Quick dirty barebone Japan report

I am writing this from Nanjing, PRC. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to play against Peter. But in Nanjing Peter and I had fun doing a little more sane activities.

Anyway, nobody here wants to hear about that so let me just write a few notes about Japan in relation to some recent post:

To be short, currently VF3 in Japan is most definitely NOT
1. #2 most played game
2. #2 most installed game

I further confirm the post that dancing games (and the countless derivatives) are where the money is. In Japan and Korea they are everywhere.

I maybe checked out 7/8 or so arcades in Japan and a similar number in Korea.
As far as fighting games go, I only found two VF3 machines in Japan and one in Korea. In comparison, maybe I saw 11 or 12 or so TTT machines in Japan and a similar number in Korea. And of course, Capcom vs SNK has a similar, if not more, numbers spread out. (In Japan anyway that seemed to be the most popular fighting game being played now.)


Anyway that was my observation. Take it as what it's worth.

(But for the last comment, at least Namco/Capcom/SNK DO know that to keep the interest in their games alive, you have to do some milking.)

 

sounds all quite logic....but for someone like me who studys statistics as a main part of his study 7-8 arcades are not enough(i also work in an arcade one time during the week) representative for any kind of conclusion......and if you see a machine in an arcade doesn't meen that this maschine is making a lot of money........i still think that famitsu has a good reputation.....and if they say VF3tb has got 12358 points and is on second place that has to meen that this machine is popular in some kind of way...........

brumm,brumm,brumm,..........allright!!!!!!!!!

 

Just out of curiousity... Regarding the Famitsu list... Can you list the other titles that were on the list? Perhaps the list was made out of a specific context we're not considering... For example, it could be a list of how well games did in a 2 year life span or something like that and thus VF was up there... who knows, but I think I recall you mentioning you weren't exactly sure what the chart was exactly... But reading just the numbers isn't enough to make a valid conclusion on the nature of the chart. The main questions we can ask (for those that can't read and interpret Japanese anyways) are: 1) what do we know about the chart? 2) what do we not know about the chart?

When you are dealing with polls, statistics, charts, anything... everything... context is always very important. Hyun makes a good point and trust me, it's a good one... Bemani style games have been dominating Japan, Korea, and many East Asian countries for at least a year. When I went to Thailand, there were only two games that were really played compared to the huge amounts of arcades... Dance Dance Revolution (and other variations and versions), and Winning Eleven on the PSX... Concerning DDR, they were everywhere.... Imagine 20 units lined up in every mall, a unit in just about every theatre, 5-15 in a dedicated arcade.... And then imagine Japan and Korea where they are even right outside of mini-markets as well as loading the arcades... From my understanding, the popularity may have died down a bit (by determining who are the fans to those who were just playing it, but it still has a huge fan base). Not to mention the huge promotions in Korea. They freakin' have events where people do their routines on stages in a small club with props and what not.

Sure, VF is definitely still played, the videoclips from Japan recently have been showing that... But I think it's reduced back into a cult following... the casual players wre probably weeded out back in the day.... recently the fans... then the hardcore... and now you have the hardcore of the hardcore left... Anyways... there's my rambling.

-Chanchai

P.S. If you're wondering about the popularity of Winning Eleven which is a PSX game... the approach in Thailand is this... in just about every mall, arcade, department store, etc... There were TVs lined up with Playstations and most of them dedicated to Winning Eleven (a soccer game for those who don't know) with people playing on just about all of them, competing, and with huge crowds around them. I don't know the status of the game in Japan... but last I went to Thailand, last few times I went, that was the status in Bangkok.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Chanchai on 10/26/00 03:44 PM.</FONT></P>

 

Well that sounds crazy, wish I could see that sometime........I only can tell you that I took that chart from dailyradar.com every week in the news-section(and V.F3tb was always very high...on the first place was that horse riding game(derby.something)then there was virtua striker..virtua tennis............the context wasn't named they only said that famitsu has got a good reputation about such statistics..........the next time i see one i will post you the location...........................

P.S certanly we don't need a good ranking in the arcades to know how special this game is ........

brumm,brumm,brumm.....no way I can stop my sister..

 

i was visiting japan back in july ... i have been in shinjuku for 3 nights ... 3 nights in Kani sportsland and some other arcade in that area ... friday, saturday, and sunday nights in kani was packed with those vfers that you could see in the last section of the vf3 official guide (orange cover) ... those famous guys are still playing like crazy with those 8-10 tb machine in kani ... of course, chibita and the maximum battle japan no.1 were there all 3 nights ...

 

All I can say to nascarbryant is:
That's what I saw with my own eyes. No more, no less.
Nothing stopping you from going to Japan yourself to
take your own sampling.

But let me also say a few more:
1. Say, if you went to certain select locations in
the US (such as Boston Jillians a few years ago)
, you would have gotten the impression that VF3 was
the most popular moneymaker in the US.
2. Sega is in big financial trouble. If VF3 was such
an incredible moneymaker, business logic dictates that
they should have released VF4 already. Instead they
(and everyone and his momma in the industry)
are chunking out more dancing game derivatives.

Again, take those what it's worth.

 

Thanks for your report hyun wish i could also go to japan..........well certanly i believe you.....everbody knows that VF has got no importance outside of japan(when i worked in the arcades as parttimejob and we had the VF3 version a machine I did all i could to explain the people how to start learning this game i even cut the price to half but i soon realized that for many casual players....that they could't get enough out of the game when they played for a short amount of time, they didn't have this problem with other fighters).........(there is tekken.....and other games).........there were several reasons:
1)for example model hardware was quite more expensive then system 11(Tekken,soul blade)
2)playstation sucsses made does games rapidly popular(saturn wasn't able to do that)
3)Chliche fighters in tekken were more attractive for people (jacky chan, bruce lee, tarminator-stuff, tigerman...popular in japan.......
4)Button smashers could get only poor sadisfaction from VF..because a)guard interuppts everithing b) many moves depend on exact combination between stick and button .
5) V.F wasn't enough spectacular for a lot of people.....no explosions,no lightning effects,no blood and gore.....

P.S still i want to tell you to take a look to www.dailyradar.com/news/game_news_5571.html maybe you can explain what that 12922 does mean

brumm,brumm,brumm, see you around.......

 

how do they afford playing so much? nt

nt means 'no text'