Looking And Waiting For Something Special?

Update: Dec 25 - Patience finally pays off?

SC is back! Get ready, fans! http://twitpic.com/3j16ui

Well I'm sure most of you were worried, as all the surprises we've seen so far have been Tekken related! But you were promised something spectacular, and now you finally get what you've been waiting for... Daishi Odashima, Lead designer for the Soulcalibur series has just opened up his own twitter!

Odashima-san used to be a tournament player in Japan back in the Soulcalibur 1 days! Since he's the new director of all things Soulcalibur at Namco, and by his own admission, has the final say on his team; you should follow him on twitter. Merry Christmas everyone?

I say again!! The day has finally come when I can tell you all about it. Soul Calibur is BACK !!

Update: Dec 23 - Katsuhiro Harada recently unveiled a new trailer and character for Tekken Tag Tournament 2. He also promises that more surprises are on the way:

Thanks for tons of comment !! OK next !!
I have something new to tweet about tomorrow night. so get ready!
(Not a footage. But important)

Update: Dec 21 - from Katsuhiro Harada's twitter:

Sorry guys I'm so busy now.
However, I want to show you something within the course of a few days...

Original Post - Namco-Bandai's Katsuhiro Harada has been having a lot of fun with his twitter account lately; their community manager FilthieRich is no different:

Looking and waiting for something special?
Make sure to continue following and tell your friends to stay tuned ....

What could this cryptic message possibly mean? Well that I couldn't really tell you. All I can say is that Namco-Bandai is probably planning some big surprises for the holiday, and you should pay attention to the twitter feeds. Just look at that face... you know he's up to no good!

We'll do our best to keep you updated with any relevant information here on 8WayRun.

 

seriously...why all the emphasis on japan?

back to what greatone said. it is not 2002. japan is not better than us. not in calibur, not in tekken, not even in street fighter. they hold no standard. making an arcade release just to cater to them would be a financial disaster.

i think the vast majority of us do not care about SBO. the majority of casual calibur fans will never even know what SBO is. they need to cater to their main audiences...europe and america. what do we want? decent online play and a well balanced game. who needs an arcade release to accomplish this?

 

The only thing I have to point about this sbo argument is, what about EVO japan? Sounds like great news, Not gunna get a ahead of myself. Only thing Ill say...... Dibs on the closed beta!!!! Everyone should thank Malice btw.

 

Agreed. I miss arcade calibur, but it would be a terrible investment. Online completely killed the need for it even if it is inferior for gameplay value. When they ask us stuff we really need to push for balance and better online. I also would like them to take all the casual stuff like custom characters and dare I say special mode and bring them up to a possibly competitive standard. customs are fine if they just fixin those fucking hit boxes and special mode...while always being terrible, my inner johnny has always wanted it to be competitively viable (which would mean drastic changes are needed). Also bring back teh soul chargins!

More than likely they're barely into development and we wont get pics for awhile. Aim for E3 and we'll have something.

 

The news for this is now on Kotaku and Joystiq, however there's no mention of 8WayRun. I added some comments, so for anyone who has a spare moment, be sure to rate them.

As for the arcade, it's not 2002, 1999, or whatever the hell year arcades were still relevant. And outside of Japan, there's no hype for SBO. The hype is with EVO, GODSGARDEN, and stuff like that which people can actually watch.

Also, if you put a game out in the arcade, it will need to be exclusive to the arcade for some time so that operators can turn a profit. The downside would be that it's only available to a limited audience. Who wants that? Not me. Plus whatever needs to be done can be done on console.

I grew up playing in the arcades, but those days are long and gone in America. It's all about the console and online play now.

 

Why would you guys openly object to an arcade release? Smart business decison or not what does it matter to any of you, they aren't using your money? Working on an arcade doesn't hinder anything. SC3 and SC4 came out and obviously they weren't perfect so theres no evidence that not working on an arcade produces a better game. As for online, same applies, it really has nothing to do with an arcade.

An arcade release may improve popularity in japan which is a good thing. It's better to try to raise interest for the game in other regions to make the game more popular on a global scale.

Obviously some people don't care but global interest is good for namco. For those who like to compete it helps too but bottom line it still helps namco so it hurts no one.

Arcade release also may help produce a more balanced console version.

