyhats to keep Steins;Gate (and future Science Adventure VNs) a 360 exclusive.

Microsoft gave up on trying to cater to the Japanese market sometime back in 2009. I guess they don't see the point in going out of their way to secure 360 exclusives anymore, since the console market in Japan has shrunk and the next generation is just around the corner.

Steins;Gate is on PC too, it never was a 360-exclusive game.

Steins;Gate sold more then 300.000 units in Japan across PSP/PS3/PC/360, and only around ~30.000 of those sales where on 360, do you really think any sane japanese Publisher will ever again only go to the worst platform possible in Japan, ignoring their Fans and ignoring their money, and do you really think Microsoft can afford to compensate all the losses made by going 360-only?

Look at Mistwalker, Money from Microsoft, games where a huge failure because of wrong platform, now developing Ios games

Look at Cave, 360-only, now near death, too proud to admit they choose the wrong console, now developing Ios games

Steins;Gate was 360-exlusive for close to a year (and MS-platform exclusive for over 1.5 years). Also, your sales numbers are off. Steins;Gate has managed to sell over 55,000 copies on the 360 alone.

Mistwalker's 360 games were not "huge failures". Blue Dragon is still one of the best-selling 360 games in Japan (not a fan of the game personally though), and Lost Odyssey managed to sell decently on a global scale.

As for Cave, their main issue is serious mismanagement, not platform-exclusivity.

I always wondered by 360 did so poorly there. Was it mainly because..... "Baka Gaijin invading our console gaming realm, will not support."

It has more to do with the strong brand-loyalty that Nintendo and Sony have managed to build for themselves over the years. Microsoft being a relative newcomer to that market had to start from nothing and go up against two very well established competitors.

Another major issue is that most of the 360's library is viewed as redundant relative to the PS3's. Most of the 360's exclusives are in niche/unpopular genres, so most Japanese consumers don't see the appeal in owning one. Microsoft tried to remedy this early on by money-hatting exclusive/timed-exclusive JRPGs, but the cost of securing games in a genre not very popular outside of Japan and the shrinking of the Japanese console market caused Microsoft to abandon that strategy after a few years. The strategy did appear to be working in terms of hardware sales, but it seems Microsoft felt that it wasn't worth the cost.

For what it's worth, the 360 has managed to sell 3~4 times better in Japan than the original Xbox did.

[Op Intensify]

The difference here is in 20 years time you could still release a new dreamcast game if you wanted to, but you cant do that on x360.

Sega was officially licensing new Dreamcast releases up until 2007's Karous.

and the next generation is just around the corner.

The sad thing is that it's not. We should have been hearing about the successors to the PS3/360 two or three years ago. We've prolonged the life of these systems far too much, and their installed user bases have grown too large and deeply entrenched for hardware and software companies to risk moving away from them. Sony's committed to a 10-year life cycle for the PS3, and I don't see Microsoft's next console materializing for quite some time either (the Kinect was obviously positioned as an excuse to prolong the 360.)

The Wii U isn't a next-gen system, it's Nintendo's latecomer entry into this generation.

[Cuilan]

The sad thing is that it's not. We should have been hearing about the successors to the PS3/360 two or three years ago. We've prolonged the life of these systems far too much, and their installed user bases have grown too large and deeply entrenched for hardware and software companies to risk moving away from them. Sony's committed to a 10-year life cycle for the PS3, and I don't see Microsoft's next console materializing for quite some time either (the Kinect was obviously positioned as an excuse to prolong the 360.)

I am confident that either Sony or MS will have their next gen console out on the market by the end of 2013. Rumors regarding both have been steadily increasing in detail and quantity since late last year, and the year-over-year sales of both the 360 and the PS3 have been greatly declining in the US since the year started. With the Wii U thrown into the competition, sales are going to decline even further. Both MS and Sony are going to drop the price of their current gen consoles to stay competitive, but that can only do so much. I seriously doubt that either of them are going to allow the Wii U to stay in the market for longer than 12 months uncontested.

[HydrogLox]

The difference here is in 20 years time you could still release a new dreamcast game if you wanted to, but you cant do that on x360.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Software capable of manipulating the 360 file system has been available for quite some time. And once the 360 gets booted off of the then contemporary XBox-Live (happened to the original XBox) there no longer will be a penalty for JTaging - or whatever the hack-de-jour will be. There will be a boatload of cheap and plentiful hardware (much of it presumably resurrected and all of it antiquated) - possibly good conditions for a home brew environment for the 360 OS and applications. The one thing that could possibly kill that is another, more modern, standardized and (deliberately) open platform (other than PCs which are not terribly standardized even if you disregard the Windows/MacOS/*nix mess).

The original XBox didn't have the same numbers in the market that the 360 will have to have that kind of an effect.

[AntiFritz]

The difference here is in 20 years time you could still release a new dreamcast game if you wanted to, but you cant do that on x360.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Software capable of manipulating the 360 file system has been available for quite some time. And once the 360 gets booted off of the then contemporary XBox-Live (happened to the original XBox) there no longer will be a penalty for JTaging - or whatever the hack-de-jour will be. There will be a boatload of cheap and plentiful hardware (much of it presumably resurrected and all of it antiquated) - possibly good conditions for a home brew environment for the 360 OS and applications. The one thing that could possibly kill that is another, more modern, standardized and (deliberately) open platform (other than PCs which are not terribly standardized even if you disregard the Windows/MacOS/*nix mess).

The original XBox didn't have the same numbers in the market that the 360 will have to have that kind of an effect.

The difference being you would likely have to modify your console beforehand for an unauthorized game to work (unless something similar to the utopia boot disc is created for the 360). At present you could release a dreamcast game and while it would most likely be unauthorised it would still work on every console (except those rare (japan only?) newer dreamcast models).

