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

[system11]

Defensive much?

PC hardware is a train wreck. The operating system situation is a train wreck too. I work with computers have have for the past 20 years, I played with computers and consoles and arcade machines for the 13 years before that. That's everything from mainframes to minicomputers to PCs to intelligent terminals to consoles to solid state games that used primitive LCD screens and black & white bat & ball consoles. I've played with most operating systems that exist or have existed.

It is my experience and opinion that PCs are unreliable pieces of shit at this moment in time. I am tired of failing hard drives, and I am tired of failing fans. I am really especially tired of third party drivers for hardware like capture cards. I am greatly upset by Broadcom in particular who revise their hardware so often the version number should contain the hour of the day it was last changed.

They /are/ very fast and flexible though.

I'd burn it all down and start again. Something really incredible could be created if nobody was concerned with a gradual upgrade path and compatability with existing hardware & software. It will never happen though. Perhaps arguably with consoles, but they're now taking PC hardware, and getting it into a set configuration with a bespoke operating system - the one way to make it sane.

Just my opinion.

[blackoak]

Ran across this while doing some SDOJ research, not sure if its old news here:

トークショーの最後には、池田さんが「Xbox 360で出すのはこれで最後になりますけど、ケイブとしてはシューティングを止めないぞ、と。どんな形であれ、しつこく出します」と高らかに宣言……したものの、浅田氏が間髪入れず「つぎはスマホです」とネタバレされていた。 (http://news.nicovideo.jp/watch/nw605715)

Its from the Ikeda x Asada talk show they did recently (May 5th), and Ikeda says that although SDOJ will be their last X360 release, they won't stop making STGs at Cave, whatever form they may take. Asada then interjects and says the next one will be for smart phones.

...let there be "meh"

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

Asada has since put in his notice to leave so his ideas might go with him. I'm sure Ikeda would prefer their games to get an arcade release before porting madness.

[Drachenherz]

Ran across this while doing some SDOJ research, not sure if its old news here:

トークショーの最後には、池田さんが「Xbox 360で出すのはこれで最後になりますけど、ケイブとしてはシューティングを止めないぞ、と。どんな形であれ、しつこく出します」と高らかに宣言……したものの、浅田氏が間髪入れず「つぎはスマホです」とネタバレされていた。 (http://news.nicovideo.jp/watch/nw605715)

Its from the Ikeda x Asada talk show they did recently (May 5th), and Ikeda says that although SDOJ will be their last X360 release, they won't stop making STGs at Cave, whatever form they may take. Asada then interjects and says the next one will be for smart phones.

...let there be "meh"

Not quite, if you consider the upcoming official controller support that's implemented in the upcoming iOS 7...

[Udderdude]

It's their killer app ..

[BulletMagnet]

Asada has put up his final blog post at Cave.

[Skykid]

Asada has put up his final blog post at Cave.

On the road to recovery.

[THE]

Good, may the manliness now flow again through Cave's veins >_>

I hope his successor actually likes and cares about STGs...

[KAI]

[Cuilan]

Outside of Instant Brain, Asada did more good than harm. There were already warning signs that all was not well at Cave for years before he joined, and things are unlikely to change for the better any time soon.

[Udderdude]

NO :3

[AntiFritz]

Outside of Instant Brain, Asada did more good than harm. There were already warning signs that all was not well at Cave for years before he joined, and things are unlikely to change for the better any time soon.

This, I honestly don't imagine much (if anything) changing now that asada has left.

[Last_Dancer]

Wait a Minute, he is working on Next Gen Games? I cannot find a List of all games involving Asada, but did he do anything else besides Shmups ?

Lets make a purely speculative list:

-Asada joins Konami and produces Gradius 6

-Asada joins Treasure

-Asada joins Sqaure-Enix/Taito

-Asada joins G.Rev/Triangle/Qute/5pb

-Asada joins Microsoft Studio Osaka

-Asada starting his own business

Theres not much left for a Shmup-only-dude, maybe he switches genre, but my vote goes for Studio Osaka, altough moving from Tokyo to Osaka, really ?

[ptoing]

I think he was just a producer type guy, doing the team management type shit. So he could go anywhere really.

[Eaglet]

Yeah. Asada's main thing used to be visuarru noberru and horse racing games.
No joke.

[trap15]

That's... honestly not surprising

[Udderdude]

- Asada fucks off and we never hear from him again.

[chempop]

Guy who brings us a dozen amazing ports to 360 leaves cave...
people rejoice

[Skykid]

Guy who brings us a dozen amazing ports to 360 leaves cave...
people rejoice

He did more than that, he was directly involved in the direction of the games from Deathsmiles onward. I'm assuming he was on a leave of absence when they came up with Akai Katana.

[IseeThings]

He could join IGS, they need somebody to port things (well they should consider hiring somebody to port things! considering none of their games have been ported, ever.)

