It's over, CAVE is dead... or maybe not...

[TransatlanticFoe]

For me PC is the natural most versatile most performant platform for gaming, you can do anything with it with the games and beyond the games ; edit, manage, communicate, play with any controler... it's cheaper, much more durable and not so tightly controled by one brand, one hardware and one set of game-"products".

Let's not forget unreliable, complicated, lumbered with a massive OS that needs virus checkers running 24/7, driver problems, always-on DRM, expensive, constantly obsolete, runtimes that update and leave older games with no possible way of running, etc. Computers are my work, and as such I absolutely hate PC architecture - they're such an unholy mess it's not even funny. It's fast, that's about the only good thing.

I'd be up for a controlled platform akin to home computers, but the free-for-all we have with x86/etc can burn for all I care.

There's very little "always on" DRM. Steam, Origin and even ye olde Games for Windows Live are more than happy to function offline. I think it's just a few Ubisoft games then your big names Diablo III and SimCity. However quite how people champion Steam so much really is beyond me. Release it on Steam! Release it on Steam! Everyone would buy Cave if it were on Steam! How about if it were released without any DRM at all? That'd be so much better.

PCs are often an excellent argument for the standardised hardware of consoles. However you've exaggerated a few of the things listed. Yes there are forums full of people running into all kinds of issues but software/OS updates and antivirus have never presented me with any gaming issues - which really leads me to question how much of it is due to people trying to run recent games with outdated drivers and generally not setting their anti-virus correctly for gaming. Constantly obsolete hardware (gaming-wise) has also been a bit of a non-issue this generation with a lack of Crysis-esque exclusives.

I'd rather have a console though. Reason I went PC (and bought a Wii) this generation was the poor reliablity record of the consoles.

[IseeThings]

For me PC is the natural most versatile most performant platform for gaming, you can do anything with it with the games and beyond the games ; edit, manage, communicate, play with any controler... it's cheaper, much more durable and not so tightly controled by one brand, one hardware and one set of game-"products".

Let's not forget unreliable, complicated, lumbered with a massive OS that needs virus checkers running 24/7, driver problems, always-on DRM, expensive, constantly obsolete, runtimes that update and leave older games with no possible way of running, etc. Computers are my work, and as such I absolutely hate PC architecture - they're such an unholy mess it's not even funny. It's fast, that's about the only good thing.

I'd be up for a controlled platform akin to home computers, but the free-for-all we have with x86/etc can burn for all I care.

There's very little "always on" DRM. Steam, Origin and even ye olde Games for Windows Live are more than happy to function offline. I think it's just a few Ubisoft games then your big names Diablo III and SimCity. However quite how people champion Steam so much really is beyond me. Release it on Steam! Release it on Steam! Everyone would buy Cave if it were on Steam! How about if it were released without any DRM at all? That'd be so much better.

PCs are often an excellent argument for the standardised hardware of consoles. However you've exaggerated a few of the things listed. Yes there are forums full of people running into all kinds of issues but software/OS updates and antivirus have never presented me with any gaming issues - which really leads me to question how much of it is due to people trying to run recent games with outdated drivers and generally not setting their anti-virus correctly for gaming. Constantly obsolete hardware (gaming-wise) has also been a bit of a non-issue this generation with a lack of Crysis-esque exclusives.

I'd rather have a console though. Reason I went PC (and bought a Wii) this generation was the poor reliablity record of the consoles.

Given the nature of the games and the likely market appeal I'd say somewhere like GOG would be a good place for Cave titles, and no, I don't get why people champion steam either, I've avoided it for the same reason I'll be avoiding the next gen of consoles, you own nothing. Steam on retail discs was the final nail in the coffin for most of my PC buying too. The games industry has single handedly stopped me being a gamer.

[Hagane]

Yeah PCs are not perfect, but some people exaggerate their problems a lot. I rarely have a problem when playing in one, and specs shouldn't be a huge issue with this genre.

As for Steam, I guess people suggest it because it's a big online retailer and gives extra exposure.

[Danny]

Yeah PCs are not perfect, but some people exaggerate their problems a lot. I rarely have a problem when playing in one, and specs shouldn't be a huge issue with this genre.

As for Steam, I guess people suggest it because it's a big online retailer and gives extra exposure.

Yeah I think that is why people want stuff on steam. Also Vavle have been trying to court Japanese PC Indie developers as of late as well...

[RyIII]

Yeah I think that is why people want stuff on steam. Also Vavle have been trying to court Japanese PC Indie developers as of late as well...

Other way 'round. Japanese devs have been going to Steam (and Western localizations in general) because the Japanese PC scene is somewhere from niche to irrelevant.

And really, the PC hardware cycle has slowed down quite a bit, because of the current developer focus on consoles- in the real wild and wooly days of Origin Systems and the like, one might have to perform much harder upgrades every year or two.

[nZero]

PCs are not inherently the problem, their qualities just contribute to the underlying problem of small Japanese developers with limited resources.

