If you’re using an emulator you’re actively searching for the game before you buy it.
The cool thing about stuff being up on XBL/PSN is that you’ll get impulse purchases while people are looking for something else.
Yeah but recently there have been huge advances in cps3 as far as decrypting and flashing roms. assuming you have the right amount of ram, can just run 3s on a diff kit. I understand the trepidation though.
Welp either way the bigger thing is, and this isnt Capcom’s fault in my mind, they helped bring the community back, but they did not help spread the love to other games. At least recently.
Like I remember playing SF2 back when I was like 4 and it made me want to play other fighting games as well. Not everyone’s brain will work that way of course but it seems to be fairly blatant in this influx of people who are just jumping into fighting games. Maybe its sites like this, maybe its word of mouth, maybe its just their personal style and likes who knows, but there just is almost no cross pollination of interest in the genre right now, followed by very little effort by event people to generate hype for new games. Oh hey its the main event for week 1, then its back to business on the regular MvC3/SF4. Might be because so many people are trying to take a specific game so serious at a single time. Take SCV for example. No matter how many people say its great… kinda feels like its already being forgotten about for the next Capcom game (my marketing senses blame Namco ) but its just how it is sadly.
I don’t really see how Capcom helped “spread the love” when you were a kid, either. You liked Street Fighter so you made the conscious decision to to get other fighting games. I liked BB Hood in Marvel (writer’s note: I got Marvel 2 about a month before Ultimate came out) which prompted me to get Vampire Savior because that is how our minds work; we find something we like and we branch out from that.
A lot of people aren’t like that and no amount of goading from Capcom or anyone else is going to change that.
bigger?
It’s really not Capcom’s job to increase the playerbase in non-Capcom games. It’s up to the fighting game community. I guess it’s easier to blame Capcom and not blame yourselves.
Right. I don’t at all, at least. I’m not sure who’s saying that exactly.
Because is more hard to build a capcom fg community right? lol.
Still, if we take the fighting genre as a whole, you have to ask, is it better to have a couple of huge games sucking the life out of all the little ones, or is it better to have a variety of niche games, adding up to a lesser whole?
Just think of Starcraft (which is a bad example since it was really a historical accident). If Starcraft didnt exist, we wouldnt suddenly have a thriving esport ecosystem with dozens of lesser RTSes having their own pro leagues and stuff. We would simply not have RTS esport -at all-.
Before SF there were Karateka, Yie Air Kung Fu, Barbarian, Street Smart, Budokan etc Very popular games but then the line between fighters and beat em ups was thin.
Even while I was a teen there was mostly Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. SNK and less popular Capcom games came third by a margin, even though they were better. There were also exceptions like Primal Rage, Body Blows, Toshinden, Killer Instinct etc but they did not have the potential to last for multiple installments. when new franchises appeared like Soulcalibour, DOA, Bloody Roar things were repeated all over.
Same thing happens now.
Had I started now with fighters, I’d definitely go with console version of one or more of SFIV, SC, Tekken, MvC, VF, KOF etc. I only play emulated fighters on PC due to my age. Where I younger I’d have no interest or expertise in this venture. Probably I’d play a few games out of interest and then stop.
SF may have helped to define the genre, but the consumer base was always present. Now we have more fighters than ever.
I’d rather see it as a result of cultural differentiation between Japan and the West. The Japanese did not have Christianity, therefore they were not influenced by the sexual taboos of that religion. Of course they have their own, it is just that in some things considered taboo here, they are more liberated than us. Same thing could be said about Muslim religion.
Problem is that free emulators do a much better job than the XBL/PSN versions. I bought Mortal Kombat Arcade Collection for the PC. CPU/GPU usage skyrockets as if I were playing Metro 2033! I was not going to devote that much time anyway. I bought it because I had a pirated version of Mk1,2 and 4 in the MS-DOS/Win95 days and devoted a lot of hours to those games.
Also compare the sound/graphics/controls customizations of Finalburn, Kawaks and even MAME to that of PSN/XBL. You can even use Skype and GGPO at the same time and talk and watch your opponent.
I think bigger since MVC2 on PSN come out, I been going through a fighting game revival playing SF4, MVC3, KOF13, MK9, 3S even dusting off the Dreamcast for VF3, SC CVS, Rival Schools 2 and watching streams. I think Capcom games like SF4 n MVC get people playing tourneys and watching the streams, but it falls to organisers to support KOF BB tourneys give these games the exposure it needs. All in all the scene is bigger for lots more reason then capcom’s success alone.