 

Why would you guys openly object to an arcade release? Smart business decison or not what does it matter to any of you, they aren't using your money? Working on an arcade doesn't hinder anything. SC3 and SC4 came out and obviously they weren't perfect so theres no evidence that not working on an arcade produces a better game. As for online, same applies, it really has nothing to do with an arcade.

An arcade release may improve popularity in japan which is a good thing. It's better to try to raise interest for the game in other regions to make the game more popular on a global scale.

Obviously some people don't care but global interest is good for namco. For those who like to compete it helps too but bottom line it still helps namco so it hurts no one.

Arcade release also may help produce a more balanced console version.

 

If they waste effort and money on arcade, that's less time and resources they have to improve more relevant things. Also we now have patching, which almost completely replaces arcade testing anyway. There are benefits but their minimal at best when compared to the lost time and effort. As well it will delay the consoles release which is more of a set back than getting an arcade version early. Arcade will not happen, lets just make sure we give them good feed back. Maybe push for GGPO? I have a lot of faith in SC5. I feel they've experienced enough and heard a lot of the complaints with 4 to make online better.

 

OMG yes yes yes

 

I loved SC4 with all my heart, but its shitty netcode along with questionable balance decisions prevent me from picking it back up now. If SC5 places priority on those two issues first, i dare say it will be the perfect fighting game for me. Better than Street Fighter, Tekken, Blazblue and yes, even MvsC3 which i am insanely excited about. SC will forever have my heart but only if Namco displays some effort to keeping up with its competitors.

I still hope they dont have to scale back on the extra cool shit like created characters and such. I'd like to hope for more in that department too but, if sacrifices must be made due to time and resource issues or whatever, i'd rather they stick with what is truely important for a fighter to function properly.

 

An arcade first seems to me very important for the future a fighting game. Tekken has one, BlazBlue, SSF4 and so on and so forth. A good number of the Asian countries not just Japan play these games on Arcades, most notably SKorea...the center of esports or televised gaming. Because of this T6 was at WCG this year...the World Cyber Games beat out any other Gaming Tournament on the planet, they're the world cup of gaming.

SC4 did very well in the US, but in Europe and Asia Tekken 6 won out. The success of SC isn't simply going to rely on good balanced gameplay. We have to get that respect from other communities and one sure fire way is to get that arcade release. Namco wants numbers, that's all it cares about remember that, just because SC is popular here in the USA mostly as a casual game doesn't mean it does just as well in other regions.

Hope for an arcade release, hope for a wii version, hell hope for a PC version. Whatever gets Namco that money to take our game just as seriously.

In addition: I would remind everyone that has made the failure of SC3AE argument. SC3 was already a failed game, the arcade version was so badly timed, and it had multiple version released.

 

Korea don't give a damn about BlazBlue or Street Fighter. They only care about Starcraft and Tekken. Plus World Cyber Games is a joke. Even their commentators have no clue on the game that they are doing commentary for. Yea Tekken 6 was there this year, but their rules were stupid and don't expect the people hired to tell people what's going on to know themselves. World Cup of gaming? Lol!

If SC2 did hot in the arcades in Japan, I'm sure that SC3 would have just came out on arcades there first instead of releasing to console first. Plus Tekken and Gundam are the most popular arcade games by far. I don't want to wait an additional 6 months or whatever just so one country can play a game they're not going to be into. What sense does that make?

And no matter what, haters are going to hate. Other communities are still going to hate because they don't know shit about Calibur, and having an arcade release when the arcade scene is dead is not going to make them respect us more. Give it up.

 

As I said before an arcade release stands in the way of nothing. SC3 and SC4 came out without arcade release and the game still had issues, the single player was at best on par with previous versions, so there is no reason to think not making an arcade means the console version will somehow be greater. We already have proof enough that is not the case. It does not appear to me at all that resources and effort into making a good game increased at all with the lack of an arcade. So no arcade simply means no arcade. Let Namco worry about the money, we shouldn't urge them not to make one.

An arcade release improves worldwide appeal. As a competitor I want other regions to play calibur. This isn't about Japan is better than us at FG or anything to that extent, this is about more competition. Why would any competitor not want more competition? It's backwards logic.