[Fudoh]

In theory developers should be to able to release a 360 title now (or in 10 years) on a USB thumb drive, just the way you can download a XBLA game and put it on a USB drive to get it on a 360 which isn't online. Of course it would be running as a demo only, but if it was programmed to give unlimited access in "demo mode" this should work.

[adversity1]

There's a Ginga Force feature in the latest Famitsu Xbox 360. Lots of new game screens.

http://i.imgur.com/VEWaj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/hFqve.jpg

■Characters

Heroes
Alex (main character)
Margaret (busty sidekick)

Enemies
Jack
Tinny
Seram
Genzou

■Concept

2D shooting with some 3D action sections, namely those sort of sections in Eschatos where you're at a quasi-3D perspective and firing into the background. As mentioned earlier, weapon customization is a big feature for the game. 10 stages "plus more".

■Equipment

8 equipment slots.

Main Weapon
Sub Weapon
Special
Speed? (hard to read)
Spare Ship
Extra Slot 1
Extra Slot 2
Extra Slot 3

As you play you earn money, called CR and you use this to buy equipment. Over 20 varieties of main weapon including front shot, Laser, Wave, 20 varieties of sub weapon: wide, cross, option bit, 10 special weapons including shields, charge bombs and extra slot equippables which reduce energy you need to use your special shot, show you breakable points on bosses etc.

■Countdown Timer System

This is a big part of the game system apparently. The game displays a timer at certain parts of the game and if you can accomplish certain tasks within that time, the "game content and conversations between characters" change. Examples of tasks are destroying certain parts of a boss within the time limit and destroying all of a certain set of enemies.

■Score Attack Mode
Choose from default ship types and compete for score. From what's written here it looks like you can only play this on a single stage of your choosing in Training Mode, which would be disappointing if true.

■Soundtrack
Yosuke Yasui is the main composer as stated previously, also joined by Yasuhisa Watanabe (of Senko fame).

■Release Date
Planned to be released within 2012

[KAI]

■Soundtrack
Yosuke Yasui is the main composer as stated previously, also joined by Yasuhisa Watanabe.

FUCK YEAH!!!


The article says something about Shinji Hosoe and Ayako Saso too. Can you translate that?

[Kiken]

10 Stages + Alpha... that's some Compile design right there... if you can't necessarily make it difficult, make it looooooooooooooong.

[Op Intensify]

So Score Attack is stage select only, like Game Tengoku 2 and some other console-only shmups I'm forgetting. Not sure how I feel about this.

I guess it'll be refreshing to have a solid new console-styled shmup after so many arcade ports.

10 Stages + Alpha... that's some Compile design right there... if you can't necessarily make it difficult, make it looooooooooooooong.

I'm still waiting for more info on that supposedly punishing arrange version of Aleste 1.

[denpanosekai]

Thanks for the scans + translation. Keeps sounding better and better. Already pre-ordered.

[Phellan Wolf]

It sounds better and better. I hope to see a gameplay video soon. By the way wasn't the release date scheduled by the end of august??? Have they canged their plans??

[Op Intensify]

By the way wasn't the release date scheduled by the end of august??? Have they canged their plans??

As mentioned on the previous page, it's been delayed to TBA 2012 for quality assurance reasons.

[adversity1]

Going to playable Sept. 1st at some Xbox360 event.

http://www.xbox.com/ja-JP/event/daikansyasai_2012

[Op Intensify]

Seems to have flown under everyone's radar that the site was updated again on the 10th. STILL no video, though. I guess they're saving it for that 360 event. No info on region coding either.

Mecha
Character
Item
Equipment

[Friendly]

I still think Microsoft Japan should have given Nitro+ major moneyhats to keep Steins;Gate (and future Science Adventure VNs) a 360 exclusive.

Crazy talk. Several Japanese retailers have already stopped selling Xbox 360 hardware and games a year ago. It's too late.

[KAI]

More composers for this game:
Yousuke Yasui, Shinji Hosoe, Ayako Saso, Yasuhisa Watanabe, Hiroto Saitoh and more (?)

Just keep them coming!!

[iconoclast]

Qute just uploaded a trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dmzkX1p ... re=g-all-u

[Cuilan]

Crazy talk. Several Japanese retailers have already stopped selling Xbox 360 hardware and games a year ago. It's too late.

That didn't stop the Steins;Gate sequel from selling well. People in Japan who still care about 360 games know where to find them. Besides that, there's also the Games on Demand service. I guess we'll see how well the Phantom of Inferno remake for 360 sells once it finally gets released in a couple months.

[kid aphex]

Game looks much better in motion than I had ever assumed it would, judging from those initial screenshots.

[eebrozgi]

I didn't even think of a possibility that Eschatos, quite possibly my favourite shmup, might have a sequel. This day is a happy day.
Now just hoping for a region-free release... Or even an OVERSEAS release. (Ha ha. Right.)

[Op Intensify]

Game looks much better in motion than I had ever assumed it would, judging from those initial screenshots.

This.

Might quite possibly have the greatest shmup OST of all time, too.

[stryc9]

Yeah, after seeing the trailer, this is looking pretty damn good if you ask me

[bcass]

Haven't read the whole thread, but are there any DLC-related extras for the LE (is there an LE?) and/or pre-orders/1st prints?

[Op Intensify]

No LE, DLC or extras known of at this time.

[DragonInstall]

So many weapons and Japanese text... We will need a translator for this one.

[gatsu25]

Oh man! This is looking great. Eschatos is among if not my favorite shooter of this generation. I hope an OST comes with this one as well.

[Kollision]

So many weapons and Japanese text... We will need a translator for this one.

Would it be too late to spam their email with requests for an English language option in the options?