Virtua Fighter 5 sales numbers.

To answer question #3, Street Fighter Anniversary Collection can be played on Xbox live. And Street Fighter 2 Turbo (Hyper Fighting) can be played over Xbox Live Arcade.

 

errrm . . . I cant?

1. Released a sequel that is lacking critical features from vf4 and evo.

2. Broke system exclusivity early, likely hurting sales.

3. Made changes to the game system that are, haters or not, less coherent than the changes made in vf4.

 

Okay, maybe those "critical" features are something that we all miss, but hey, the game's fine. Even more, it's great, so just enjoy.
As for the system exclusivity, I'm just happy that probably more console players will pick up the game, whichever system they use.
I just can't see how the sales can be hurt by such a thing. Can you imagine someone saying "VF5 for Xbox360!? If that's the case, I'm not gonna buy ANY version! Fuck VF5! Fuck Sega!".... I can't. BUT, hypothetically, if Sega hurt their sales by anouncing things too early... what's it to you? I mean, it's their money, their company, you just take care of playing the game /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

 

Not to be the Great Contradictor, but here is my semi-informed opinion...

1. I would guess that anyone familiar enough with VF to notice the features missing from EVO would be buying the game anyway.

2. Not that many people would have bought a PS3 just to play VF. And if they had a PS3 and a 360 there wouldn't be much reason to wait for the 360 version.

3. Again, the number of people who own PS3s and are familiar with the battle systems of VF3, VF4, Evo, and VF5 but would refrain from buying VF5 because of the lack of drastic changes between EVO and VF5 would be very small I would guess.

I personally think the small sales can be attributed (in descending order) to low installed PS3 base, low VF brand loyalty in the US, and a weak marketing campaign.

From what I hear the Wii is selling like crackcakes.

 

OK...but be careful not to confuse "It doesn't make sense" with "I don't understand."

 

who's hiding here?what am I hiding from?Saying something like that is stupid beyond words.*LOL*I'm only talking to the fanboys and since you're getting rather offense on the matter....it looks like you're one of them.

Obviously u didn't think so since you're on my dick about it.

 

Umm...ok.

The only thing that ive really heard people complain about is the lack of the in-depth tutorial and some AI issues, but lets face it, the reason most people will buy Vf5 is becuase they
A) Love the series
B)Got Hooked on Vf4/VF4:Evo
C) Love fighting games

Either One you pick pretty much involves you buying Evo, which has the "Greatest Tutorial in a Fighting Game" (quoting a Gaming mag). Evolution Was just that good. Im not sure if it sold more copies than VF4, but the game wasnt marketed as the "Next Game in the series," even though it pretty much was. And you cant really complain about the AI unless you live in the Boonies or a place with out a scene, but then again, you can always create a scene.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
2. Broke system exclusivity early, likely hurting sales.
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Are you serious? The only sales it could possibly hurt are PS3 sales. Will i go out and Buy a 360 because it has a *Possibly* better version of VF5? No, because that would make me a hypocrite. Not to mention, im pretty sure the 360 lacks a solid Arcade stick and most scenes involve a place with an Arcade machine or A PS2/PS3. Plus, The changes going from Ver B. To Ver C. will most likely be minimal, much like a patch to a PC game. Is there a chance that Ver.C of VF5 is That much better than Ver B? of course, but if there was, we all would know.(Btw The Ps3 port uses Ver B. while the 360 port uses Ver C.)


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
3. Made changes to the game system that are, haters or not, less coherent than the changes made in vf4.
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Does that make it any less a sequel? It introduced 2 very cool characters that, from what i have seen, Arent as bad as brad and goh in Vf4:Evo(sorry guys). They have brought back the Quest mode and expanded on the Items each character can get. I cant really comment on the clash system because i am pretty unfamilliar with it, but it sounds like a good idea, and if it was a bad idea, dont you think it would have been taken out in Ver B? Not to mention that the game appears to run smoother from the videos i have seen.

 

Uh, look, I like the game, but you people pretending like Sega has done nothing that might discourage sales need to open your eyes.

regarding my points:

1. Being able to record moves is non-trivial for understanding the game; being able to bring characters to someone else's house is non-trivial for community building.

