In a recent issue of Japan's Famitsu Xbox magazine was an interview with Masaki Sakari of 5pb - who are currently porting over two very popular Cave top down shooters Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label X and Ketsui X to the Xbox 360 as a retail product. In the interview Sakari has a short vent about why they went for a retail product:
"Out initial plan was to port lots of good arcade titles to XBLA. We talked to IP holders of these titles, and persuaded them. We secured these licenses, and finally talked with Microsoft. There they rejected all of our proposals saying, 'We are going to cut down faithful arcade ports.' We felt so frustrated. We wanted to show them that their decision was wrong. So we switched our two most promising projects into retail."Cave are creators of classic scrolling shooters - known mostly for their notorious "Bullet Hell" style games. There is a fairly large fan base for their games out there, and would have made an excellent addition to the Xbox Live Arcade.
It appears Microsoft's XBLA restraints are becoming a large problem for many developers wanting to get into the downloadable service - and in this case 'break' into the Western Markets with their niche titles. Let's hope they hear the cries of fans from around the world and perhaps loosen the restraints a bit.
Big thanks once again to Rmk106 in Japan watching out for new XBLA news! the original article can be viewed here and here.
13 comments:
WiiWare!
This is going to become especially troublesome for Microsoft if Nintendo maintains its largely hands off approach to their own service... I don't even know what they're thinking at this stage. We get crap that barely plays well like TRON, but two of the most significant SHMUPS of recent memory aren't worth the time?
It's kind of ridiculous, particularly considering the system is going to see them anyway.
This is evidence that the people behind XBLA and involved in it's decision making process are completely out of touch with gamers and gaming.
Not many wanted 70's and 80's ports to begin with, and finally, 3 years later, MS recognizes that they don't sell.
But to have those failures determine their policy of decreasing the number of arcade ports...is absolutely ridiculous. People WANT popular arcade games they grew up with, but for most of the 360 demographic this means games like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, 1942, NBA Jam, etc. And anything in the vein of those games (ie. Cave's games are perfect).
XBLA was designed very well. The technology, the standards (ie. every game has a demo), the pricing structure...it's all there. But the people in charge of its content, in charge of its marketing, in charge of it's future...they're completely out of touch with today's gamer.
Wow :( This is incredbly disapointing..to say the least. It also kills my hopes for certain other arcade or classic sega-games or Taito Games like Bubble Bobble or Konami-Stuff like Gradius.
It is also quite difficult to understand, from a gamers standpoint, why some rather obscure retro-titles get greenlighted for xbla (like let´s say Gyruss, Tapper, New Rally X, Rush´n´ Attack)and others don´t.
It´s also weird that there seem to be "thousands" of puzzle games (some being even clones of others - Zuma/Luxor), while other genres are vastly ignored.
As a XBLA fan ( I own 70+ Games) I find it pretty sad. I think it was a guy from 3drealms in an interview about a possible port of Duke 3d, who said, that gamers wouldn´t believe what had already been rejected by the people behind xbla...now I actually do
'We are going to cut down faithful arcade ports.'
Thank heavens.
I don't think people should be happy about this. This isn't like getting yet another port of Golden Axe.
These are two games that are some of the best examples in their genre. Not to mention two games that flew under the radar in most of the world for most gamers. Not getting these on XBLA isn't a sign of great things. It's a sign of stupidity on the part of MS, honestly.
By the way, I'm the one that submitted your article to Xbox 360 Fanboy... I'm not sure how they misquoted it, but then again they didn't bother to credit me whatsoever for sending it in like they usually do either lol.
Hey, Golden Axe IS a true classic:), and if I am not mistaken it was the first port of the Arcade-Version for a Home-Console.
But regarding Ketsui & DoDonPachi I think we should let the people know that people do actually want certain Arcade or classic-/Retro- games (the TMNT-, Bomberman-, Sonic- and Castlevania Sales should have shown them). Again if I´m not mistaken David Eerie is the portfolio-Manager behind XBLA and has his own blog.
On a related note: I recommend any Shmup-Fan to download the Raiden-Demo from the jap. Marketplace. It´s a really well done port of great Games and the Demo allows you to play around one minute of two different levels of each of the first two games, and the first half of the first level of Raiden Fighters Jet!
JohnP81
@ the person talking about David Eerie
Can you give me a link to his blog?
Unfortunately this is the way Microsoft intends to conduct the future of their Xbox Live Arcade service.
Raiden Fighters Aces, a retail SHMUP which includes Raiden Fighters, Raiden Fighters 2000 & Raiden Fighters Jet got the same treatment.
Apparently, lots of unamed games have been turned down for this very reason. It's no wonder the Metanet, the developers of N+, bashed the XBLA service.
I guess unless your company name is Capcom, your games are never going to be featured on XBLA. Fortunately the Wii and PS3 online services would be more than happy to publish some of these titles.
The XBLA-Portfolio-Manager´s name is Actually David EDERY ( I misspelled it previously).
Here´ s the to his blog:
http://www.edery.org/
I wouldn´t really care about this issue if those retail releases like Shikigami, Raiden, Ketsui and DonPachi would at least be published in the rest of the world, but it´s highly unlikely. Also there isn´´t any kind of Freeloader avaibl or announced for the 360, which makes it even worse.
Regarding PSN & WiiWare:
I haven´t seen any anouncements for retro Arcade ports for WiiWare yet.
An Sony, well they seem even more strict regarding the approvement of 2D Games, at least from what I have heard.
JohnP81
This is just plain sad. Microsoft's now trying to cut down on direct arcade games for Xbox Live Arcade? That pretty much defeats the purpose.
"Apparently, lots of unamed games have been turned down for this very reason. It's no wonder the Metanet, the developers of N+, bashed the XBLA service."
Do you have any actual proof of this? I'm not trying to sound rude, but sometimes a source is helpful.
If we're talking about this "same reason", then logically all they'd be turning down is ports. Why would that bother Metanet at all? If anything, they're likely more interested in newer titles on the service... Their complaining was more about "good" games, being a retro port doesn't exactly scream that out to me by default.
They said that in their interviews. They said a racing game and a "physics-puzzle-based Thrust-like game" were rejected. I recall the Duke Nukem 3d devs even said in another interview that they were surprised at what was rejected as well.
BTW, If you guys remember that Eternity's Child game, I read that Microsoft rejected their game too. I thought it was about size, but he said that on either his blog or an interview.
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