ALTERED BEAST and SPIKE OUT was in development for over three years actually.
If you ever visited the old Sega site they use to tell you on the dev team page what the next projects were and ALTERED BEAST and SPIKE OUT EXTREME were both on WoW and AV’s coming up next projects on their games list since early 2002.Sega only tells people what games they are doing when it is halfway through completion.SAKURA TAISEN V has been in dev now for over 5 years as well as it’s spinoff title KUOMA which are both to be finally revealed next year.
Sega and Sammy are now a joint company. While they still operate like individual companies Sammy controls Sega as their head honchos are in charge of Sega but mainly the money goes into the SegaSammy Holdings company which is where they pool their profits/budgets from. So Sega are A not in the red,They actually cleared their debts before the merger thsts why they didn’t want to merge with Sammy anymore and B the money Sammy makes alone means that Sega can make any game they want and it wouldn’t dent the holdings company billion dollar value. Who do you think is paying the $2o million plus development cost of SHENMUE ONLINE?
Sammy has made it clear that they want to be top dog in third party publishing and stated that they will merge and buy out other dev studios and smaller third parties. they have expresed an intrest in buying european ones as well.
Correction. Altered Beast (I’m a little less clear on Spike Out) was in planning 3 years ago, but actual development didn’t start until 2 years ago. Trust me on this one.
Sakura Taisen V has not been in development for 5 years. 5 years ago, Sakura 3 and 4 weren’t even out yet. If you’re talking about Sakura 5 the action game with Gemini Sunrise, that didn’t start until about 2.5 years ago. They may have been talking about the fact that they wanted to create Sakura Taisens 3, 4, and 5 back then, but there was nothing being designed/made at the time. Again, trust me on this one.
Sega and Sammy are still separate entities. Their common bond is a parent company (Sega-Sammy Holdings), but they are still considered separate companies and are treated as such financially. Sega-Sammy Holdings may foot the bills, but Sega is still responsible for covering its own bottom lines. For example, do you consider Jeep and Chrysler to be the same company? No. They are separate companies owned by the same entity.
And just because Sega is out of actual debt does not mean it has money. In fact, if you look at the more detailed numbers, the only reason why Sega has been turning a (small) profit is because of arcade sales. Consumer sales are way down. So, no… Sega does not have a license to “make any game they want.”
And those articles don’t disagree with anything I’ve said.
Correction. Altered Beast (I’m a little less clear on Spike Out) was in planning 3 years ago, but actual development didn’t start until 2 years ago. Trust me on this one.
Sakura Taisen V has not been in development for 5 years. 5 years ago, Sakura 3 and 4 weren’t even out yet. If you’re talking about Sakura 5 the action game with Gemini Sunrise, that didn’t start until about 2.5 years ago. They may have been talking about the fact that they wanted to create Sakura Taisens 3, 4, and 5 back then, but there was nothing being designed/made at the time. Again, trust me on this one.
Sega and Sammy are still separate entities. Their common bond is a parent company (Sega-Sammy Holdings), but they are still considered separate companies and are treated as such financially. Sega-Sammy Holdings may foot the bills, but Sega is still responsible for covering its own bottom lines. For example, do you consider Jeep and Chrysler to be the same company? No. They are separate companies owned by the same entity.
And just because Sega is out of actual debt does not mean it has money. In fact, if you look at the more detailed numbers, the only reason why Sega has been turning a (small) profit is because of arcade sales. Consumer sales are way down. So, no… Sega does not have a license to “make any game they want.”
And those articles don’t disagree with anything I’ve said.[/quote]
That article was shown to you because you said that sega and sammy are seperate companies. When the truth of the matter is that they are not.
The company has a 10 billion dollar value so I think Sega has a very good piggy bank to dip from although restricted by Sammy who has the final say in whatever sega does from now on as they have the majority shares.
SAKURA TAISEN 5 will be in 5 years in dev. if you include this year. The game itself won’t be out until 2005. 2000 was when they announced the Sakura World Project and SAKURA WARS 5:EPISODE 0 and SAKURA TAISEN 5 with the SAKURA TAISEN remake for ps2 was the games selected to boarden the franchise to the west.
