Virtua Fighter 5 Update

Looks awesome. Hope more will be told come 1st Nov ^___^

/KiwE

 

Looks like a sobat with some added spin to me, not an off-the-wall attack.
Nice pics, the cathedral looks very similar to that used by Paul Debevec to showcase HDR lighting. Other than a standardization of ura, I can't guess what use the running jump could serve, though. Guess we'll see soon enough.

 

Anybody have another link for those screenshots the links dont work anymore

 

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Jeffahn said:

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Plague said:

I'm not talking about El Blaze! (that was probably evident in my first response to you), I'm talking about the stealing hubcaps comment. It's a stereotype.

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Did I make the coment, or did I quote it? Did you just assume that it was my own invention? El Blaze is, of course, completely unstereotypical of a Mexican wrestler.

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It's not important to me if you para-quote, para-make-up-some-other-term, or wherever you got it from.

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"The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew"

Look, now I'm anti-Semitic!

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I read it in a post with your name on it. I'm guessing you put it on the board. No one made you do it.

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You assumed that I generated the quote myself and that I agreed with it.

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I call you on it - I don't see you take responsibility... "I was just para-sailing-quoting-writing some other dude from 1995."

I think that's just weak, man.

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You will be receiving a bill from me shortly for 1 broken irony-meter.

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It's revealed that the new character is a Mexican Wrestler. You post that he's "apparently" going to say something about stealing hubcaps (with no reference to where that comment came from). I call you on it.

If I come out of nowhere and post some racial stereotype, I figure some people might infer I think that way.

It's possible by "apparently" you meant: "Knowing Sega and their lack of awareness or care for races not Japanese, they'll probably have EL Blaze! say something like this..."

Sorry I didn't make that jump (in case that's actually what you meant).


I'll give you an awareness machine equipped with the clear communication package to replace your broken irony meter.


Thanks for remaining civil.

 

Been posting these pics at 1up, trying to get the word out early to the "mainstream" and what not.

You guys?

 

I think we can all safely assume that Sega does not care about stereotypes...after all Jeffry is a very well spoken black man who does not have any stereotypical traits...nor is the new hardware have any relationship to an anti-semite.

 

El Blaze looks awesome. Is that him dancing as he moves off-axis in the pic on the second page? Can't wait to learn more!

 

El Blaze looks awesome. Is that him dancing as he moves off-axis in the pic on the second page? Can't wait to learn more!

 

I hit 4chan.

 

Online would not be that great, but I agree with aklove. It would definetly get more people interested in VF and will probably lead to a stronger VF community.

with chat... players online can find out what arcades nearby have the machine and can then play versus where there will be no lag...perhaps bring there custom characters via the memory card to the arcade...just some thoughts

 

Who has an arcade with VF? No where near me. Online or expensive travel are my only options for any sort of competition.

 

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Shadowdean said:

Who has an arcade with VF? No where near me. Online or expensive travel are my only options for any sort of competition.

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Sorry I am spoiled..being from socal and all /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

U.S. VF

I think online VF would require a special version of VF with the game mechanics designed in such a way that lag is less problematic (I mean that they would need to tweak timing windows for the fuzzy guarding, throw escapes, dodges and stuff).

Also, there should be ways of knowing how good any connection will be with a potential opponent will be so you don't get stuck in those stupid matrix-like slow-mo fights like a la DOA.

And they should get rid of the viewing of fights you are not in, unless they can find a way to do it so that the viewers and people waiting to fight won't slow the action down.

I doubt that any of this will happen. This is just wishful speculation. My personal theory is that the only reason DOA gets the royal online and super graphics treatment is because MS throws a lot of cash at them and they are not subect to the normal imperatives of profitability.

For AM2, there really is not reason enough for them to go out of their way to please the U.S. They are not a charity. It's not like they have VF net in Sierra Leone or something. It's a business model taht only seems to work in Asia. Sega and AM2 will provide VF to people who will pay to play VF. That means that if Americans want to play, they will need to buy their own cabinet and fend for themselves.