Yeah those Madoka sales sure are bad, anime’s almost dead.
Hey, I don’t know much about sales figures, although considering Japan has been in and out of recessions since the 90s I don’t think it’s unlikely that they’ve declined in volume. Gaming in Japan and its traction here has also declined since the PS2 era. Surprise! The anime genre is creatively blighted.
What I do know is that the fanbase in Japan is extremely dedicated and only wants products made to fit a specific, narrow niche delineated around a few tropes, the strongest of which are often the ones that objectify their female characters. Otakus spend a lot of money defining their personality solely around their fandom.
If I find the article I read about this, will you read it? Here – it’s a long one. All 4 parts.
http://neojaponisme.com/2011/11/28/the-great-shift-in-japanese-pop-culture-part-one/
I understand what you’re saying, but I hardly think its something that’s only happening to anime. There’s no form of media that isn’t creatively blighted. Movies, books, tv shows, comics, there’s a lot more in every one of them that copies something else’s trend than is something more original.
In what part of the world? Anime’s demographic is a specific, localized niche and has been nearly forever. It has nowhere near the traction or diverse audience movies, tv, and fiction has. I’d be hard pressed to* not* find something in those mediums released in the past month that I genuinely relate to and enjoy.
Not so with the past 10 years with anime series and the like. Maybe the feature films from the old greats were good, but those are infrequent releases, high budget and often have little to do with established series/characters. I don’t know comics but there are a shitload of superhero movies. At least Nolan’s Batman movies drew me in. There’s probably a few I’m forgetting.
Do you actually keep up with anime, though? I mean, if you’re going to completely write off 10 years of a medium, you have to know what you’re talking about.
How much of it would you like me to keep up with and document my preferences for? After a few solid years of awful shows from about '04-'07 it’s pretty hard to give a shit now. If you want to employ the 90% crap 10% good thing here, fine. It’s just unreasonable to expect someone to keep up with something that has been clearly on a downward trajectory. I watched anime before the sharp proliferation in slice of life comedies/moeshit – a strong subgenre even in the late 90’s-early 2000s era but at least there was something else to watch that wasn’t a rehash or shonen show.
Also the article at Neojapanisme does address how creatively diluted pop culture in Japan even outside anime as a result of the economic situation. It’s worth reading just for that analysis alone imo. I’m not just linking it to buttress an argument – it’s genuinely interesting stuff.
Oh shut the fuck up.
There’s dozens of first episode reviews for almost every show in any given season, there’s a dozen reviews of every season overall, MyAnimeList, Crunchyroll, Funimation Channel, Hulu, Netflix, licensed shows’ reviews, OnDemand, store recommendations, getting the shows yourself and giving judgement to them, forum opinions, imageboard opinions (no really), and widening your own taste.
As for bad shows, Genshinken? Hare+Guu? Wolf’s Rain (ending excluded)? Yakitate Japan? Zipang? Ultimate Muscle/Kinnikuman Nisei USA? Monster? Diebuster? Samurai Champloo?
Re:Cutey Honey? Paranoia Agent? Rozen Maiden? Initial D Fourth Stage? Jubei-Chan 2? Kaleido Star (03-04)? Howl’s Moving Castle? Gantz? Ghost In The Shell SAC 2? Appleseed? Area 88?
Those are just in 2003-05 alone. Yet you’re even trying to imply its not the consumer’s fault?
And what anime did YOU see before this “dark age”, the pure denial that anything that is truly original is ever good nowadays aside.
I don’t care. The fanbase and the audience are entirely different now. I think you’re getting pretty apologetic for a genre that has embraced its awkward and pathetic tropes to turn a buck off lonely nerds.
I’m going to watch 2 series. I’ll admit I was partially wrong if I enjoy them. If I don’t then I’ll have more of a leg to stand on, though. Tick tock. Sorry, it’s not your job to do your research for me. whaps!
Wait: http://sekijitsu.com/2011/03/20/tofus-top-10-anime-of-2010/
I’m picking 2 from this list.
edit: I threw up a little. I give up 
i have no intention to argue whether or not anime is getting worse or whatever, but i find it surprising that someone has such a positive view of the majority of recent movies, tv shows, and “writing.”(Do you mean just novels, or…?)