Sure, you get a lot of geek cred for playing niche Japanese arcade games, but it's also a tremendous pain in the ass: you're frequently forced to import, there's fancy, expensive equipment, and no matter how much you put into your game, if it's recent it's probably already been rendered obsolete by an upgrade or revision that you can only actually play after making a trip to Japan. King of Fighters XII and Blazblue already have arcade upgrades on the way, and you'd better believe that those shiny home versions will be competitively obsolete after three months.
Unfortunately for myself, my favorite videogame ever is one such case. Virtua Fighter fans are a pretty downtrodden bunch of guys: we're confident we have the best game, but year after year, despite regular critical acclaim, nobody really gives a shit. The games don't sell. There are a lot of reasons: despite superlative game design and a greatly rewarding experience for the competitive player, VF is neither easy to play nor flashier than Soul Calibur, DOA and the like. The person who just plays fighting games to button mash is going to be much better served by a more superficially attractive game. Meanwhile, VF is a significant cash cow (albeit one on the way down) for Sega's Japanese arcade operation, where they make tons more money off their dedicated fanbase from an arcade game than a home game that nobody in Japan buys. On a similar note, this is why Tekken 6 is taking so long to come out for the consoles: Namco sees no reason to kill their arcade business with a home port when they have the most single popular arcade game in Japan. Their players spend $60 in a day. As far as Bandai Namco is concerned, why would they port?
So what has happened before, and is likely to happen again, is that some VF games just never come out for a home console. The last arcade release of VF4, Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned, didn't come here on any platform. We local (NYC) players pitched in for a machine-- as we had for VF4 Evolution when that came out-- and meeting up once a week at the places that generously hosted our machine was the only way we could play the game. Now, nobody ever told us "it's not coming out": they just said to wait and see, and as time went by, we understood this to mean it wasn't happening.
Virtua Fighter 5R has been out in the Japanese arcades and nowhere else for about a year, and Sega has stated several times in the past that they have "no plans" to bring it to a console. A year is about the longest a popular arcade game goes without a home console port being announced. After that, you can pretty much assume it isn't going to happen. I won't act like I'm pleased, but I fully understand why this is. I don't even bother to find much out about VF5R itself: it would just be depressing to hear about how much I'm missing out on. On top of that, VF5 on the 360 has more or less died out online, and a ton of new fighting games are coming out: it's really hard to justify continuing to pay attention to the game at all.
Anyway, the fanbase is pretty desperate at this point, so they all band together and spam the hell out of Sega America's wall on Facebook. This is pretty last-ditch stuff, and while there aren't enough VF fans to make a decent sales number, there are enough to bring Sega's social networking to a screeching halt. This doesn't really do a lot for anybody, especially because the issue is really with Sega Japan, but it at least gets somebody's notice. Bewildered, the poor guy who handles Sega's Facebook promised to ask upstairs and get a reply in a couple of days. VF fans waited in suspense.
"No plans." The situation was the same over at Sega Japan as it ever was. And that was the end of it. Fanboys continue to rage on the wall: some for VF, others for the VF guys to shut up so they can talk about Sonic, and the really crazy ones want Sega to materialize a couple hundred million dollars out of thin air so they can see how Shenmue ends. Still no VF5R, and at this rate it probably won't happen at all. If it does, I recommend the same route I recommend for every niche game like this: digital download release with a ton of DLC. Here's a match, if it makes you feel any better!
Nice post, explains the current situation with Virtua Fighter very wall :)
Posted by: B_Feck | June 13, 2009 at 09:51 PM
I agree. Virtua Fighter 5 isn't as flashy as Street Fighter and King of Fighters, but Tekken doesn't look so flashy either.
I believe that games that gets a lot of hype gets the most sales. Like Halo 3. Well, Xbox 360 is mostly known for shooters anyway.
Posted by: Kidvid711 | June 17, 2009 at 06:59 PM