See: all of the people complaining about the general quality and bugs in Cave's console ports
See: all of the people complaining about the general quality and bugs in the dotemu PC collections

Imagine the perfect storm of Cave trying to code and test their products to the extent of making their games just work on the myriad possible PC configurations when they routinely introduce annoying (problems with menus and leaderboards), severe (disappearing objects, stuttering, crashing) or even gamebreaking (1.0->1.5) bugs to such fixed-specification platforms as arcade PCBs and consoles.

I'd love to see it, I just have very little confidence that the end result would be up to the expectations of the community.

[e_tank]

and that is why i'd like to see libretro become the preferred platform for shmups, which would address most of the complaints i've seen against devs targeting PCs.

[MintyTheCat]

ISeeThings is bang on the Money; dedicated systems with a single purpose and spec will beat a PC. A Mac stands a better chance than a PC.

[lettuce]

Let me know if/when that happens, as I do have some fairly significant fixes to both the SH3 CPU core and the CV1000 driver.

If you can get Ibara to work without a massive amount of frameskip on even a Geforce GT with a Core i7 CPU and 4GB RAM, I'd love you and have your babies forever.
Or maybe I'll just buy you a pint. ^_-

This is already possible, well i have a i7 and it runs 100% with groovymame

[KAI]

If you can get Ibara to work without a massive amount of frameskip on even a Geforce GT with a Core i7 CPU and 4GB RAM, I'd love you and have your babies forever.

My PC is worst than that and the game works perfectly.

[Nana]

Huh, I might have to check that out. I've been considering the PS2 version, but it would be a lot more tempting if I was actually able to play it and see how much I liked it first. After all, I fell in love with Mushi and ended up getting a 360 after playing 3 minutes of an incredibly broken Mushihimesama on MAME.

[NeoStrayCat]

Um guys, looks like Gaf's onto something again...Seems like Asada is leaving CAVE and such in the near future. (also, lol post #360) >_>

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... tcount=360

I guess that might be it. )'-')7

[Nana]

"In a future not far away...or rather soon I think (heh), I think I will meet you all again in a different capacity. Thank you for everything over the years."

Well, sweet. ZUN/Asada, go!

[KAI]

Asada, you should work with ZUN and make him bankrupt too.

[O. Van Bruce]

Good bye moeblob (?)

[Nana]

I don't really know who the personnel are! What does Asada do to begin with?

[KAI]

He's Cave's official cosplayer

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I don't really know who the personnel are! What does Asada do to begin with?

He mostly worked on the X360 ports. I wasn't a fan of his ideas which were often to take aspects of other more successful genres and integrate them into shooting games, I think he might have been the one pushing for their non-shooting games too. But he had a notorious work ethic. He was considerably heavier when he started working there and apparently worked himself thin with crazy hours and skipping meals. I think they pulled all nighters on the Deathsmiles port if I remember correctly. He did a lot of marketing stuff too obviously.

[hail good sir]

rockin

[Sapz]

I think Cave dies at least twice per year to keep the rank manageable.

[Acid_Rain]

I think Cave dies at least twice per year to keep the rank manageable.

true

[CStarFlare]

My understanding has been that Asada was kind of the driving force for Cave's consumer releases. It's not a huge surprise regardless of the company's future in the shmup business - the items in their catalog that haven't been ported are the ones that probably aren't viable projects to begin with, so there's probably not much left for him to do. The end of an era, I suppose.

It's a shame; even if you didn't like the decisions he made or the quality of his ports, I suspect we'd have a lot less Cave on our 360s without his dedication. And without Cave's support, would the 360 have captured the market so completely? Hopefully he finds a home that allows him to stay active in the genre.

I think Cave dies at least twice per year to keep the rank manageable.

Their Maximum bonus will never be the same, though.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I'm of the opinion that if CAVE can't continue to make STGs for the big screen then they might aswell be dead to me anyway, handheld CAVE shmups just don't interest me enough.

A year back I would have said that PC / Steam was the answer, but things seem to have gone sour for traditional sidescrollers due to greenlight and an audience that would rather use M&K.

I'm of the opinion that CAVE and other top tier STGs devs are better served continuing to sell their traditional STG at a premium to it's fanbase.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I don't understand, if I missed something or what, why even keep mentioning Cave going handheld only when the only thing that ever pointed that direction was some random website's advice based on financials and an incorrect translation on neogaf. Surely it's not the case and they'll make arcade shooters and have other companies do the ports.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Well no one knows for sure where CAVE could be heading so all we can do is speculate, even though I still think we will continue to see console ports if they can make them on a shoestring like Grev does.

[bcass]

The only companies who should be allowed to do Cave ports are M2 and Arika. Cave should never have done any of them IMO. I'm not sure I'd be championing Asada's "work ethic" either given the number of bugs his output suffers from.

[AntiFritz]

The only companies who should be allowed to do Cave ports are M2 and Arika. Cave should never have done any of them IMO.

This, Futari's port is great. More ports need scanline options.

[zeroroute]

PCs have too many interruptions, you don't want to reach the TLB only to find some update program decides it has more control over your system than you do.

This is my complaint too. I was playing something "TCFC" today ,and all of a sudden, HERE COMES APPLE SOFTWARE UPDATER. *loses 2 lives, and almost rages*

[KAI]

Automatic updates disabled, problem solved.

[Skykid]

Asada, you should work with ZUN and make him bankrupt too.

This.