The Art of Virtua Fighter | Yu Suzuki interview 1995 | Saturn 2 rumors

Hey all, this magazine had some great VF art, a great interview with Yu Suzuki and some speculation on Saturn 2.

Enjoy!

 

must be chilly wherever sarah is on that cover

 

TLR.
can someone point me to the section that talks about how VF3 cabinets costed 15K USD while SNK / Capcom cabinets costed 3k, which destroyed the VF scene established by VF2, and caused Sega to lose money on VF3. And the fact YS tried to make an MMO style RPG with shemue and lost more than 100 million dollars for Sega, which led to the dismissal of YS from the company. Now fast forward to 2015 when YS had to resort Kickstarter with Sony to milk even more money from naive fans, like Godoku, blackstrap, Rodney John.. Zzz... Get off YS crouch already @oneida.

 

OK, now tell me how you REALLY feel about the man.

 

These are facts, verifiable facts. I just happen to lived through them. You might think you can derive my feelings on the topoc, but they are irrelevant. I just it laughable someone, who doesn't seem to understand the whole story abou YS and Sega, rave about how YS "made" Sega... YS might've made Sega in the arcades two decades ago, but that company died long time ago..

 

Can't slam Yu without bringing up SoJ forcing the release of the 32X and the stealth Saturn launch soon after.....

 

What does talking about YS on a VF website has to with talking about YS and Sega? Don't take everything personally. You should know YS is a game developer, not a business man when it comes to video games. He made great games, but he doesn't know how to make money from it. Sega did.. Take a look at Shemue, Shemue was a great game by its own standards, but it's not a money maker for its time when it came out. When Shemue came out it was competing with both American MMORPGs and JRPGs, stuff like FF10 on PS2, FFXI on PC/PS2, EQ, later WoW on PC. It never stood a chance, Sega dumped a ton of money into YS' vision because it made so much money for them before. Anyone with any insights knew SM never stood a chance against the competition. Let's not even go into how SM was built on a console that was vastly inferior to it's competitors: PS2 / PC while Sega fucked up big time with their GD-ROM bullshit. YS wanted to do SM as a MMO style game, cuz he knew online was the future, too bad he wasn't the only one. While DC had online capabilities earlier than any other console, even if SM went the MMO route, it still would've failed as it did, as EQ / WoW / SWO / FFXI all would've owned SM. I can talk to you all day about this shit, but ultimately YS' vision was beyond the finance backing of Sega.
The same moral story goes for Virtua Fighter.. or what was VF: VF2/3/4... VF2, YS basically realized his vision of "fast action" / "complex" 3D fighting game. Sega made a ton of money off VF2, it was like a culture phenomenal in JP and even in the US/EU there was a huge following of game. Story of VF3 follows the logically, YS' vision... The hardware, Model3, was expensive as shit, to a point where arcade operations couldn't afford them. Like I said from a business perspective Arcade ops can pick from a 15k Sega VF3 or FIVE 3k SNK MVS / Capcom CPS2 systems. Are you kidding? Dumb business decision! You know what you see when you walk into mom and pops pizza/sub shops 20 years ago? Kids play games on arcade cabs, SF2T/SSF2/SNK/VF2... nobody had VF3 cabs, cuz it's too damn expensive!!! You had to go to like huge arcade establishments to even see a VF3. And you did find a VF3 machine, it costed an arm and leg to even play it... never mind getting good at it. People are all like Ooo VF3's game play killed the game.. no man, it was Sega's business model. What came after... VF4: a low cost, water downed game in both technical and aesthetic. Stages are square, undulation gone, Taka gone, Graphics looked at most average for its times. Yes they improved VF4 through out it's life cycle, and it was a pretty respectable game, but it was never ground breaking as vf2/3. VF4 was just follow the mainstream, make some money, move on shit...
Everything else after, it's not even VF, VF in sense of YS vision. You think you are playing VF? You are not. How many years you've been playing FS? Can't even fuzzy guard. Lazy TE 6+pg is like shit from DoA during VF3 days, and comparing DoA to VF during VF3 would get you slapped in the back the head. you are just being milked by Sega cuz of your infatuation man. Sorry...
You know what Sega is today.. Sega is a EA wannabe. Sega used to create games, now it just milks on other people nostalgia and creativity, that's the bottom line. I hope this book helps you distinguish the difference between VF and YS/Sega...

 

TLDR? @BLACKSTAR? Owned by book.... GG @Shang

 

Sega still makes games.

 

Complete non-sense.
Although all the rest is true to a certain degree, Yu Suzuki is not to blame.

 

Was interested in a possible Saturn 2 that early (maybe 1996-97) with graphics somewhere between Model2 and Model3. Given that the article was published in late 1995, it was a few years before the earliest rumors about Dreamcast.

 

@BLACKSTAR man... all these staff member, gold support, media manager, Sarah content manager badges have blown you head up.
YS was the top Sega developer, he had a huge saying on their projects. Jesus... Is this really hard to get? He made Sega a bunch of money, then he says I wanna do this and need this amount of money, Sega okayed and lost a ton of money... Now their relationship is bonked. Therefore it's not right to the OP to say YS made Sega.
Also Sega admits they want to be EA means what?? It means nothing... Cuz I don't need to read their PR bullshit to see this. Your heads so stuck up their ass you don't get the implications, you know tier 2 yomi? Sega becoming EA means they stopped creating, and just sell other people's work.. Like EA. You realize EA is like the most hated tech company in the world right??
Read between the lines for a change man, think beyond the black and white text son. No wonder you can't even beat @BBountyHuntyr in FS...

 

@Citrus consider you joined vfdc as late as 2015, I don't think you learned how to read when these events occurred. Also I question if you could even read today given your incoherent juvenile response. Move along now.

 

Anyone have an opinion on the possibility of Sega launching a Saturn 2 console in 1996-1997 built specifically for 3D polygon graphics and good enough to handle decent ports of VF3, Scud Race, etc? Instead of waiting until 1998-1999 to have Dreamcast.

A better designed Saturn for 3D is what some of SoJ's management wanted in the first place.