The future of SHMUPs.

[Mero]

The scene will carry on but in the past year or so it's definitely felt to me that things are winding down a bit.

[Pwnix]

Shmup is not an acronym, stop capitalizing it. Thanks.

It's like a really fucked up acronym. I stand by my idiocy. SHoot 'eM UP

[Pwnix]

I definitely think that a big portion of the future market for shmups (there you go trap15 all lower case) is going to be on PC. PC may be of really low priority and popularity in Japan but it sure seems like Japan is well and done with shmups whereas elsewhere there is at least some niche demand. With native PC/Steam releases you can reach a much wider audience and it will be a clearer message to the market if it sells well. Convincing Japanese developers to make games for the pc may not really work unfortunately but Jamestown is a proof of concept that a half decent shooter can be on Steam and do relatively well. I liked Jamestown anyway, I suppose I don't really have an objective case for its quality or how well it sold though. I just hope if Japanese devs start porting to PC we don't get another Deadly Premonition travesty on our hands. That shit STILL doesn't work right.

[gray117]

... tend to agree; if you're not getting a viable business from the high price, low volume sales, be that arcade/home, you'd then be foolish to discount the pc crowd as a viable market. Sure it's a fraction of that overall crowd but there's a reasonable retro/arcade interested portion amongst that pc crowd.

Of course, this doesn't change the fact that this was never really the focus for any of the most prominent shmup developers up to this point. With greater platform parity you'd perhaps hope for more consideration for this in the future. But the ball is firmly in the indie (sized) camp now in terms of cost/profits.

... wonder what has been the largest (numbers) selling shmup to date? ... Probably deathsmiles or ikaruga?

For any one shmup game that's probably an optimistic 250,000 strong (paying) audience max? ... other good shmups likely topping out at about 30k?

... Compared to sfiv's 8 million or so? ... something like kof xiii about a 1-2 million?

[Zaarock]

sub par titles from the likes of Moss or 5pb

Raiden, Caladrius, and Infinite Burst disagree with you. People don't even give shit a chance if it's not from Cave these days. I wonder how many people even gave Eschatos a try within this very community? I'd bet it's a small fraction compared to even Cave's shittiest output despite being one of the best shmups on 360. This weird inability to pay attention to anything not coming from the very biggest names in the genre is one of the biggest reasons behind its death (severe decline really, I doubt it will ever totally die) if you ask me.

Totally agreed. Many really good shmups have come out in the last two years but get largely ignored on this forum unless by a well known developer or aimed towards collectors. I've found it funny how much attention games with high price points like Redux: Dark Matters and Neo-XYX got here even after users posted about how they had many technical problems.

People outside of the genre keep saying shmups should be 'revolutionized' somehow, and some developers are making games with high production values and experimental systems like Ginga Force, Astebreed and Revolver360 RE:ACTOR (some that come to mind). They still end up selling poorly, and also end up getting little respect on this forum.. No idea what the reception has been like in japan though, that's a lot more important than a small community like this. The games mentioned aren't perfect but I think do some things very well.

There's also some really interesting projects by users on this forum like Final Boss and many games that have already been released like Aero Chimera, games by Norty, etc. But who reads the development forum when you can argue about old games on shmups chat, right?

I get the impression that the amount of people here interested in shmups by new developers or on platforms they aren't used to is lowering rather than the genre severely declining..

You can say most indie devs don't know what they're doing, but what worth is there in that claim if they aren't given good feedback. Or if you ignore that people from this forum with very good knowledge of the genre are developing their own games. Companies like Qute don't just appear out of nowhere, they make smaller releases first and get good at what they do.

[Squire Grooktook]

Honestly, I'd take Aero Chimera over anything Cave has made since Futari.

[Pretas]

... wonder what has been the largest (numbers) selling shmup to date? ... Probably deathsmiles or ikaruga?

It's likely Famicom Gradius 1, which sold over a million copies in Japan alone and did quite well elsewhere (Life Force NES may have sold better in the US). From the 16-bit era onwards it was unimaginable for an STG home release to pull those kinds of numbers, though.