2. EARLY, I said EARLY. Clearly, multi-platform makes sense for sega. But they should have milked the Ps3 first; at least delayed the announcement till the game was on store shelves.

3. regarding system changes . . . <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">OK...but be careful not to confuse "It doesn't make sense" with "I don't understand." </div></div>

Sure. But be careful not to confuse "coherent" with "well, its playable".

Coherent: marked by an orderly, logical, and aesthetically consistent relation of parts; "a coherent argument"

Here's how a vf4 change fits into a consistent relation with the other parts of the game:

Sabaki is for beating a defined class of attacks (eg elbow, high punch) AND throws when you are at a defined range of disadvantage (e.g. -2 to -6). It is distinct from reversal throw escape and evade throw escape because you beat all throws, not just certain ones. The disadvantage is that you will be counter hit if the opponent attacks with anything other than the well-defined class of attacks your particular sabaki works against.

Notice how it's orderly and fits into a logical relation with the other options in the game?

Now complete this sentence:
OM is for . . .

 

Really though, that's fluff hardcore players want, and hardcore players don't dictate sales. It's the people who know jack all about VF5 (or fighting games all together) that SEGA has to rely on for Sales lol, it's true.

 

Sure. But be careful not to confuse "coherent" with "well, its playable".

Coherent: marked by an orderly, logical, and aesthetically consistent relation of parts; "a coherent argument"

Here's how a vf4 change fits into a consistent relation with the other parts of the game:

Sabaki is for beating a defined class of attacks (eg elbow, high punch) AND throws when you are at a defined range of disadvantage (e.g. -2 to -6). It is distinct from reversal throw escape and evade throw escape because you beat all throws, not just certain ones. The disadvantage is that you will be counter hit if the opponent attacks with anything other than the well-defined class of attacks your particular sabaki works against.

Notice how it's orderly and fits into a logical relation with the other options in the game?

Now complete this sentence:
OM is for . . . </div></div>

KoD

is exactly right.

The arcade scene is gone in NA. The VF commmunity is being built in other venues, homes, clubs, community centers, Universities, rented halls, etc.

Transferrable profiles & statistics mean a lot in this new context. The tutorial meant a lot for introducing noobs.
The replays in quest mode are also useful in certain training and practice situations (again important for communnity development)

also in terms of 360 development hurting PS3 sales here's one way that 360 can have a negative impact on PS3 sales.

You don't want Sega using a common denominator approach to developing the VF series. The Xbox 360 and the PS3 Cell processor have some similar capabilities and many different capabilities. Because of the Cell's 8 spc processors and the master PPC processor it has capabilities that the Xbox 360 simply does not have. That's not to say that Xbox 360 doesn't have its own advantages (just not 8 spc and a ppc processors with true SIMD capability!!!!!).

If Sega takes full advantage of the PS3 hardware then the code written for the PS3 will not work on the Xbox 360. That's a fact /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/crazy.gif Like wise if Sega takes full advantage of the Xbox 360, then that code will not work on the PS3. So the downside is that Sega might pursue a architecture neutral design that doesn't really exploit the features of either the PS3 or Xbox 360. While that's good for Sega(saves development costs), It leaves the PS3 users with less of an experience and the Xbox 360 users with less of an experience.

Theoretically, having VF on multiple consoles creates more
market share for VF and more players right? That sounds right.

On the other hand if Sega were to fully exploit the Cell processor (full SIMD programming) that alone could create more market share for VF and more players. Because it would create gameplay onlike anything running on any of the consoles. This is possible because the Cell processor is a beast! Its an absolute beast!

While it might not necessarily hurt sales of VF by adding the 360 codebase, it could prevent the sales of VF from being all that they could be because Sega didn't take full advantage of the Cell processor inorder to keep the code easy to port to the 360.

Multiplatform development almost always results in performance compromises. Most multiplatform development efforts try to write the biggest piece of code that will run on multiple platform. They want to minimize any code that is platform specific.

In the case of VF there are massive opportunities for platform specific code. To really take advantage of the PS3 a lot of PS3 (only type code) needs to be written. Is Sega going to have separate code for the PS3 and separate code for the 360. Probably not which ultimately does translate in to missed potential sales.

