As the next generation of consoles get ready to launch. You have to wonder what affect this will have on the fighting tournament scene. In the past few years we have seen it grow from just a few tournaments with 100 people tops playing to huge tournaments with hundreds of players competing. Part of this was due to the success of consoles. With accurate ports of fighters from the arcade to home (some better than arcade ports) players could practice their game over and over and then take those tactics to a tourney and do pretty good. 2D fighters were able to flourish despite the best efforts of SCEA to make the PS2 a OMG look at all the games they are in 3D LOLOL Also People being able to build their own arcade quality sticks to play on helped the tournament scene to grow even more.
Now as the next generation of consoles get ready to launch we have seen very little in terms of fighters. There is the Tekken teaser and Virtua Fighter 5 coming for the next gen as well as DOA 4 but we have not seen anything from out favorites yet. We have heard nothing from SNK as of yet other than a rumor of KOF MI 2 being for the X-360 and PS2. Capcom has not said anything at all. No word on a SF4, CVS3 or even ::shutters:: CFE2. No word form ARC System works at all on a new Guilty gear for next gen yet either. It is starting to look like there might be a drying up of the 2D fighter altogether.
Also another concern is the next gen console itself. All of them now feature wireless controllers and unless there are ports on them we have not seen yet there is no place to plug in a wired controller. So what happen to all the custom sticks we all have built? Are they all now useless? Is there a way to effectively hack a wireless controller PCB? Will it be able to run arcade parts and not die after 5 minutes of play?
My thoughts are:
The large following we see now will dwindle down a lot in a couple of years and then level off. There will always be new players coming in old ones retiring but the mega tournaments we see now will get a little smaller.
Tournaments have moved from Arcade cabinets to consoles in recent years and this works well for now. However as our consoles age and get harder to fix/replace we will see tournaments moving back to arcade cabinets once again. Just look at how Marvel moved from Arcade to DC and back to Arcade again as proof.
Unfortunately ( as a stick builder myself) I dont see a way to hack a wireless pressure sensitive controller (for now at least) so sticks for next gen will have to be modded from whatever we get from Hori or someone else.
At least his is what I see coming. What are all of your thoughts on this and how the next gen will affect the fighting scene?
As much as I don’t like it, I see that with all the openings they’re giving us in the system specs there will be some haXX0ring going on. Look at the PSP…
2d fighters dont have to die. If they wanna make flashy looking games then why dont they just use highly detailed 3d backgrounds and just use 2d sprites and shit.
That, and raise the resolution to at LEAST GG quality, and beyond. I know people today, that besides their bias towards 2d graphics, still look at GG for the first time and say “wow”. So it’s possible, that with enough care, they can still make a game to impress casuals while keeping the hardcore gamer happy. And yeah, the USB will let us still use all of our old sticks, hopefully.
My thoughts exactly. I know a few people who own a PSP with no actual games. They just play tons of ROMs on it. I could very easily see the same thing happening with the next generation of consoles. Either there will be more 2D fighters to play, or people will figure out how to play the old ones on new hardware.
“What will the next generation do to the fighting scene?”
Wonder where the hell it went, as they play their rpgs and pc fps ports. And th problem wih “making the graphics better” to appeal to the noobs is that eventually, other things will start to suffer, so all you have is a pretty, sucky, shallow game. It happened to Bloody Roar and DOA, it can just as easily happen to a 2d series. besides, companies won’t even waste time like that. They all think the next step is to take the game 3d. Then you’ll get some bullshit like that 3d KOF.
USB ports won’t allow you to use a stick on the 360 (at least via converters) seeing as Microsoft have already stated that all peripherals will need to be licensed in order to run on their system. I don’t see them giving licenses to PS2->360 converters for some reason.
edit: Also the reason MvC2 has gone back to arcade is because Dreamcasts are notoriously unreliable. The later models of the PS2 and Xbox should hold up for far longer.
They should be making 2D fighters like fucking anime on the next gen, just look at FOTNS and that’s on the atomiswave. But to be honest, I don’t see it happening. Companys these days are just too lazy, especialy capcom. SNK are doing ok, and Sammy are actually trying, I’m just hoping some new companys will start to apear for future consoles.
