SEGA is finally doing something!

Maybe they'll do a late release and use it to fuel VF6...

Which means they wouldnt lose too much profit from the arcades...

 

LOL! i love reading the exact same post after every event.

 

As much as I hate to say it, I laugh at reading that exact same post as well after every event. I think there's a difference between being optimistic and being delusional

 

Sega's E3 line-up was extremely dull. Look at that list, its the very definition of generic.

Back in their halycon age, Sega were innovators. Indeed, a game like Virtua Fighter would never have been developed by today's ultra-conservative Sega. Sega used to be at the cutting edge, leading the way, innovating, pushing the boundaries, daring to be different.
Virtua Fighter, Panzer Dragoon, Jet Set Radio, Shining Force, Phantasy Star, Ferrari F355, Space Channel 5, and so on and so on.

The "new" Sega does not innovate or lead the way, it follows. Just about every recent Sega game follows or immitates other franchies and games.
Binary Domain immitates Gears of War, Rise of Nightmares immitates Resident Evil, I know many love Platinum Games but Anarchy Reigns looks like yet another hack'n'slash bore.
Most of the games could have been published by any games company, in fact EA's line-up is more distinctive than Sega's. Even Activision.
But what is most disturbing is the lack of internally developed games. Sega just publishes other people's work. In the short term, that may reap results, but long-term, its going to lead to the Sega brand becoming so weak that the company will be very vulnerable. It is now at the mercy of hired developers, having lost its trustworthy, reliable internal talent. Sega now role the dice with every release. The new Sega is built on sand.
What of Yu Suzuki and Rieko Kodama, the two people who did more than anyone else to build the Sega brand? They have been sidelined, forgotten, denied the chance to make the games they want (which fans also want). Their creativity has been ignored in favour of hacks and lazy movie-licenced games.

Games like LA Noire and Portal 2 are truly ground-breaking and ambitious. Rockstar and Valve are at the cutting edge, where Sega used to be. Even Sega's good games are instantly forgettable, being largely inseparable from everything else on the market.

Virtua Fighter 5 was released before the fighting game renaiscance, triggered by Street Fighter 4. Namco, Capcom, and Arc Systems have all seized on this, seeing the market potential and exploiting it. Even Tecmo Koei have had the sense to bring DOA to the 3DS.

So, we see the likes of Tekken, Street Fighter, and Blaz Blue but no Virtua Fighter. In purely marketing terms this is stupid, because it means Virtua Fighter becomes more obscure as gamers see those games but no VF, thus the VF brand ceases to exiist in the minds of gamers. Sega is effectively handing the market to its competitors. Tekken and SF are big sellers because Namco and Capcom actually market and put the games out there.

If not Virtua Fighter Showdown, a savvy Sega would at least be bringing VF to the 3DS OR PSVita (they could have ported VF4 to the PSP easily but nope).
It is possible VF:FS could be coming to the Wii-U, but I think that's unlikely.

 

Sega is just a publisher for far more interesting games from Platinum and the guys who do the Total War series.

 

I dont think that many games are ground breaking anymore.

Red Dead was the best I played in a while, but that was just because they had a unique and well developed setting, it was essentially just sunset riders updated for me, which is what I liked about it. But really it was just one of those open games Rockstar have become known for.

Platinum Games are a decent company, however what they tend to do is make 'genre' titles in their own style. The most original game they had was Madworld and look what happened to that. What they do now is take an existing format and platinum it up a bit.

Bayonetta is their DMC/Ninja Gaiden
Vanquish was like a mash of Lost Planet and GOW (it is an excellent game still)
Their Newest game Anarchy Reigns appears to be like Heavy Metal Geo Matrix/Virtual On style arena battle with a dash of Spike Out.

The funny thing about games now is that you'd think more companies would dive into the whole membership option, whereby the game continued to receive features and updates due to the membership paying for it. Similar to how arcades work.

But instead, the game industry, just like Hollywood has become 'conventionalised' and so the larger, more capable companies are of the maximise profit variety, and are happy to pump out sequel after sequel, or rebrand a game over and over or feed you update after update external to the game you originally purchased, and the funny thing is, the consumer is to blame to a certain extent.