Is would be the marketing difference between a solid AAA fighter and amazing beyond belief fighter.The later would generate more sales, but it would also be platform specific. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

 

KoD, are you an expert in VF5 yet? If you are not, you should assume you don't understand an aspect of the game than assume the game is not coherent. If you were to ask any VF player here "ARE is for..." at the beginning of VF4's lifecycle no one would know. Heck I remember when the technique was published people thought the game was broken. In another example, how many posts about EDG did it take before some people finally started catching on?

All that said, OM is tricky because I don't even know what it's for exactly or how to use it, but I'm assuming it's because I haven't figured it out not because there's something wrong with the game. The latter is pretty arrogant if you think about it. However, I do know that:

- It is the only way to reliably and consistently inflict a back crumple via successful DM against canned strings (look at the replays that came with your game)

- You use it only when you have advantage

- It is a way to poke with higher damage upside

- It beats low punches

- It is a fantastic ring positioning tool, especially QR/TR

- It is necessary in some combos

Personally I think it exists primarily for the first reason. When you see two opponents using the OM well it's like watching poetry in motion.

 

All that stuff about the architectural differences doesn't mean an awful lot with Virtua Fighter. It won't play differently on different machines. It shouldn't. That entirely defeats the purpose of taking the game out of the arcades. It should play EXACTLY the same on all formats. That said, it can certainly be prettier on one machine. Or perhaps have better online functionality /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

Your arguements for programming for specific machines is sound for almost all other games, but not this baby. It's also, unfortunately for us, completely redundant as not a single publisher I can think of releases different games for different platforms. It's a common build with the odd enhancement or quirk here or there. It's simply not economically practical to create two seperate games. Which is a real shame.

That's why we only see truly exceptional (ie programmed for that machine specifically) games from first party development houses - they're the only ones with the freedom to develop for just one platform.

 

OpenGL and directX are different enough to work on to call them 2 seperate games.

 

This is what I'm getting from this thread. Some of you guys seem to give off this feeling that:

A.) You want the PS3 version of VF5 to fail (therefore the PS3 failing) and you want the 360 version to be amazingly better and exclusively better (therefore the 360 winning)

OR

B.) You want the 360 version to be the same as PS3 if not worse (therefore the 360 failing) and you want the PS3 version to be pinicle for graphics and arcade purity (therefore the PS3 winning).


Lemme get this straight, I want to play VF5 cause I like VF. I want to play it without having to waste the most money if I can. My family owns a 360, they do not own a PS3.

Why are we all arguing about the PS3 and 360 versions? If anything we should all hope that they do well. I hope the PS3 verion gets updates via download as well as the 360 in the future.

VF has so few fans and players as it is, why try to cause more seperationg by arguing over something so petty as consoles?

If anything I would rather play on Arcade, at least then I know 100% of my money is spent only towards playing the game and going striaght to Sega, the makers.

 

NO, I suck at vf5, as anyone going to socal will surely see later this month.

I believe I've got an above average understanding of game theory though. And I have yet to see an explanation of how OM fits in, even from people who have been playing the game in arcade for months.

Your ARE example is a poor comparison - afaik, ARE was an emergent property of movement, not something sega put in intentionally, or at least not something they advertised if they did. Compare this to sabaki, which was clearly designed in, as was OM.

OM is being advertised as "the" new thing this iteration. If sega cant explain it, and long term players cant explain it, I don't think its unreasonable to say it's less coherent of an addition than the VF4 changes were. I'm not saying there isn't a use for it, I'm saying the lack of clarity there is a problem. I like VF because its rational, and I'm sure I'm not the only one . . ..

Can you give me a solid, repeatable example? In playing around, it seems like OM against e.g. PPP strings is at best very stance / distance dependent....

Unless you have too much advantage, in which case their lowpunch will catch you in the middle of OM anyway.

At anything other than neutral, low punch beats low punches also, is less input, don't have to worry about which side to dodge to, is much safer (wont get blown out by slow big moves), and gives similar advantage, albeit without the possiblity of stagger from catching people crouching.

I'll give you that. Again, i'm not trying to be arrogant here - show me I'm wrong, but VF5 is less clear as a value proposition than VF4 was.

 

You made an interesting point about side situations -- why did AM2 choose to market this out of all other features? It is surely the least understood aspect of VF5.