Some of these posts show just what spoiled, consumerist dumbasses Americans are. "Why can't Sega provide me with an entire online VF network so I can play with the twelve other U.S. VF players?"

Of course I wish it were otherwise, but SEGA can't make a profit on me and a handful of other dudes. And if VF became popular in the arcade, I'd probably have to play with those ridiculous, floppy-dildo American joysticks and that would suck anyway.

 

Re: U.S. VF

Online is not the big selling point people think it is. DOA: Ultimate did for instance NOT outsell DOA3, not even close.

Xbox Live has been hailed as the most succesful console online service ever, yet only 10% of the Xbox userbase actually subscribes to Live.

Right now, online matters more to game reviewers then the actual consumers.

 

Re: U.S. VF

I think people are ignorant to a lot of facts, and seem to be talking out of their ass to make a point that I don't even get: People outside of Japan shouldn't even have the audacity to ask for something like VF.net, even if it's on console?

How does that help anyone?

Here's the first delusion people seem to enjoy throwing around: outside Japan, the only people who have ever spent any money on VF4 are the 100 or so regulars on this site.

This is the biggest load of shit ever. After I worked a little with SOA on the PS2 version of Evo, I was told that the "PS2 VF4s sold over a million copies in the US & Europe". So there are about 999,900 other paying VF customers you guys are missing in the Americas & Europe (not to mention non-Japanese Asia). I'm not sure if that's just VF4, or VF4 and Evo. I've heard that a $49.99 game sells to large retailers for about $30, distributors & small stores a little more. So let's check out some speculative #s:

we'll say that for every copy of PS2 VF4, Sega got $20 (Evo was a cheaper game, so I'm lowering the figure). That's $20,000,000.

I know that in Japan, VF4 Arcade Units sell for about $3000. We'll suppose that Sega gets $2500 of that per kit. For the sake of arguement, I'll say there are 10,000 VF4 machines in Japan (I think there are less, actually). So we'll suppose here that Sega made $25,000,000 on sales of VF4 machines in Japan.

20 and 25 million, it's comparable. But, Sega released 3 versions of VF4 in Japan, so again to argue even more in favor of the Japanese market being much more overwhelming profit-wise, I'll triple the #:

Console VF4 sales in US and Europe: $20 million
Arcade VF4 sales in Japan: $75 million

guess-timates. about a 25/75% ratio.

Dissmaster, I'm not sure how people do business where you're from, but in my business, I can't afford to ignore, downplay, or disregard the wishes of 25% of my customers. ANY business would be an IDIOT to ignore 25% of their profits.

Here's another mind blowing fact of business: Boosting profits beyond current levels comes through GROWTH of your customer base. Every corporation seeks to grow it's business. It stands to reason that in Japan, every arcade that currently has a VF4 machine will buy a VF5 machine. Arcades that have several will buy probably a similar number. I think the game center market is basically steady, if not shrinking in Japan. I don't really see Sega growing it's sales of VF arcade units over the number of VF4 units it sold to a big degree, it'll probably be pretty similar numbers (unless they decide to make the game more expensive, but even then it's a matter of price increase, not market increase).

Conversely, most arcades in Europe and the US DON'T have VF machines, so the chance for growth is THERE. Even if you want to give up on the western arcade market, the console sales tell that people are interested in the franchise. Console versions of VF4 sold poorly in Japan, and I don't see more copies of the next versions selling much more.

UNLESS they come through with some really unique must-have content that's exclusive to the home versions, like maybe... online playability?

