VF's popularity in Japan???

I read the newest Arcadia and found VF5 isn't that popular as I expected. The arcade vs game popularity goes like this:

1. Gundam Seed
2. Tekken 5 DR
3. GGXX Slash
4. Melty Blood
5. VF5


Perhaps 2 bucks a match really hinders people from playing this game. If VF5 is still around 5th place next month you can tell something is going wrong. VF3 and VF4 were number 1s for months after they released. Guilty Gear X was the only fighting game that can compete with VF for number 1 back then. Now I am really worried...

 

The article is somewhat old and VF5 is still in somewhat limited distrubtion. It's not a suprise to see other games being played more at all.

 

the game isn't 200 yen anymore.

I'm not that surprised, I think it's a result of Sega's approach to making this game. There isn't any REALLY BIG innovation over VF4. I also don't think the distribution is that limited, I've heard from friends about smaller arcades that have bought kits which fit into older Sega cabinets.

just my opinion here: I think they milked VF4 for so long, that by the end of the life span for FT, there were only some hardcore fans left playing. This is how it was in March when I was there, I might get a challenge, but at most places, no one was playing VF in a dedicated way. Now that VF5 has come, with minimal changes, I can't see what they've done to try to attract new players to the game, so it would seem that the same small audience has continued to play.

If you look at the clips we've been watching, you can see some players we know, but not anywhere near the same number of well known players we saw in VF4/Evo.

 

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akiralove said:

If you look at the clips we've been watching, you can see some players we know, but not anywhere near the same number of well known players we saw in VF4/Evo.

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It's just my speculation, but if I was one of the well known players, I wouldn't be too eagar to post my replays on the web. I would save them probably to share them with close friends or for myself to improve.
I heard Tiger Woods keep his traning method secret.

A lot of matches I've watched from the Hong Kong website have been matches between a well known player vs an unknown player( to me at least), and more often than not, the match went to the unknown player. I don't think that the # of famous players' replays on the web correctly represent the popularity of VF5 among the famous players.

 

There's also likely a 1-3 month lag between what is being reported and what is happening, so I do think that lack of distribution was a significant contributing factor at that time. I expect VF5's ranking to improve, but we shall see.

Bryan, say what you want about VF but when I was in Tokyo I only saw one arcade in which people were actually even playing Tekken so my anecdotal experience is sitll that VF >> Tekken.

 

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ice-9 said:
Bryan, say what you want about VF but when I was in Tokyo I only saw one arcade in which people were actually even playing Tekken so my anecdotal experience is sitll that VF >> Tekken.

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Maybe you didn't go to the good spots /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Because this is not what I saw .
When I went there for Tougeki Tekken was pretty popular, and VF seems to be at real end of it's lifespan, except in a few places. There were still alot of cabinets (a lot more than T5 overall) but certainly not crowded with players. I think FT was ranked 12th at that moment. Did you go to Shibya's Namco Arcade or even More for T5 ?

I'm with Akira love on this one I'm a bit worried about VF5 life span and capacity to bring new players to the scene. Well, we'll see ^^.

 

http://wannafight.us/here/viewtopic.php?t=98&sid=3ec9af2aa944a4f943dd8bccc7223383

This thread has some very strong sentiments towards this installment. Mainly from two people: Sekajin, and Shou. I'll be honest and say that I'm taking their views with a grain of salt because it's always about what their character is lacking vs. x player or character instead of just realizing that it isn't VF4 anymore.

They may find offense to that, but I've seen too many people make premature judgements on a lot of things as well as having their view be molded from other people - so what if Heruru (great guy) doesn't like VF5 other people (SuperG and Nammy for example) are having a great time with it.

So until this game hits consoles I'm not listening to anyone's opinion, but my own when I'm sitting in front of my TV trying everyone out.

 

I think the reason for the way VF5 is in Japan right now is because the game is constantly going through revisions. Even when revision 1 came out, Version A was already being beta tested. Even during the qualifiers the game has gone through a version change. Once all that settles down, I'm sure we'll see VF5 at the top of the rankings just the same way we saw Tekken: DR overtake FT during the end of FT's life span.

I don't think there's anything to be worried about seeing the way VF5's distribution is nowadays. There are certain arcades in Japan with whole floor worth of VF5 machines now.

 

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akiralove said:

the game isn't 200 yen anymore.