As i said before Sega has a dev page for all of it’s games and ALTERED BEAST and SPIKEOUT was part of that list since 2002. I’ve seen it loads of times so from that AB and SO has been in dev for nearly three years.
I said they are separate corporate entities. There is a huge difference.
Take, for instance, the company Otsuka America. You’ve probably never heard of it. They own Nature Made vitamins, Crystal Geyser, Tejava, Ridge Winery, etc. etc. Those are all separate corporate entities, but are owned by a single holding company.
Same thing with Sega and Sammy. They share the same owner, but are considered two completely separate corporate entities. And the fact of the matter is that, yes, it helps Sega be financially more stable, but it doesn’t give Sega license to start spending money all willy-nilly.
Sakura World Project was announced actually announced in 2002, as per the then-CEO of Sega, Hiroshi Kayama. And by the way, Sakura PS2 was not announced in 2000. In 2000, Sega was still a 1st party. It wasn’t until the beginning of 2001 that Sega turned 3rd party and began to phase out the DC.
Same thing goes with Altered Beast. The Altered Beast team was working on Alien Front Online until 2001. It wasn’t until after that that the initial discussions began, and it wasn’t until the end of 2002 that the team actually settled in their new location (since the entire team was supplanted and moved) and began development. So, like I said, it’s only been about 2 years of actual development.
The site i was trying to find SakuraTaisen archives is n’t loading.
But from what you said about ALTERED BEAST doesn’t change a thing. I definatly saw it on their webpage back in 2002 as an upcoming title. The game will be released in January 27 2005. So it will be in dev since then.
Unless their is an actual date that you or anyone has of when they started the actual development then we have to let it be. But from what you said the game will be 2years and two months in development.
Not really intrested in usa games. I use to buy jap ones until the DC went kaput. I’m thinking of getting a new console though but refuse to pay over
100 nicker for a sony product.
Cool but not so cool without Joe. Where did that one pop from?[/quote]
That was just something a friend told me. It was also a pre-E3 rumour which didn’t seem to amount to anything.
Of course, my friend also tells me that EA cannot be stopped. “The assault has already begun” as he put it. “Soon everyone will be EA. EA is my mother and father. EA is my mother and father…”.
As for Joe Musashi, well he wasn’t present in the arcade version of Shadow Dancer or The Cyber Shinobi, or Shinobi Legions, nevermind the PS2 games, so he’ll only be missed by longtime fans of the Shinobi series who still remember his debut in the original arcade game.
Not right now, eh? So it’s inevitable then?
It would be nice to see a trilogy of Shinobi games on the PS2 just like there was on the Mega Drive/Genesis.
Haha… Just saying that the rumors may or may not have been true at one point, but I don’t think anything is being worked on right now, just like Skies 2. I’m sure the team was intending on building a sequel, but I don’t think anything is actually being worked on.
Cool but not so cool without Joe. Where did that one pop from?
That was just something a friend told me. It was also a pre-E3 rumour which didn’t seem to amount to anything.
Of course, my friend also tells me that EA cannot be stopped. “The assault has already begun” as he put it. “Soon everyone will be EA. EA is my mother and father. EA is my mother and father…”.
As for Joe Musashi, well he wasn’t present in the arcade version of Shadow Dancer or The Cyber Shinobi, or Shinobi Legions, nevermind the PS2 games, so he’ll only be missed by longtime fans of the Shinobi series who still remember his debut in the original arcade game.
Not right now, eh? So it’s inevitable then?
It would be nice to see a trilogy of Shinobi games on the PS2 just like there was on the Mega Drive/Genesis.[/quote]
Wait a minute I thought it was Joe Mushshi in SHADOW DANCER(MD) which is really a sidestory iMO and SHINOBI X(LEGIONS)
On a side note:Are you the same Geoffery Duke who frequents SFC once in a while?