[Squire Grooktook]

I definitely think that a big portion of the future market for shmups (there you go trap15 all lower case) is going to be on PC. PC may be of really low priority and popularity in Japan but it sure seems like Japan is well and done with shmups whereas elsewhere there is at least some niche demand. With native PC/Steam releases you can reach a much wider audience and it will be a clearer message to the market if it sells well. Convincing Japanese developers to make games for the pc may not really work unfortunately but Jamestown is a proof of concept that a half decent shooter can be on Steam and do relatively well. I liked Jamestown anyway, I suppose I don't really have an objective case for its quality or how well it sold though. I just hope if Japanese devs start porting to PC we don't get another Deadly Premonition travesty on our hands. That shit STILL doesn't work right.

Huh?

JP has produced an enormous number of quality pc shmups. Doujin has literally been the biggest supplier of games for the past decade and likely will continue to be.

Friggin Cho Ren Sha 68k is old as hell but that's a pc original and one of the most famous jp shmups out there.

[Pwnix]

I definitely think that a big portion of the future market for shmups (there you go trap15 all lower case) is going to be on PC. PC may be of really low priority and popularity in Japan but it sure seems like Japan is well and done with shmups whereas elsewhere there is at least some niche demand. With native PC/Steam releases you can reach a much wider audience and it will be a clearer message to the market if it sells well. Convincing Japanese developers to make games for the pc may not really work unfortunately but Jamestown is a proof of concept that a half decent shooter can be on Steam and do relatively well. I liked Jamestown anyway, I suppose I don't really have an objective case for its quality or how well it sold though. I just hope if Japanese devs start porting to PC we don't get another Deadly Premonition travesty on our hands. That shit STILL doesn't work right.

Huh?

JP has produced an enormous number of quality pc shmups. Doujin has literally been the biggest supplier of games for the past decade and likely will continue to be.

Friggin Cho Ren Sha 68k is old as hell but that's a pc original and one of the most famous jp shmups out there.

Sorry I should have phrased that better. I just meant the mainstream Japanese industry doesn't seem to be making shmups so much anymore. I could very well be wrong about that though. I'm no expert on the subject and the info I get here in the USA may be a trickle compared to what's going on in Japan. Edit: And also I'm not super tapped into the Doujin scene. I'd very much like for that to change though.

[Pwnix]

sub par titles from the likes of Moss or 5pb

Raiden, Caladrius, and Infinite Burst disagree with you. People don't even give shit a chance if it's not from Cave these days. I wonder how many people even gave Eschatos a try within this very community? I'd bet it's a small fraction compared to even Cave's shittiest output despite being one of the best shmups on 360. This weird inability to pay attention to anything not coming from the very biggest names in the genre is one of the biggest reasons behind its death (severe decline really, I doubt it will ever totally die) if you ask me.

Totally agreed. Many really good shmups have come out in the last two years but get largely ignored on this forum unless by a well known developer or aimed towards collectors. I've found it funny how much attention games with high price points like Redux: Dark Matters and Neo-XYX got here even after users posted about how they had many technical problems.

People outside of the genre keep saying shmups should be 'revolutionized' somehow, and some developers are making games with high production values and experimental systems like Ginga Force, Astebreed and Revolver360 RE:ACTOR (some that come to mind). They still end up selling poorly, and also end up getting little respect on this forum.. No idea what the reception has been like in japan though, that's a lot more important than a small community like this. The games mentioned aren't perfect but I think do some things very well.

There's also some really interesting projects by users on this forum like Final Boss and many games that have already been released like Aero Chimera, games by Norty, etc. But who reads the development forum when you can argue about old games on shmups chat, right?

I get the impression that the amount of people here interested in shmups by new developers or on platforms they aren't used to is lowering rather than the genre severely declining..

You can say most indie devs don't know what they're doing, but what worth is there in that claim if they aren't given good feedback. Or if you ignore that people from this forum with very good knowledge of the genre are developing their own games. Companies like Qute don't just appear out of nowhere, they make smaller releases first and get good at what they do.

I'm absolutely interested in all of that but I'm not really tapped into whatever information stream that stuff is flowing down. I'm totally in the dark as far as recent shmups are concerned. Aside from the really accessible stuff by big name shmup studios that can still be considered recent. I'd very much like that to be different though. I'm definitely going to look into every single game/company that is mentioned in this thread.