Add to that the fact that Japanese developers seem to think American games are all of a sudden the be all and end all of the industry. It like they're just happy to lie down and take a dicking like a cheap slut. A lot of Japanese companies seem content just trying to imitate, as it was never really about innovation, it was just whatever it took to make money, and as the times have changed, so have the companies understanding of what they need to do to survive.

When games get released now people are already talking about the sequel. How the fuck people are happy to pay for Call of Duty every fucking year escapes me, since its the same game every time, and it always costs more than the other games...

In regards to VF, you have to think about how it will sell.

Selling Final Showdown would cut into arcade profits, not just the money the machine makes, but also the VF.NET subscriptions and the VF Terminal money.

It would need promotion, and development costs for each console as well as netcode development.

If they wanted to shake off the image VF has in the west among the idiots who swear by SF etc, but only got into it at SF4 (the shittest one) that would also require financial investment, as well as international work to assure they tap into the mind of the western market.

Now considering that VF is no longer considered the benchmark it was in the past, and the fact that it has no extra potential to tap into (as in SF is somewhat attached to the anime market in the west and east, MK has the whole 'american' thing going for it), and the fact that it would be hard to market to a larger community as all the throughways into the 'FGC' mainly pass by the SF idiots I mentioned earlier, what can we expect from them.

Lets not forget, were talking about the people who forsake their back catalogue for sonic, sometimes more than once a year...

Just wanted to add, liking/playing SF does not make you an idiot, but some SF fanboys make me sick, and should die in a fire.

 

Tekken 6 seems to still get a lot of play from what Ive seen, more than VF in almost every place Ive been. So I doubt it affects profits that much to console release a game.

That said, I can only speculate whether or not that amount is enough to affect the development of a console port.

Even though VF arcade is updated often with new items etc, I think Namco do more to keep the Tekken name in peoples minds particularly as of late by developing new projects, whereas its like Sega sometimes forgets that VF is even there.

I honestly think that at this point Sega of America/Europe have next to nothing to do with Sega of Japan as far as certain aspects of the company go, its like they're just franchises of one brand that share some IP.

 

Sega could have easily ported VF4: Evolution to the PSP. Simple to do and keeps the brand visible.
Brand visibility is important.

Also, they needn't cut into VF arcade profits if they make distinctive console ports of VF (i.e different from the arcade, with some of the key arcade features left out).
VF4 Evo got a PS2 port but that was a different Sega.
Mind you, the lazy port of VF3 on the Dreamcast is IMHO one of Sega's greatest blunders. Sega could have shown off the Dreamcast by having a VF3 which surpassed the Model 3 arcade. Dumb.

VF5 is still the best looking fighter around IMHO.

Sega could make VF commercially successful if they put some thought into it, and believed in it. Throw in some cut-scenes, add some character specific taunts, add some fun extras. What VF lacks is character, AM2 need to work on that, though they have improved things with Final Showdown's more colourful feel.

We can't even be sure that there will be a VF6, maybe all the revisions of VF5 are due to AM2 not having the budget to make a VF6. Remember, Sammy cut down VF5's specs by having it made on a cheaper arcade board.

I love both Virtua Fighter and Street Fighter. I like Street Fighter IV (except for the awful character models...Chunky Li springs to mind. She looks way better in Tatsunoko Vs Capcom). Easy to forget that SFIV was a risk for Capcom. They got out and pushed it, and reaped the rewards. Its a risk the Sammy owned Sega would never have took.
Whatever you think of SFIV (or its stupider fans), Capcom revived the fighting game genre. Sega certainly did not.

As I have said, Sega are now followers rather than innovators, and while that is true of the industry as a whole, in Capcom, Ubisoft, and Rockstar, you still find innovative games amid the CoDs and GTAs.

Its funny how Sega has neglected its own IPs. Contrast that with Nintendo and Capcom who proudly support their IPs. Seems to be working rather well for them.

As I have said, Sega may be making profits now, but its built on sand.

 

Nono - Keep in mind Japanese game devs were about 50% of the market around the PS2 era, and now have dwindled to about 10%. You can't really blame them FOR imitating, but you can blame them for imitating poorly.

