Virtua Fighter 5 Interview - Possibly Headed To 360? *Confirmed!

Well, it could make Itagaki happy as well.

More fighters could produce more fighter fans on the platform. More fighter fans, more exposure for the genre, could mean more sales for everyone. Or it could be that a B level game with absolutely no competition likes picking up the scraps

 

I guess DOA online was my imagination. Lag is always going to be an issue, but every game every produced uses some kind of client-side timing (cs does, UMK3 does, DOA does, VF certainly does) and yet we have many online games. Is lag going to be a factor? Yes of course. Unless you are dealing with sub 30ms pings (and any lag comp calibrated to that figure), it is going to be difficult to have a relatively perfect exerience. However, there is no reason why VF online is not possible. It is just a question of how much the lag will affect gameplay. In the case of DOA online and Xbox Live it seems the answer is not much. VF is a more precise experience for sure, but it can, and will be done.

Do you really expect for Sega to wait for direct fiber optic connections and 1ms pings to implement VF online?

 

This is an easy financial desicion.

Take a look at the current state of the PS3. Launched in 2, instead of 3, territories with minimal number of units. Very low total number of units in circulation by Feb 2007. Very low (record?) attach rates. Now couple that with the game being a Feb. 07 release and you have a low install base which makes it very difficult to make a profit or atleast a decent one.

On the other hand, take the 360 and you will have well over 10million units by the time the game is released with a record high software attach rate. You just expanded your potential customer pool by a HUGE margin. You simply cannot ignore this basic math.

I'm sure this effect is being felt and examined by most developers who planned PS3 exclusives during 2007.

 

Now I am beginning to wonder whether the PS3 will survive. 360 is getting lots of games, and many of these are AAA. And not only that but games appealing to Japanese gamers.

I dont know what others may think but the unexpected might happen and the 360 could become popular in Japan

 

Timing is everything, they won't compromise that. I would be very surprised to see it online enabled.

Just like 60FPS by the way. They'll rather drop textures than frames.

 

Honestly, very few BIG 3rd party games will remain exclusive for either platform forever. They are timed, just like GTA was on PS2. Just like VF5 is on PS3 and just like Bioshock is on 360.

 

Source?

 

They gave a date for the X360 version

Wait, what?

Well, that can be changing some of my purchasing plans...

 

Oh what the!

Hardknock,
I owe you one. I'm sorry. The least I can (and will) do is to give you an indeterminate amount of rep points back.
I still can't see how it was substantiated on top of page #1, and maybe you knew something, maybe you didn't, but regardless, you turned out to be right and that's got to be worth something.
*picks up spoon*
edit: gnaaaaah! Fork! It says I need to spread it around before I can give you points.
edit2: done

Dave,
I've been visiting for a while here and what has been and still is so good about Beyond3D is the substance and the analysis. The Inquirer OTOH has for a long time followed the other, the "anything goes" apporach to journalism, and I have despised them for it on many occasions totally unrelated to console warfare because I despise it in general. It's what one does to stir up controversy. There exists that divide in concept between journalism and the buzz show.
One the one hand you have executed a journalistic ideal for long enough to make it implausible that you didn't know about its value. Even your personal posting/writing style shows that you're very deliberate with words.
On the other hand I see you turning that off in an instant and defending the valuable buzz show. That's all. That's what that comment was about.

For whether I was right or wrong in this particular instance: see above; I wasn't.

Be merry and safe on christmas.

 

The timing of this announcement is a little off...

Not to mention that there's no statement on either of Sega Europe or America's sites.

I smell a rat.

 

It would be funny if you were kidding, but as you are not it's not really funny. Dude it's a sure thing...

 

Err... who said I was joking?

 

If it wasn't the case, I'd imagine Sega would have cleared it up already. A full day to let something of this magnitude run around is sort of a long time, if it wasn't true. I'd expect it'd have been debunked by a major site already.

Seems legit to me. The timing is strange, but there's often announcements out of the blue on days of seemingly no importance.

 

Not me, but you should have... You are beating a dead horse.

 

About as bad as Capcom mentioning the PS2 version of RE4 a couple months or so before the GCN version release.

They could have at least waited for 1 month AFTER the PS3 version shipped. Makes you wonder what Sega had in mind on this.

 

Well I never!

Well, it appears there's been a surprising turn of events affecting this thread. Just flown back to Blighty for Christmas and snacthed some time on someones computer - while looking at a Firing Squad review I see this news in a headline. I can say that I was fairly surprised. And, yes, this shall be in my "to pick up" list now!

Given that this is a 3rd party doing this, and not MS directly, then hopefully what it means is that Itagaki will produce a better fighter in the future now that he has competition on the platform.

Of course, this is one of the reasons that I thought releasing on only PS3 would be limiting - with PS3 we know that Tekken is going to be there, so Sega have competition with the fighter on that platform, so why not hedge the bets a little more where there is only DOA on the XBOX (and that's not necessarily to everyones tastes).

Zeck, generally speaking I'm usually fairly considered and careful in the things I write openly - I've had to be that way in my previous role here and I have to continue doing it as I'm not hiding where I work, so thats fairly normal for me (although, it certainly shouldn't be construed as knowing anything about this type of thing either - its a [welcome] surprise to me, just as it appear to be a surprise as others). However, my point about the post is that this is a discussion forum, not a news outlet or site - the point of the forum is to discuss, theorise and generally shoot the breeze in many cases - and I personally (as a user of a particular system) don't like the heavyhandedness that can be applied in supposed discussion forums on occasion, designed to stifle discussion.

The reason I piped up like this in a couple of threads now, whereas I may not have before, is because I think you may well see more of this coming in the future. By the very nature of the marketshares, most people in this forum have probably come in from using PS2's and the forum "pressure" has reflected that. However, I personally am entirely unconvinced that there will be a simailr dispropotion in terms of marketshare for this generation, hence I also expect that to be similarly represented on the forums in terms of user discussion and opinion. Heavyhandedness from one side or another is going to have to be tempered because then you'll never achieve any actual discussion.

 

Sure, but even a 16ms ping will give you 60 updates/s which would be enough for even 1 frame timing. While it is truly hard to get that consistently, it is not impossible depending on your connection/location, and I do think that Sega would take the extra sales that would come from online 1/1 fighting. They would include the disclaimer that comes with every game: "Game experience may change online".

 

Well, it would be a headline for sure if they decided to make the 360 version Live enabled...

 

It would definitely, but Sega is so against making VF online mp capable.