Since Sega put all the work and money into translating the different console versions of VF4 into several foreign languages, they're obviously interested in the sales in those regions. By spending a little more time providing people in these markets with the kind of content VF players in Japan have been enjoying for years, they stand a CHANCE to grow those markets. As it is, Japanese VF5 players will probably have even more of these features to enjoy. People outside of Japan will probably see the same level of treatment in Arcade and on Console as we got in VF4, which won't really excite anyone who didn't try VF4 last time to try VF5. From a bussiness perspective, it seems like a missed chance to increase your market, which is stupid. ESPECIALLY when you're talking tens of millions of dollars.

Here's another truth people love to ignore: VF.net MAKES MONEY!!!!!!!!

Charity? That's a fucking joke. It cost 300 yen/month to use vf.net last time I was in Japan. If you have more than one character, it's more $. EVERY TIME you open any page on vf.net, Sega gets a few yen. Click the "back" button on your cell, it reloads the whole page, Sega gets a few yen. In it's heyday, people used to say there were 100,000 hardcore fans in Japan. Let's live in a fantasy world and assume that every one of these players only payed for the basic service, only had one character, and never looked at any of the pages on vf.net. And we'll say the phone companies like DoCoMo take 30%.

Sega'd still bring in $200,000/month on basic fees. In any realistic view, the number was higher when the game was popular. My friend Tetsuya played the "Battle Arena" minigame to get Akira's black hood item in VF4 Evo. He said it took about a month, and told me that during that month his phone bill was almost $150 for vf.net alone. That's ONE player.

Bringing these services to other markets, through telecom or the internet (you need a credit card to use vf.net for PC) just spells more money for Sega. It's not like the web pages are really complex. You'd just need a bit of media to go from PC/Console to the Arcade, or the paper card system Initial-D employs, or the in-game menus Tekken 5 uses. Even if foreign markets simply enjoyed a console-only vesion of VF.net, where you had to access through the game to equip items, or do Quests, Battle Arena. Monthly Fees. It would take far less work to create pages in several languages for the vf.net for PC site than it did to program all the versions of PS2 Evo.

The reason none of these things have happened yet is because AM2 doesn't care about players that aren't Japanese, it's just complacency. Other companies, and even other divisions within Sega have offered their games to foreign markets with all the goodies attached, or as many as could be reasonably included. But if Sega's gonna continue to use every consumer in the world who isn't Japanese as a Cash Cow, then talk about "community", it's an insult.

Was FT Arcade even officially released in any country but Japan? Or are all the FT machines in Korea, China, and elsewhere the same imported Japanese kits that we play on in the US and Europe? Not even giving that 25% of your market a chance to enjoy the latest version of a franchise, after they paid to play the last 2? Or to think about it from the businessman's perspective: to not give YOURSELF the chance to profit with said release in those markets? That's bad business.

Look at Tekken 5: in Japan they have Tekken.net. For foreign markets, they released a stripped-down version of the service that allowed players to enjoy the most crucial aspects of the system: Character Customization and Ranking. No Telcom, no Internet. They beefed it up by making sure every cabinet had nice Japanese sticks, added PS2 controller ports for pad players. They did all this for markets outside of Japan, yet I'd bet they sold way more kits IN Japan. There's probably less than 10 T5 machines in LA.

The upside for Namco? A game that sold as a kit for between $2000-$3000 can now be sold only as a stand alone unit for $7000 (according to Tragic). Forcing the consumer to buy premium features increases chances for profit. Every time the arcade needs more character data cards: more $ for Namco. Stick or Buttons broken? Our cabinet only accepts the official ones, which you have to buy from us. You'd have to be a chimp not to see chances to make more $.

The Joke on Sega? I can't think of one Arcade in LA that has T5 that didn't buy VF4 in one form or another. Some even bought 2 forms of VF4. Where I play, they bought VF4, Evo AND FT, yet have NEVER carried any Namco fighting game.

Namco doubled the price of the game, simply by bringing the players what they wanted. Now who's making bad business decisions?