It doesn’t neciseraly have to be 2D though. It’s more the angle the camera looks at and the movement you give the characters. Take TRF for example, It does look a posible way forward for the scene. You could still make a game 3D, but in concept keep it as a “2D” fighter. In it’s stages it still seems very experimental, however good it may be(I’ve never tried it). But to me it looks the only way forward we’ll see. Being 3D, you could make supers mor flashy by alowing the camera to move however for specific effects, but still keep that concept of a “2D” fighter. Plus the strength of the hardware should be able tokeep it moving and flowing at fast paces.
I don’t think companys like capcom realise how much money they could make off creating 2D fighters to the quality of the new consoles/arcade hardware capabilitys, they just can’t be arsed to put the time and effort into actualy doing it. The 360 is 10 times more powerful than the XBox, with the ps3 twice as powerful as that. Shouldn’t we be seeing 2D fighters 10-20 more times the quality of what they are today? If they just get them selves a team who would be willing to put the time and effort in to actaly doing it, they would be rolling in it, imo.
My guess is 2D games as we know them are dead on Next generation consoles. Portables is another thing but consoles I say dead.
Mainly because developers would be to lazy to bring it up the consoles abilities with 2D and it would cost to much when it isn’t a sure thing. Now 3D playing like 2D is a possibility but 2D as we know it can’t go back.
Maybe have Marvel tourneys without the same tiers .
Since 01’ its always comming down to Mag,Sent,Storm,Cab,Doom,BH,Spiral. out of 45 chars. remaining
Yank out these 7 and it will balance the game to where everyone else can be used.
Anyone who complains about how boring it is because of
the same ol’ thing,but doesn’t try anything (anyone) different ,stop complaining.:lame:
Mutant Academy is good,Think of it as C O T A 2. This is the only other X-Men fighter thats current,everyone outta learn the system (not hard) and add this to the fight list.
…Instead of sitting around… waiting for Capcom to deliver MvC3-----dont see it happening.
>
> My 2 cents…
2d fighters can’t die because 3d fighters are no successors.Both play different.It’s not like the action,adventure,rpg,racing genre. They don’t need to go back to 2d.Eventhough games like Castlevania are best in 2d yet.So if 2d is not popular anymore how come symphony of the night is consider the best Castlevania ever.
The majority of 2D fighting games released for current systems are cash-cow-ports of games that had already been released for previous generations. Sony actively discouraged sprite-based game development for the PS2, is doing so for the PSP, and is expected to do so for the PS3. Microsoft still has little, if any clout in Japan, and given the low sales Capcom has had for its rehashes of old games on the XBox, it seems likely that they’ll stop bothering to release many more.
Sammy, of course, will keep releasing great 2D games in Japan, although whether or not Majesco will continue to release them remains to be seen, especially if they can’t get their shit together and fix the horrible Xbox live performance of their games. Regardless, even if they do keep them coming, it’s unlikely that they’ll draw in many new players because their games are weird (in terms of content), even for Japanese fighting games, and because Sammy games tend to have a much harsher learning curve, at least for player-vs.-player fighting.
3D fighting will continue for a while, with Namco continuing to throw up newly tweaked versions of Tekken and Soul Calibur games every few years. Tecmo will continue producing the DoA games, but the insane depth of the game will continue to turn of many serious players, as will the focus on T&A, and lastly arcade gamers just don’t get to play DoA in the arcade and so won’t usually play it at home. Having seen the failure of most other 3D fighting games - ie. Fight Club - to be much good, or sell well, other publishers will refuse to fund the genre, and it will slowly fade away just like 2D fighting.
war of the grail
super smash bros revolution
kof: mi2
doa4
neogeo battle coliseum
kof xi
ggxx slash
hokuto no ken
tekken 5 dr / tekken 6
vf5
mk7
soul calibur 3
samurai shodown tenka
Well if you go by the specs, the PS2 shits a good one on Xbox 360. God knows how tired I was getting of “mycrow soft has better graphiz!”
Theres no use in it coming out this year if its gonna have crap at launch. It’s like they are trying to do what PS2 did to become sucessful but it’s not gonna work.
Added to the fact that you dont see the consoles true potential until years after the release.