[Squire Grooktook]

I definitely think that a big portion of the future market for shmups (there you go trap15 all lower case) is going to be on PC. PC may be of really low priority and popularity in Japan but it sure seems like Japan is well and done with shmups whereas elsewhere there is at least some niche demand. With native PC/Steam releases you can reach a much wider audience and it will be a clearer message to the market if it sells well. Convincing Japanese developers to make games for the pc may not really work unfortunately but Jamestown is a proof of concept that a half decent shooter can be on Steam and do relatively well. I liked Jamestown anyway, I suppose I don't really have an objective case for its quality or how well it sold though. I just hope if Japanese devs start porting to PC we don't get another Deadly Premonition travesty on our hands. That shit STILL doesn't work right.

Huh?

JP has produced an enormous number of quality pc shmups. Doujin has literally been the biggest supplier of games for the past decade and likely will continue to be.

Friggin Cho Ren Sha 68k is old as hell but that's a pc original and one of the most famous jp shmups out there.

Sorry I should have phrased that better. I just meant the mainstream Japanese industry doesn't seem to be making shmups so much anymore.

That's true, but they haven't been for a long time. The "shmups are dead" line has been going on since the super nes days.

I do think we have reached the end of big time console releases for the genre. If more surface it will most likely be labors of love or indie ports onto a cheap xbla style service. Otherwise doujins/indies are the future I think.

[Pwnix]

That's true, but they haven't been for a long time. The "shmups are dead" line has been going on since the super nes days.

I do think we have reached the end of big time console releases for the genre. If more surface it will most likely be labors of love or indie ports onto a cheap xbla style service. Otherwise doujins/indies are the future I think.

Well I better fucking get on playing doujin games. It sounds like I have a lot of missed content to make up for. Like a lot of people my doujin shmup experience doesn't extend past Touhou.

[ACSeraph]

Living outside of Japan and not being caught up on shmup news you would probably assume nothing is being produced, but that simply isn't true. As far as console developers go we have Moss (Raiden, Caladrius), Qute (Echatos, Ginga Force), 5pb (Bullet Soul), G-Rev (Kokuga, Mamoru-kun, Senko no Ronde), Triangle Service (Combatzeal, XII Stag, Trizeal). There have already been anouncements from some of them regarding next gen shmups currently in development.

What you'll notice about all of those is that they aren't really traditional Cave-style bullet hell games, which is all that a huge portion of this forum gives a shit about. Shmups aren't dead; Cave Raizing, and Toaplan are dead. And unfortunately many players in the west can't see the genre outside of those confines.

There's still a small but solid following for shmups here in Japan. Games old and new are still being released in the arcades at a slow pace and people are still playing shmups both old and new. Even in my arcade in bumfuck nowhere you are going to have to wait in line to play Darius Burst on a Saturday. And if you head to the game store you'll notice the weekly sale rankings for the 360 consistently have shmups near the top, in fact in my area SDOJ has sat at number 1 since it was released. Not that theres a huge install base for the 360, but the interest is definitely there.

[Pwnix]

Living outside of Japan and not being caught up on shmup news you would probably assume nothing is being produced, but that simply isn't true. As far as console developers go we have Moss (Raiden, Caladrius), Qute (Echatos, Ginga Force), 5pb (Bullet Soul), G-Rev (Kokuga, Mamoru-kun, Senko no Ronde), Triangle Service (Combatzeal, XII Stag, Trizeal). There have already been anouncements from some of them regarding next gen shmups currently in development.

What you'll notice about all of those is that they aren't really traditional Cave-style bullet hell games, which is all that a huge portion of this forum gives a shit about. Shmups aren't dead; Cave Raizing, and Toaplan are dead. And unfortunately many players in the west can't see the genre outside of those confines.

There's still a small but solid following for shmups here in Japan. Games old and new are still being released in the arcades at a slow pace and people are still playing shmups both old and new. Even in my arcade in bumfuck nowhere you are going to have to wait in line to play Darius Burst on a Saturday. And if you head to the game store you'll notice the weekly sale rankings for the 360 consistently have shmups near the top, in fact in my area SDOJ has sat at number 1 since it was released. Not that theres a huge install base for the 360, but the interest is definitely there.

Sweet! Thanks for the little run through. I've heard of a number of those games but have yet to play them. I'll grab them!

[Pretas]

JP has produced an enormous number of quality pc shmups. Doujin has literally been the biggest supplier of games for the past decade and likely will continue to be.

Friggin Cho Ren Sha 68k is old as hell but that's a pc original and one of the most famous jp shmups out there.

