Virtua Fighter 6

Yes i know, and it's a good excuse if only seen as a remake, like it is the case.

But still SEGA made a mistake and missed an opportunity (for a game that had 10 millions downloads), this could/should be so much better and so much more.

They made so much effort in the menus/lobbies and the intro...

They really could used VF5US as a test to try new things before a VF6 (animations, new/old moves, balancing, characters, online/offline features, DLC).

They didn't try enough and they didn't take any risk.

Look at the support of PSO2NG ? It should be at least the same for VF, wich is easily a bigger IP.

 

They're not going to take a risk on an IP that may not make them revenue. 10 million downloads is great but let's face it the game was free with PS Plus, how many of the 10 million were actual sales?

I love VF, you love VF, we all love VF but it's a game that has a very old formula, a formula that simply won't cut it in a world of Tekken, SF, Mortal Kombat etc.

Look at Tekken 8 it looks so clean you could eat your dinner of it, it looks incredible and that's what casuals are going to see.

Look at SF6, you can run around the lobby and sit at an arcade for goodness sake whilst you wait for an opponent. It's stuffed with single player content to keep casuals happy for months on end.

If I had the money I wouldn't want to go head to head with Tekken or SF6 unless I knew we had something that was going to at least break even.

The difference is PSO clearly makes Sega some decent revenue but when was the last time VF made Sega some decent numbers? Again 10 million downloads great but how much of that was actual revenue? How many of those actually bought the damn game?

VF needs something mighty special to stand toe to toe with the biggest fighters, and the amount of cost that would take for single player stuff, customization, good netcode etc is clearly too much for Sega to gamble on.

With SF6 Capcom are going all in and it shows, with Tekken 8 Namco are going all in at least in regards to the look.

I love VF like many of us here but from a business standpoint it's just not feasible.

 

@Dragonps I agree we all love VF, yes !

But losing 99.9% of the playerbase after 1 month only, because an inferior online/netcode and unfunctional menus/lobbies, it's just terrible (a shame, 10 millions lol).

10 millions downloads is HUGE ! So huge, i couldn't believe it, VF was so out of radars and a long dormant IP.

What a missed opportunity, i would have abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz customization DLCs if i was SEGA, and at least 1 new character and maybe a guest.

They did almost nothing outside of graphics and music ! An inferior version of VF5FS, with no new animations, no new/old moves, no rebalancing...

And btw Virtua Fighter was always "so clean" as well. Tekken 6 and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 didn't exist and were ugly in comparison with VF5 and VF5FS in the PS360 era, when these games released.

So you are telling me that the Yakuza Studio can't make high quality faces now because VF ? A legendary 5 billions dollars video games company like SEGA can't produce a new great VF game anymore ?

Also Why VF5US was not multiplatforms (and still not) ? Why not already trying to get familiar with crossplay at the same time ? They celebrated a SEGA 60th anniversary only with Playstation, big LOL ! What about Xbox, Nintendo, and PC ? These platforms have been releasing SEGA games for decades.

VF5US is wasted potential. Gimme the next one quick because it's average, SEGA can do better.

 

Most people only play single player. Stuff like online modes, netcode, lobbies, do not matter to the majority of fighting game players. Most people who purchase SF, Tekken, MK, and whatever just stick to single player. You can see on Steam that even multiplayer trophies/achievements like "play one online match" are often times not even complete by half of the players. The masses want story modes and deep single player content.

The game lost its playerbase because it has nothing at all really. No real online or offline modes that are satisfactory. Quest Mode? Whatever happened to that? That Special Sparring mode? Anything?

Unfortunately SEGA has not done a quality VF port since VF4:EVO. Maybe VF5:ver.B if you are generous. They need some new managers for this franchise. Maybe even an American or European company.

 

99.9% is a bit exaggerated yes...

But i don't think 10% (1 million) were still playing VF in july either, and after this chaos launching.

1% of 10 millions is 100 000.