And some also don't care about competition offline, and if that's the case why would an arcade release bother you? It's simply spreads the game to more people. Yes there is a target audience but the idea is to always attract more people to the game.

 

I hope SC5 gets canceled and everyone's copy of SC4 gets kidnapped so we can go back to playing SC3.

 

Dude, Sc4 is the shit!

 

If only there were some way to let consumers and player base help playtest the game as it is being worked on. By showing those builds off at various game shows and fighting game events and actually letting the people get more involved with their SoulCalibur. But alas, that only exists in thick hardback books and fairytales.

 

Who says that Japan won't like SCVAE? What do you base that off? It depends on the game designed. SCV has to do more than get released it has to meet Namco's expectations.

The problem with typical FG players like yourself is that your view on competitive game is narrow. Competitive gaming is growing past simple tournaments, where you travel and pay for your own shit, add to the pot and hope for the best.

Players have sponsors now, your ticket is paid for, housing and other expenses all paid for. Because winning now days, especially in tournaments like WCG(which you lol at) isn't merely a couple thousand dollars. If T6 is at WCG with games like Starcraft and SSF isn't, that speaks volumes. And for a company like Namco that's reason enough to invest further into that franchise.

If other communities don't respect your game, why would TOs put it in their tournaments? Why would it be at EVO? Because it's new? Why would it be at MLG?
Things like that matter now days. If anything you're the ones living in the past.

I don't want SCV to be made just so that I have a new game to play. I want it to meet it's potential and compete with SSF and Tekken at least beat out blazblue.

 

Arcade won't make a profit but still need a Japan/Asia at least release.
Namco is a Japanese company so they need/should think about us (they gave us SCIIIAE because the community asked for it).

We don't really play games at other people's houses (we've had to because of SCIV and that's one thing that hurt it), people meet up and play in the arcades. Almost all FG comps are arcade only. Namco/MS have sponored console comps but they were one time only comps.

I'm livin in Japan and that's one reason I'm focsuin on it, haha.
Didn't say it should be arcade first, just said/meant that eventually I'd/we'd like an arcade release.

I don't know the numbers but it seems that SCII AE did good over here, at least I know it was very popular cause I came in on the tail end of it.

SBO is sponsored by Arcadia (arcade game mag) so I think they will never go EVO style.
Don't think there will ever be an EVO style comp as big as SBO, at least not as long as SBO is around.
Not to cause any disrespect but consoles in Japan (outside the gaming community) are sorta thought of as non-serious, a little child-like you could say.
Even some of the playas in the FG community only play in the arcades, they don't own or play on consoles.

Not many people know the skillz of any of the JP playas (unless you've travelled over here) cause they don't/haven't been to international comps. There are some good playas over here.

I thought Daigo does pretty good in SF in international comps. SBO made him more famous at the least.
BLT was pretty good (he went to a few comps) but he didn't make it into SBO.
Before Malek went to the US and won he came over here to a TGN comp and he didn't win (he did pretty good though, also his hand was still healin). Always would like so see ya again over here BTW. ; )

 

Don't come at me with that WCG ish when you don't even know that StarCraft is actually in WCG.

TO's will put in whatever game brings in people. EVO had Calibur because it was new. EVO had Tekken because it was new. MLG had Tekken but people wanted SSF4 but that wasn't going to happen. Where does other communities respecting a game that they don't and won't understand come into play?

But regardless if it is in arcades or not, it needs to be great from the jump or else people are going to bash it unfairly and say that it's SC3 all over again. And if an arcade release gets the Japanese to play it, then I am for it. What can't happen is that there's one version in arcades and another on console or else it will defeat the purpose of putting it in the arcade and we'd be back to square 1.

 

You misread that...I am coming from the Starcraft community. What I meant was T6 was at WCG SSf4 wasn't. It's not a matter of just the communities, the TO themselves or even key decision makers in FG communities matter. I bet T6 will be at the next Evo.

You want the game in your hand as soon as possible but that does nothing for its future. SC4 is in our hands what have we done with it?

I think you would want to emulate everything other currently recognized FGs have done, and an Arcade release is a part of that.

Just don't noob it up, like they did with SC4 thank you.

 

who the hell is " Redemption7590" that guy comes off as a whiny annoying gimme-gimme nagger. The comments in the twitter postings worry me.