It's just laughable at this point. For AM2 to bring things like Online Features, vf.net style trimmings, a card system outside of Japan etc. to fans at this point isn't some lofty goal that's out of reach. They'd be CATCHING UP to the other 3D fighting games that have ALREADY DONE those things, in the arcade and on console. We're not talking cutting edge technology here, the technology is 5 years old already. It's not being done for the same reason that we still don't have a Korean character (which is again just a missed chance to boost morale within a foreign market): AM2 doesn't care what you think if you're not Japanese.

If people want to continue to give Sega money, then tell themselves they don't get the same service as Japanese fans because it doesn't make good business sense, go ahead. I for one don't see a paradox in enjoying the product while criticizing some of the politics behind it's distributon. Part of the reason other games HAVE more of an audience outside Japan is because they listen to what non-Japanese fans like. Maybe Sega could learn something from this attitude. Seems like everyone involved would benefit, as opposed to the current model, where only people who happen to have been born in the right country do.

Bryan

 

akiralove is correct, I cant stand online play for competitve means, but do enjoy it as an appetiser. Online play does have its benifits and its downfalls, however, online play as a whole will bridge gaps between those players who do play Vf everywhere outside of Japan.

When We first introduced doacentral, we had about 200+ members who were interested in Doa, Through out doa2U's life span, our membership Jumped to 2000+. With alot of hard work(continuing to do hard work), We were able to build off the online hype and translate that into a budding offline scene. Yes you guys will get those online ass holes trying to big shit up...You could do what we didnt think of in the begining, Simply tell them to prove their shit (offline)or fuck off...saves time and drama. The benifits are just too good to pass up. Larger Fan base = more potential players. More potential players = Larger Vf Scene, Larger Vf Scene = hell of alot more Comp. The exposure to online play will atleast allow players a taste of what Vf is all about.

Anyway, Vf5 is looking beautiful. The lighting effects are looking crazy as hell. Im not a fan of the same square environments, however, they are looking more spectacular. El Blaze is looking like an updated version of the masked wrestler in Fighting vipers 2

 

Not to be elitist or anything, but from my DOA2U experience, i rather not grow our fanbase from the online players that i have frequently encountered. It seems that it takes a certain mentality to learn and stick with vf, after getting your ass beat for about 2 months. Ive seen a couple groups of people come and go through the years and it may have taken us over 2 years to get this new batch of players thats sticking with the game right now in socal, but honestly im pretty happy with the group we have right now. It only takes one person to destroy a scene.

 

I want to point out some of the interesting bits from the famitsu pages. (Since they are in chinese..)

The caption states that El Blaze is able to jump over the opponent from a low posture (crouching maybe?) and from there, he can go into something else. The caption left that part as a mystery.

With the Pai pic, we are seeing what possibly may be part of her new sway step attacks. The captions for the pics to the right of that suggest that Pai may end up back turned after the kick, similar to Goh's new .

Jeffry's pics are only showing off his new throw animations.

In the interview, they touch on the relationship between wolf and el blaze, saying that el blaze both admires wolf and is jealous of him at the same time. They later talked about how el blaze's hop over the opponent is directly tied into the new system of VF5, but they won't go into specifics. They also said that they added somethings that they thought were overpowered into the game system, but we'll have to wait and see how the system have evolved.

The other interview talks about how they wanted the players to feel like the main characters of the game. They stated that the game will not be online versus, but the online components from VF4 will be expanded upon. They wanted to get back the feelings of VF2 community and further adds that the VF player's personalities are much more varied and interesting than the characters in VF, so their main goal is to expand upon the online feature to support the player community more.

 

Re: U.S. VF

What he said. Seriously though, Online play could ONLY help to grow the games popularity. We all know that Japanese companies tend to be increadibly zenophobic and deciding not to include online play on serves to further that perception; ontop of everything else Akiralove wrote /versus/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

Re: Virtua Fighter 2 Update

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Srider said: get back the feelings of VF2

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Second time lucky? We can only hope.