VF's popularity in Japan???

Gundam Seed 2 is a real contender for VF5 actually. We might see VF5 at #2 for a while.

 

If only ppl know how fun seed destiny really is....

hard to believe capcom made such a finely balanced game...(this...and the first gundam seed game too!)

 

whats it like? Virtua On?

 

[ QUOTE ]
Shag said:

KongMan has it. Think the address is 80 Bowery off of Hester St. Not far from CF, like 6 blocks. They close early around 8-9 ish.

Its looks like a regular store selling movies and CD's but you have to go all the way in the back and they have a few arcade machines there. They have HNK, KOFXI and Initial D plus others.

I've gone there a couple of times to meetup with Tian where he scrapes me in HNK. (I blame the sticks and Thouther) heh heh

[/ QUOTE ]

Souther doesn't suck, heh heh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct8mNgoAZ6M


Mamiya too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYiRPxEvMDY

 

I think the statement that Arcades will never die in Japan is abit Naive. no one can defeat innovation and technology. In the past, Arcades had a tremendous advantage over their console brothers and thus arcades lived on. Ever since consoles became more powerful and equivalent to Arcades, it changed everything. IE.. in some cases like Soul Calibur, the console release was far and away better and the thing to play. While, I do agree that Hardcore Tournaments and match play will always be held On site, whether at an arcade, or at a place where people hold a tournament with their console game, this group is a very very VERY minute percentage of the population that play the game. It's so easy from a VFDC, or SRK.com, or SC2.com, or TekkenZaibatsu.com perspective to think that everyone overwhelmingly prefers the arcades but that is false. In fact, Most people after about 1995ish, learn to play their fighting games with joypads and can't even convert back to a stick anymore. Plus, Arcades are expensive, and all but the very few do not have the time or the money to go around and travel to places like Las Vegas or Japan for any major tournaments. Everyone wanted FT to be ported to the PS2, but one way to keep the arcades fresh a bit, was to release the final revision in the arcade and thus automatically making that release the definative version of the game. I've seen how many people play counterstrike, Unreal tournament, Halo, WoW, even sports games like Madden online. Hate it or love it, there is no question, people would rather sit on their ass at home, and fire up an online game for free and maybe a monthly fee, than to travel to the nearest arcade place. Unfortunately, for fighting games, where timing is everything, and 1/60th of a second may be nearly impossible to do it right, especially if the distance betweent the two players are potentially very far away, the technology simply isn't there yet.

My other point is that this really is the only Virtua Fighter, that didn't significantly change from it's predecessor. most fighting games tend to be very similar to it's prequal but Virtua Fighter was different. This time around they too got bitten by the bug. Now, that maybe because VF4 was so good, that only minor to moderate changes needed to be made. Let's hope that is true. But what that also results in is few new players. VF have the reputation of being very stiff to some general players and VF5 did NOTHING to change that. So sales will again be tough to come by and the game will heavily rely on old players returning and by the fact that this game Will Be the First Fighting game for the PS3. If it comes out in February like preliminary expectations, it will benefit from simply being one of the few games around. But there is no doubt that it might suffer due to the lack of online player, even if it is a relatively poor attempt. It's quite easy to find a person to play with if you are 12 and you have a 10 year old brother, but if you are 25 and your bro is far away, doesn't play anymore, then things are a lot different. I'm sure, Sega is making Some profit for being PS3 esclusively because business is still business. You don't just stick to a less profitable strategy simply because you are a "Sony" guy. Sony must have given them enough money to get them to believe that porting it to the BOX will be more costly (ie... additional work hours and production cost) than the money they will gain by doing that. After all, systems are Very different now adays, and porting something probably won't be as easy as it use to be. Especially in a game where potential timing or laging difficulties will be it's crucifixtion. For example, Konami had a terrible lag filled port of Metal Gear Solid 2 to the XBOX but it was playable because lag really isn't that important in that game. If you ever got that in a fighting game, that equals death, and thus you have to invest in time, and man hours to refine it. Don't be surprise if the next VF is multiconsole, but in a period of console transition, and getting the Programming hardware for the consoles would take time and be a grey area, it isn't surprising that Sega went the safe route.

My final statement will be that, I believe Sega ultimately wants to get European and American players into VF badly, but does not want to open their game to much to alienate their hardcore players and their Status. But ulimately, Japan is but a small part of the global market. we should be more worried about how the next VF is receive in the US than in Japan where it already has a strong following.

 

I think you're trying to look at Japan like it's exactly like the US. It isn't

 

Arcades in Japan still offer vastly superior game and technology that are otherwise impossible to deploy at home.

Like you said, no one can defeat innovation and technology. This is why arcades are likely to never go away in Japan, where people can find the best competition for most any games.

 

I was there in December of last year in a work-related trip and played Pop'n Music about every other day in Ikebukuro, and the St. Cruz I frequented (If I remember the name correctly) always had plenty of people playing all kinds of games. The 3 Pop'n machines and 1 beatmania machine (along with the Guitar Freaks/Drum Mania) were always taken. Those are types of games that are difficult (read: expensive) to replicate at home due to the cost of the controllers.

It's not just fighting games that are keeping them alive. But that still doesn't mean the arcade business there is invinsible. In fact some other smaller arcades weren't as lucky.