 

Both very true.

The thing about devs I dont know is, are the numbers of Japanese devs dwindling..? or is the number of developers as a whole (but particularly non japanese) increasing..?

But yeah, the piss poor imitations are the real problem.

 

I'm not happy with the fact I cannot play the latest version of my favorite fighting game. I am also sure, that everybody in here feel the same way. But, there must be a reason that prevents SEGA from bringing VF5FS to home consoles.

As we all noticed, the last 2 years the market of fighting games has flooded with Capcom's games (SFIV, SSFIV, Marve vs Capcom 3) and for next year SF X Tekken and Tekken X SF are coming. The same goes for the Tekken series. Obviously SEGA was aware of this, because the developers of these games many times discuss their upcoming plans because nobody wants their fighting game to coincide with another fighting game. Perhaps this was the reason that SNK delayed to announce KOFXIII for PS3 and X360. Maybe SEGA is waiting for the right moment.

 

Seems like TTT2 will also not have an arcade release in the west however I did see this on Shoryuken
http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/15/namco-te...ash-to-the-pot/

I reckon they might turn up with the goodies at SVB London as well later in the year. It's stuff like that which will encourage me to get back into Namco games.

 

You are not alone.

 

I laughed so hard XD

 

My guess is that there's no new console release for them to shine, and even if there were, something tells me that nothing would change... That, and I'm pretty sure they're afraid to compete against Namco, and even Capcom now that they've solidified their "alliance" that was shown way back in 05/06 with the Namco x Capcom rpg. There are just too many fighters that are getting released, and they just don't see any potential outside of Japan, regardless of the posts or comments made on this, other fighting game sites, sega.com, and even on social networking sites. They're not willing to do anything gutsy either, like releasing something on the Wii-U, something that Namco is doing with Tekken.

I'm almost convinced that Sega is the only exception to "console sales hurting arcade sales" spiel. Namco's still making dough with Tekken 6 in arcades still, even after a console release. Same with SF and all their iterations of it. Smaller companies like Examu and Type-Moon are still making good sales with Melty Blood and Arcana Heart 3. It's as if they're so broke that if they decided to release a "console version", and people stopped hitting up the arcades in Japan to "try" the console version, and possibly turn it back to Gamestop or some other trading game store, and Sega would fold up because they're that broke. I just don't see that being the case. I bet they're more well off than Tecmo-Koei is now, and I think 80-95% of their income came from Japan (or was that just Koei I can't remember). Either way, DOA Dimensions was released. SNK's not doing too hot, and they still got plans for KOF XIII to hit worldwide, despite it getting hacked and all.

SNK in fact did wait for the whole SF hoo-rah to pass before mentioning anything related to a KOF XIII console release... That's their main "enemy" per sé, and I'm pretty sure even after SF, they didn't want to bump heads with the SFxT release. Oct. 25th is a good time for XIII to shine without any real competition from major 2d fighters, even though now would still be kinda good since SFAE is somewhat getting a negative response due to it being "broken" and "unbalanced" (that's what I've been hearing as of late)...

Sega on the other hand, hasn't said anything since the response of the petition, and even that seemed bleak. They're kinda at SNK's level in terms of making it an "all or nothing" approach to reaching outside of Japan with their game. But who knows-- it took awhile for SNK to say something about a KOF XIII port.

I wouldn't sweat over this though. Sega is Sega, and they're gonna do whatever they want, regardless of their foreigner fans. Capcom is like this to a degree-- think about the whole Darkstalkers/Vampire Savior petition. Nothing's happening with that because Capcom's too busy milking SF.

 

There really doesn't need to be any fancy debate about this. The game doesn't sell well enough for it to be ported as easily as other fighting games. They need to change something though...

On to TGS

 

Agreed...

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">They need to change something though...</div></div>

Their perspectives on what fans want, marketing/hype skills, communication skills or lack therof... I'm sure most people can agree on one of these things at least...

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">On to TGS </div></div>

Don't hold your breath...

 

Don't hold your breath...</div></div>

TGS is on 9/15~9/18 this year, which means we can have our final answer in 3 month.......