"Enormous" is certainly true, but I would say that very few of these games deserve to be held up as classics next to the big name professional releases by Cave, Raizing, Psikyo, Seibu, Treasure, etc. Even Crimzon Clover: WI, one of the most polished and satisfying doujin games in years, doesn't quite deliver the lasting appeal or craftsmanship of even Cave's lesser titles like Akai Katana and DSII. And as great as it is, it's impossible for CRSX68k to rise above its doujin identity when it only sports a single low quality background for the entire game.

The problem with the vast majority of doujin games is that the most they usually have to offer is watered-down, low budget riffs on concepts and styles that have already been executed better in commercial games (i.e. Rayforce -> Kamui, Assault Suits Valken -> Gigantic Army). Even CC is just another product of the already thoroughly explored Ikeda school of STG design, only without Cave's production values.

[Squire Grooktook]

JP has produced an enormous number of quality pc shmups. Doujin has literally been the biggest supplier of games for the past decade and likely will continue to be.

Friggin Cho Ren Sha 68k is old as hell but that's a pc original and one of the most famous jp shmups out there.

"Enormous" is certainly true, but I would say that very few of these games deserve to be held up as classics next to the big name professional releases by Cave, Raizing, Psikyo, Seibu, Treasure, etc. Even Crimzon Clover: WI, one of the most polished and satisfying doujin games in years, doesn't quite deliver the lasting appeal or craftsmanship of even Cave's lesser titles like Akai Katana and DSII. And as great as it is, it's impossible for CRSX68k to rise above its doujin identity when it only sports a single low quality background for the entire game.

The problem with the vast majority of doujin games is that the most they usually have to offer is watered-down, low budget riffs on concepts and styles that have already been executed better in commercial games (i.e. Rayforce -> Kamui, Assault Suits Valken -> Gigantic Army). Even CC is just another product of the already thoroughly explored Ikeda school of STG design, only without Cave's production values.

I do not agree with any of this, except for Rayforce being better then Kamui.

I'd take CC above any Cave game with the exception of Mushi or DOJ, and even those are simply on the same level as it rather then surpassing. Cho Ren Sha is among my top 3 favorites of all time. Hell, I'd take even the worst Touhou titles over all but the best Cave games, due to their greater emphasis on rng dodging.

I think overall I've had more fun with doujin titles then commercial.

[BIL]

Kamui plays much more like Soukyugurentai than Rayforce with the Web and all. Trust me I have all three games in my sig. And Jirurun's a huge Raizing fan.

Gigantic Army plays better than Valken with its smooth automelee and more aggressive action. No embarrassingly ineffectual enemy mechs wafting about pipping out the odd bullet here, these fuckers will nuke your face. Trouble is GA has absolutely none of Valken's skull-crushingly immense style, so on balance it ends up getting beaten into the ground regardless. Aieee! Oh wellz.

I'm running on lucozade and just popped in to say the above.

[ACSeraph]

Even Crimzon Clover: WI, one of the most polished and satisfying doujin games in years, doesn't quite deliver the lasting appeal or craftsmanship of even Cave's lesser titles like Akai Katana and DSII.

Crazy talk. I'm sure taste certainly plays a role, but CC is every bit as professional a game as anything from Cave, doujin origins or not. Like Squire I also strongly prefer it to most of Cave's output.

As for it being derivative, so what? Cave didn't invent bullet hell either. I could claim that DDP was just a Batsugun wannabe, but it's a worthless claim.

[1up]

I hope CAVE wakes up and follows other japanese companies and starts releasing their stuff on Steam. I'm no marketing/strategy person but in my simple mind it would be easy money...
... if it's easy to port

It's not easy money. Porting to PC is not easy, and Steam has near-zero market in Japan. It's not worth it. Even past that, their only gamedev branch still open is their mobage one, and that's probably not going to change positively.

Who cares about Japan? Earlier this year it was reported that Steam has 75million active users. They're bound to sell something, right? For fans of the genre AND the people who remember that game with the insane boss that everyone thought was the hardest boss ever. Oh, I forgot, CAVE hates making money....

I just assumed that porting the X360 ports to PC would be easier than starting from scratch but I guess I'm wrong on that one. I still hope it will happen somehow down the line seeing we got some great ones on Steam already in Ikaruga, Crimzon Clover and Ether Vapor to name a few.