0.1 is 10 000, and the number of players remaining is lower than this 0.1% today.

 

This is exactly the case Many ppl who play fighting games online believe that the majority of the people who play fighting games primarily like to play on line. These people are wrong. The majority of people that play fighting games are far more into the single player content than online and online ranks. Every popular fighting game MK, Tekken, SF etc have significant offline, single player content. VF5US has none. VF5US has the least amount of single player content since VF4

@EmpNovA you are right, the reason the primary reason why Virtua Fighter has a small player base is the lack of significant single player and offline content. That is why Tekken, MK, Soul Calibur, SF are always more popular (it has absolutely nothing to do with their netcode) It has everything to do with the fact that they have more and better single player and offline content than VF. Basically they always have.

Single Player Content costs more than implementing netcode, & lobbies

• Convincing AI programming is both difficult, expensive and time consuming.e.g developing the AI for Quest Mode in VF4EVO and VF5, and developing the AI for the underground tournaments in VF4EVO and Event Square in VF5 was costly, and took at lot of skill and time

• Cutscenes , Motion Capture, Animated Shorts, and Voice Acting for story modes also add significantly to the cost of developing A Fighting Game

• Developing and Testing Interesting and Fun Single Player modes is, costly, time consuming, and sometimes tricky.

• Sony charges also based on the size of game's binary, download time, server size requirements etc. The more features a game has, the bigger its footprint, the more Sony charges.

With the exception of VF4, and VF4EVO Sega has been either unwilling or unable to spend the necessary budget on significant Single Player and Offline content. This is the primary reason the Virtua Fighter player base has always been smaller than other fighting games, and it is the reason that the Virtua Fighter player base remains smaller than any other 3D fighting game to this day.

Its not that Sega doesn't know how to do massive or significant single player content or can't understand investing big dollars in single player content, just look at the Yakuza and Judgment games Its just Sega (for whatever reason) has deliberately decided not to invest any more than the bare minimum in the Virtua Fighter series.

As players of VF we've squeezed more out of the game than it actually had to offer. We've kept an empty shell of a fighting game alive for over 2 decades with hopium that one day Sega would do the right thing. But for Sega, their objective has apparently been to spend as little investment as possible and get back as much as possible with the least amount of effort and time.

Its possible Sega might do the right thing with VF6, its just not probable

 

Effectively the numbers aren't too bad.

Daily 5k players worldwide would be perfect for VF.

A fresh new great VF, with a good netcode/online would probably make it.

 

If we take a look at the state of fighting games, and the audience being catered to, for close to 2 decades, it would take more than netcode, or online, or hit sparks, or balance patches, or simplified gameplay, or catering to being accepted by main stream casuals, evo and the evo FGC, for VF to make it.

VF is a game, that will have to sort of take a different route, from those mentioned above to make it. And it might have to follow it's own course, as it did at one time, to be successful.

 

Amen Bruh....

 

VF needs a great netcode/online (wifi and ping indicator as well), multiplatforms, cross play, new characters, new balancing, new animations, new/old moves, new game modes, regular content and updates.

Everything that VF5US doesn't have.

What would be sick in a fighting game, after the costumes creation, it's the stages creation (or customization).

 

Not related to VF6 but to say that VF5FS made it to Evo japan 2023, pretty POG

https://twitter.com/evojapan2023/status/1589135491533783042

Also what if it's a sign they may announce something there? Tho maybe it's a bit soon

 

Yeah, stage creation is a good idea. I remember that it was possible to do that in SoulCalibur 3.

 

They often announce something at such events. But it will be soon, we'll see!

 

They really need to adjust animation to make sens. Shun literally has a move where he hit in the head and it's ... Mid, and other move where he hit much lower and it's high

 

I agree Mademang74 but I think his point still stands; real sales are better when they are in high enough volume

 

Unless you are talking PC mods, it may not be that great (curated stages with night/day, weather could be better). I think effort should be spent where there's a solid Unique Selling Point, something to make people want to play continuously