Also make a vertical shmup out of the Demon Front world

re: celebrations, I think Cave's managed to generate a fair bit of hate, due to it's business approach despite producing some of the best games in the genre. Both the legal angle (not wanting MAME to emulate their games) and often failing to give people what they wanted legally for reasonable prices (especially if you're outside of Japan) plus the overall art direction etc. of recent years.

Believe me, when we removed the Cave driver I decided NOT to publish several hundred 'f**k you Cave, I hope you die' type comments on my blog, many of them likely from people who did own the games / ports, but also liked being able to run them in MAME because the ports weren't always convenient (eg. having to dig out a PS2 for Ibara and suffering the ugly graphic scaling of it and zero hope of the slowdown ever being even close to correct)

For that reason, it doesn't surprise me to see a good number of people still cheering on the decline, even if it seems stupid. If you piss off a chunk of your fanbase, that is what happens. There are people wishing Capcom would die too for all their stupid DLC character unlocks...

[Cuilan]

He did more than that, he was directly involved in the direction of the games from Deathsmiles onward. I'm assuming he was on a leave of absence when they came up with Akai Katana.

That would help explain why Akai Katana had so many questionable design decisions, not to mention its low sales.

[Skykid]

He did more than that, he was directly involved in the direction of the games from Deathsmiles onward. I'm assuming he was on a leave of absence when they came up with Akai Katana.

That would help explain why Akai Katana had so many questionable design decisions, not to mention its low sales.

It's the best game they made since Futari and the second best hori after Progear... well, Shin is, to be more precise. What questionable design decisions?

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

Asada always seemed to want to push for changes that would make the games appeal to wider gaming audiences. That sounds ok at first but what it really means is take them in a direction other than traditional arcade format which is the opposite direction a lot of fans want. The hard as hell/~25 minute loop/no lag 8-way joystick and buttons/vert/1 man against the world 1 credit type limitations that have been in all their arcade games. It's a matter of concentrating on refining the core elements that make their games so good. Not 2 months in the recording studio and cheats.

I'm not sure how much influence he had on the actual arcade games before they were ported, if any. Katana would have been a bigger hit if it wasn't for greed making them want to release 2 versions even though the second one sold like less than 20 kits according to speculation. The Limited Version brought the scoring system full circle not to mention its other upgrades but only a few people can play it.

Shin is a casual one day clear so I don't know why it gets so much praise.

[Skykid]

Shin is a casual one day clear so I don't know why it gets so much praise.

Wat? You mean with credit feeding, right? If you managed to casually clear Shin on your first day, you either got mad skills or you aren't playing it right.

It gets so much praise because it's fucking amazing. The versatility and reward of the scoring system is top tier coding. They literally salvaged the entire game, since arcade and its variants are nice, but missing a trick somehow.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I just mean from what it looks like and seeing someone 1 day clear it in a video who didn't appear to be a shooting game fan. It doesn't matter if it's played correctly or not if it's 1 day cleared by a casual then it's too easy. But I would like to play it to really see. I'll take your word for it that it's harder than that. The problem is I don't want to buy an Xbox just for that one game mode.

[iconoclast]

Shin is an easy clear, but playing any version of AK solely for survival is missing the entire point of the game. Arcade & Zetsu are better anyway.

[Skykid]

Shin is an easy clear, but playing any version of AK solely for survival is missing the entire point of the game. Arcade & Zetsu are better anyway.

Ridiculous. Admittedly, I never played Shin for anything except score, so if it's a piece of cake by simply ignoring the mechanisms it's not something I've tried - but the bosses mean business and the last few stages are incredibly bullet heavy. I'm quite surprised anyone would volunteer it as an easy clear. It's not Deathsmiles.

Also, it's the best incarnation of AK ever devised. Pretty sure that's been firmly established, and the reason it went to Nesica.

[iconoclast]

I'm sure they chose Shin for Nesica because it's an entirely different game. The original mechanics clearly didn't make AK a big hit, so they probably wanted to see if the alternate version would catch on. Kinda like Ibara Kuro, I guess.

[awo]

It should be noted that Shin on Nesica is different from the X360 Shin mode (in a sense of a Black Label or 1.5 version, not in the sense of it being an entirely different game). Many tweaks and changes, and overall more difficult. Similar to how Ibara Kuro is different, yet an evolution from, Ibara Arrange.

P.S. I agree with iconoclast that Arcade mode is still the best.

[nZero]

He could join IGS, they need somebody to port things (well they should consider hiring somebody to port things! considering none of their games have been ported, ever.)

I'd love to see their games get ported, although the racing (and maybe rhythm) games are probably on a bit of a slippery slope in regards to licensing (or lack thereof). It probably doesn't help that console sales are next to non-existent in their target markets. Seems like it'd be a perfect experiment to test the marketing power of emulation.