In my current understanding, the 0-frame throw is by far the biggest gameplay change in VF5. It is a whole new variable to create new options and guessing games with. But...0-frame throws are very hard to market with and explain in the 5 seconds that VF has to make an impression to the mass market.

As for DM > OM K > back crumple, try versus Pai /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/f.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/k.gif. DM the /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif, and OM K the /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/k.gif. The result should hopefully be a back crumple. I say hopefully because I am posting this as a theory, not as something I have tested. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif But try it and report back.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">show me I'm wrong, but VF5 is less clear as a value proposition than VF4 was.</div></div>

AFAIK. You forgot to put AFAIK.

 

I agree with ice-9 on this OM

When it is used by two players correctly it does have a high
entertainment value (at least from the spectators view)

Inside the ring it adds to the variability of an attack which in some small way reduces the predictability. The suddeness of the move adds more psychological pressure on the defender. The more advanced the fight the more important ring positioning is. As you have noticed the wall game has changed somewhat in VF5. The ARM has something different about it as well. All of which create new possibilities.

I'm reticent to bring this up, but good-to-great stick players will have a different feel for the OM than good-to-great pad players. The ergonomics are just different. OM creates different psychological possibilities for stick players than for pad players. (of course this sounds weird) but so far I've found it to be true. I spar with players who use both. As a feature it does create new possibilities and adds to the mind game.

I think it also adds to style. And style is important once you get past the rookie stage of your VF existence.

 

Actually that's kinda the point I'm making. VF is awesome! it could be 10 times as awesome if Sega really decided to take specific advantage of the PS3 9 processors and the SIMD programming capability. That could have an even more dramatic impact on sales than savings generated by having a single codebase for the 360 and the PS3. Also in terms of a perfect arcade port again... maybe it would cost more to have an aracade version and a PS3 version and a separate 360 version, but taking complete advantage of all three in their own ways may create more revenue in the long run than the cost saving in the short run.

I write code almost everyday in my day job. I know what its like to have to support Linux/Solaris, Mac OSX, AIX, and OS390 versions of the same software (its ugly and expensive)

But the end result is superiority on each of the platforms. And the superiority translates into customer satisfcation which at the end of the day translate into more market share and mind share it does... It really does..

Sega has done a good job with VF5 on the PS3 but they haven't even scratched the surface of what the hardware is actually capable of. The reality synthesizer, the 9 processors in the cell, and the 60 gig hard drive combined have some incredible possibilties. Sega has touched much of that possibility. Can't speak for the 360 because I'm in playstation space only.

I just don't want my VF experience to be limited by the hardware in the arcades or the hardware of the 360.

 

Well a lot of people were arguing that we shouldn't count a week and a half of sales, and it is a pretty good and fair statement. So without further ado, here are the march numbers.

According to NPD the 10 highest selling game of March was Deff Jam Icon for the 360 at 148,000 units sold. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6169379.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;14

According to what is on IGN who also cited NPD group, the 10th best selling game was God of War 1 and Deff Jam was a lot higher 3rd in fact, but that is because they combined all of Deff Jam sales and not just the 360. http://ps3.ign.com/articles/782/782175p1.html

According to IGN/NPD, for the PS3, Virtua Fighter 5 was 7th in sales. Also according to the same group, Oblivion was 2nd in sales for the PS3. Now, again according to IGN, they included a top 20 sales of any system and the elder Scrolls Oblivion was 20th. Now, we look at Deff Jam who was 10th or 9th depending on which list you look at between one published by gamespot or one published by IGN, but if Deff Jam was 148,000 and 10th, and Elder Scrolls was Way down at the 20th spot, and Virtua Fighter 5 isn't even immediately behind oblivion when you look at just PS3 sales and is 5 slots behind at 7th place. It probably isn't too far off to guess that in the 6 weeks of Virtua Fighter numbers being out, (remember NPD's march number go till April 7th), it probably didn't sell 100,000 units total.

I think it's safe enough to say that A. Sega was Smart enough to relize this and HAD to release it on the 360, and B. VF5 isn't exactly what you call a hit yet.

This sort of relates to the thread which discussed what puts people off from Virtua Fighter (or something to that nature).

 

I seem to remember the original VF4 outselling Tekken 4 by a shit load, did that really happen?