[trap15]

Ikaruga's been ported a million ways since Sunday, and the other two were on PC already. CAVE games do have a somewhat small abstraction, but porting that and making sure it works on the majority of PCs is a monumental task. It's not free money. In fact, it'd probably still lose money. As I said before, few westerners care of these games nor of games of skill, so the market is clearly not there.

[Squire Grooktook]

As I said before, few westerners care of these games nor of games of skill, so the market is clearly not there.

I'm willing to take your word for the cost rendering this inadvisable for Cave, however I do think there is something of a market, just not the kind geared around the logistics Cave would have to be working with.

As I listed on the first page, there are a number of well designed arcade style titles on Steam that have reasonably decent followings and have made enough of a profit for their developers to continue creating new games. I think shmups 100% have the potential to reach this same position, it's just that for a number of reasons they've over time fallen out of "niche" territory into "super niche" territory.

It might take a while, but I believe that over time shmups can at least crawl back into a decent enough niche to at least stand side by side with other niche titles and offer some decent 16-bit-ish looking titles (see: Jamestown) a year that deliver on the gameplay. They just need to work a little harder to make themselves (seemingly) accessible to newcomers without diluting the arcade style gameplay (online co op, cost efficient graphics, more diverse offerings, better telegraphs the idea of the 1cc/arcade experience, etc.).

[Captain]

In the future, where one's manliness (even for women) is measured by the amount of proper shmups you beat, all of that will change.

[KidQuaalude]

I hope CAVE wakes up and follows other japanese companies and starts releasing their stuff on Steam. I'm no marketing/strategy person but in my simple mind it would be easy money...
... if it's easy to port

It's not easy money. Porting to PC is not easy, and Steam has near-zero market in Japan. It's not worth it. Even past that, their only gamedev branch still open is their mobage one, and that's probably not going to change positively.

Who cares about Japan? Earlier this year it was reported that Steam has 75million active users. They're bound to sell something, right? For fans of the genre AND the people who remember that game with the insane boss that everyone thought was the hardest boss ever. Oh, I forgot, CAVE hates making money....

I just assumed that porting the X360 ports to PC would be easier than starting from scratch but I guess I'm wrong on that one. I still hope it will happen somehow down the line seeing we got some great ones on Steam already in Ikaruga, Crimzon Clover and Ether Vapor to name a few.

Porting from Xbox360->PC is easy enough and ought not to be a large scale project at all. IDK where trap15 is getting his info from, but the 360 was designed to be easy to port to/from windows.

[DestroyTheCore]

People seem to forget Cave has ported some of their games on iOS. Has it been profitable for them to release some of their creations on that platform?

[Laurel_McFang]

So I have a few questions.

!. Are SHMUPs dead?

Quite to the contrary, I think they're more alive than ever. Doujins are diversifying, indies are taking action, and of course ios. While the later is much maligned (and not for bad reason). Doujins like Revolver 360 are using Unity to make shmups with pretty substantial graphics. Crimzon Colver and Trouble Witches both went to nesica. The future of arcade shumps I think is digital distribution. The death of majors is concerning, but Mages/M2 picked up some cave and Hiroshi Iuchi is out there. The genre seems to being having a resurgence, but in two directions: casual ios games and niche indies. The former I see quite a bit of. The later we're getting with Crimzon Clover, A City Sleeps, and while controversial Luftrausers.

2. What are your predictions for the future of the SHMUP scene?

Doujins go 3D and produce a megahit i.e. a downloadable ps4 or pc game with over a million sales. An ios game that also makes touch based controls work. Granzella is unlikely to produce a shmup... it's headed by the director of raw danger and not the shmup like folks that left to snk to make pulstar and metal slug.

3. Should we be preparing to catalog information in memorial before we lose it to history?
This site aside a lot of people already have including that archive of translated Japanese interviews.

4. Is there someone or some organization already compiling all available information on the history of SHMUPs?
hardcore gaming? tons of places are, but honestly I think more is needed. I can hardly find any lengthy dissections of Mystic Riders, Super Star Soldier, and other shmups I adore.

5. What, if anything new and exciting is happening within the SHMUP sphere?
Well doujins. Watch comiket and probably the stuff in this site's dev thread. new games every day. Also Zun's Touhou project continues to impress. I need impossible spell card... in linux.