I'm not that surprised, I think it's a result of Sega's approach to making this game. There isn't any REALLY BIG innovation over VF4. I also don't think the distribution is that limited, I've heard from friends about smaller arcades that have bought kits which fit into older Sega cabinets.

just my opinion here: I think they milked VF4 for so long, that by the end of the life span for FT, there were only some hardcore fans left playing. This is how it was in March when I was there, I might get a challenge, but at most places, no one was playing VF in a dedicated way. Now that VF5 has come, with minimal changes, I can't see what they've done to try to attract new players to the game, so it would seem that the same small audience has continued to play.

If you look at the clips we've been watching, you can see some players we know, but not anywhere near the same number of well known players we saw in VF4/Evo.

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My sentiments exactly. I dont see any new elements in VF5 that is potentially groundbreaking, it looks more like VF4.5 to me.

 

Yeah, but ditto for every other fighting game out there so it would not explain VF's relative lack of success (or failure).

 

In U.S News and World report, they had an article on gaming in Japan. In it they noted that there are 50% fewer arcades in japan than there were 5 or 10 years ago (forgot the exact time referance). There is also a cultural push in Japan to get people out of arcades and into productive society.

 

Ah the old drive to stop people having less fun and to keep them working more, I think thats happening not just in Japan /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

That's not the problem, bros!

I mean, I dont freaking care it's 1 billion ppl or 10 ppl playing in the arcade in Japan. All I care is VF can still become the number 1 fighting game in Japanese Arcade. It not like arcade business in the U.S. fall apart will make Street Fighter lesser popular in its genre (at least it's still the most popular fighting game in the U.S. arcade). Imagine Tekken DR remain more popular than VF5 until Tekken 6 came out...

 

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Shadowdean said:

In U.S News and World report, they had an article on gaming in Japan. In it they noted that there are 50% fewer arcades in japan than there were 5 or 10 years ago (forgot the exact time referance). There is also a cultural push in Japan to get people out of arcades and into productive society.

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Arcades include pachinko and I think that will never die as long as there is money to be made. This study I would take with a grain of salt for the most part, imho. It would seem from trying promote this way of thought is just like the tobacco industry paying for advertisment to say it's helping to decrease smokers, very laughable. Most of that 50% are probably tired of competing with home console releases that kill arcade business. I don't blame them one bit for shutting shop in a losing battle. Knowing all this there is still hope for the arcade industry. This is where the introduction of half-life arcade came into play. I don't know the turnout for popularity of this game at present, but imagine the possibilities. I don't know if there is a home version equivalent or compatible to the arcade version, but if there is, someone is looking to the future to cater to every player's schedule. Imagine not being able to go to the tourney, but you could still attend at home. Say you had the choice of either and you wanted the arcade feel which I prefer since I miss out on that aspect here. Either way it MIGHT be the key to keeping arcades alive at this stage in the game, but it's all just a guess at this point.

Just some food for thought..

laters^_^

 

The key to keeping arcades alive is to make games that are fun and not replicable for home consoles.

I really doubt arcades will ever die at least in Japan, but it will always be reserved for mostly the hardcore players.

 

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ice-9 said:

Yeah, but ditto for every other fighting game out there so it would not explain VF's relative lack of success (or failure).

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There are other game genres out there, and ppl can choose to play those instead if there arent any good/interesting fighting games. I dont think VF5 has the same groundbreaking elements in VF2/3/4 that brought those games enormous success in Japan.

 

1: GundamSeed Destiny vs ZAFT II
2: Tekken 5 DR
3: Virtua Fighter 5 (RV1)
4: Melty Blood Act Candenza
5: Guilty Gear XX Slash
6: Virtua Striker 4 Ver.2006
7: Power Smash 3
8: Hokuto no Ken
9: Kinnikuman Mascle GP
10: The King of Fighters XI

Time to relax?

T5: DR has 188.1 pts. and VF5 has 175.2 pts, so only a really small gap between them. Gundam is still far and away the leader though.

 

Yeeeeeeeeeeees!

At this rate, VF5 will be on top of all other fighting game next month... Now let's see how VF5 take over Gundam's place and stay on the top for another 4 years, haha.

The funny thing is that despite Hokuto no Ken's endless glitches and unbalance craps, it's actually climbing up slowly! It seems like I not the only YAAFI enjoys this little buggy game at this moment.

 

where do you play hokuto no ken ??? CTF has it?? out on ps2??

 

KongMan has it. Think the address is 80 Bowery off of Hester St. Not far from CF, like 6 blocks. They close early around 8-9 ish.

Its looks like a regular store selling movies and CD's but you have to go all the way in the back and they have a few arcade machines there. They have HNK, KOFXI and Initial D plus others.

I've gone there a couple of times to meetup with Tian where he scrapes me in HNK. (I blame the sticks and Thouther) heh heh