6. What are your general thoughts on the industry as a whole past, present, and/or, future?
They hey day of shmups is past. Konami no longer makes them, irem is dead, and cave is now too. However, I think this is a fertile period for shmups. Kokoga showed a lot of promise from Iuchi, Crimzon Clover is a niche hit on steam, shrine maiden streams on twitch have enough numbers that they make it into the top 20 or so. I think really the industry is awaiting a revival similar to the way indies reified platformers and horror games. The fact that triple A studios aren't making shmups is a relief really. The genre has always been about innovation, and innovation isn't necessarily what sells.

[gray117]

Porting from Xbox360->PC is easy enough and ought not to be a large scale project at all. IDK where trap15 is getting his info from, but the 360 was designed to be easy to port to/from windows.

360 is generally easier than ps3, but depending on how your game was setup you can still screw yourself over. 360 was designed to be affordable first. The thing with the cave games (and many arcade specific games) in particular is they were never designed to be ported to anything.

... I think point trap is making is that it's still an easily underestimated headache for someone (/people) - especially for a game on unique hardware like those cave ports - unless the project was put together from the beginning with a pc port in mind... even often thought of 'simple' things can unravel to become a nightmare - like ui inputs/button binding, or new features/situations like pausing or alt-tabbing ... saves... any extra features/integrations... Time and money will evaporate.

Even if you develop an emulation technique or similar robust shell to port your game(s) you could cut down the effort per title with an upfront investment (assuming they share similarities), but you'll often hit game specific bugs, and there's often a risk that you'll end up with a real game breaker on a certain game/feature or platform requirement even after you've got a really robust pipeline for 99% of everything else.

Then after all that, your dedicated fans shit on it for being too expensive... and the slow down in that one bit... and that bit of audio... and that glitch with amd cards ... that your game can be hacked... and ... and... fuck it all

Now, having said that, I still think it's worth looking at the pc market today if you're making a shmup from scratch, but it certainly isn't guaranteed cash on the table and a niche developer has to be hyper vigilant where they put their time.... or even passion tbh... it takes a lot to see a good game through, and sometimes (no matter the business/economics) you're not going to get some devs to finish their project and port it to steam no matter how easy/profitable it is.

[KidQuaalude]

Porting from Xbox360->PC is easy enough and ought not to be a large scale project at all. IDK where trap15 is getting his info from, but the 360 was designed to be easy to port to/from windows.

360 is generally easier than ps3, but depending on how your game was setup you can still screw yourself over. 360 was designed to be affordable first. The thing with the cave games (and many arcade specific games) in particular is they were never designed to be ported to anything.

... I think point trap is making is that it's still an easily underestimated headache for someone (/people) - especially for a game on unique hardware like those cave ports - unless the project was put together from the beginning with a pc port in mind... even often thought of 'simple' things can unravel to become a nightmare - like ui inputs/button binding, or new features/situations like pausing or alt-tabbing ... saves... any extra features/integrations... Time and money will evaporate.

I was talking specifically about porting from 360 -> Windows. Once a game is ported to 360 (which cave have done several times already) its not a big issue to port to Windows. They both use similar directx based frameworksand so least 90% of the code will just work. Yes, there are a few more issues to deal with (gfx card, cpu speed, ui/network stuff) but these would be planned for when the project is spec'd. It's still a much smaller undertaking than a new development.

[Pwnix]

Luftrausers was mentioned up there. I think Vlambeer is doing great things in the arcadey game sector. Luftrausers and Nuclear Throne both have shmup elements and both of them are fantastic. So I definitely think Steam is ready for an onslaught of shmups. I don't know about big companies doing ports, but the doujin people who are making PC games anyway need to be brought into the fold. At least Desura, as that seems to already be happening to a certain extent. But I definitely believe that if the doujin shmup scene took a stand on the world stage and sold themselves right there is potential success to be had. Though as a person who is very interested in something like that my view may be skewed towards wishful thinking.

[KAI]

but porting that and making sure it works on the majority of PCs is a monumental task.

They could port the Nesica version of AK Shin without any problems tho.

[mastermx]

Shmups are the undead. They are dead, and yet still alive...

I believe the future is doujins on pc. With a few rare aaa shmups making their way onto consoles. But I wouldn't expect anything big unless a massive innovation comes along that makes the mainstream pay attention. Real hardcore shmup fans though don't even care about new titles. They are happy with their pcbs and mame, and will play those golden classics for centuries to come. Even when VR takes off, there will be someone out there posting his garegga high score.