If you are then HeL- Lo to you,Sir. (If your not just ignore the post.)
I think that most rumours are just the products of wishful thinking (especially in the case of Sega fans who are perhaos a bit too prone to wishful thinking for their own good) rather than industry leaks. I imagine it must be hard though for official sources to keep their secrets to themselves sometimes…
[quote=“Goonboy Panzer”]Wait a minute I thought it was Joe Mushshi in SHADOW DANCER(MD) which is really a sidestory iMO and SHINOBI X(LEGIONS)
On a side note:Are you the same Geoffery Duke who frequents SFC once in a while?
If you are then HeL- Lo to you,Sir. (If your not just ignore the post.)[/quote]
The Mega Drive version of Shadow Dancer was a side story to the arcade game. The ninja hero (the shinobi) in the arcade version was Joe Musashi’s American-born-and-raised son, Hayate. Both games are almost completely different except for the presence of the dog, Yamato (a word that means defender in Japanese I believe), and the fact that you’re always one hit away from death at all times (I still remember playing the arcade game in the early '90s). Sega did port the arcade game to their own Master System, but the conversion left a lot to be desired, even if it was closer to the arcade original than the Mega Drive version was.
The main character in Shinobi Legions was some guy called Sho. I’ve never played the game for more than five minutes, so I can’t tell you much more than that.
And yes, I’m the same Geoffrey Duke who visits Shining Force Central every now and then (small world, eh?). After learning about the new battle system found in the new Shining Force game, nothing has given me much of an incentive to return lately. I’ve almost completely lost interest in the series. Hopefully the other Shining Force game that recently went into development is a proper Strategy/RPG (as Mr Silverwolf’s “sources” have said).
I’m a more wait and see kinda guy until I hear certain info that peices the puzzle.
I’m now gravely concerned about the SHINING FORCE SERIES. It is obvious that Sega is trying to make this game the next RPG Phenomenon by mimicing FF and DQ. But it seems more like they are following the FF route than the DQ model which has n’t had to sell it’s soul to get the big bucks.
From what that guy said in the SFC it all starts to make sense. Sega never
intended not to return to the strategy battle system that always been the focus of the past SHINING FORCE games. They intend to relegate that
system as some sort of spin off title and make the three man quest system the main focus of the game’s series passing it off to noobs who won’t know any better. So the “Sega” system will be called SHINING FORCE and the old Camelot system will be called SHINING FORCE TATICS or something basically along the lines of FF and FF:tatics.
If this is the case then Sega has lost another customer.
But the reality is that Sega started to change since the DC era and by 10 years time I doubt there will be a Sega anymore.
I fail to see how the new SF is anything like a FF game when from what we’ve heard so far it appears that the combat is real-time rather than turn based. Or is this FF rip deal based solely on the fact there’s three team members? That would be quite ridiculous. If anything it could be similar to the Seiken Densetsu series, not FF…
Also, I’d be happy if Sega eventually created a true Shining Force game even if they called it a “spin off” of the series for the new fan base. I doubt they have plans for that but if they do I’d have no reason to complain about it. It would be a Force game so why care if it has a different name or is labelled a “spin off”? It would be a lot better than not getting a turn based tactics based game at all and instead having all the new Shining games being Action RPGs, no?
What I mean by following the FF route is that FF was a respectable RPG but got watered down and turned into a shadow of what the former games use to be just so they could get a bigger audience. Where DQ has progressed
in it’s own stride though a lot of spin off titles have popped up recently the main game of the franchise is still essentially a good RPG and not the glorified joke that FF has become.
Sega intends to water down ShF in order to make it big with the mainstream.
What’s worse is that they are going to pass this title as the main game while the old system might be passed off as a spin off title. Better than nothing? If Sega tried to pass off PD as a beat em up while the main game
ends up as a spin of shooter would anyone here be happy about that?
Sega’s going for the mainstream route, and is failing miserably.
See: Shining Tears, where sales were high on day one simply because of Tony’s artwork in the game. Japanese auction sites are flooded with copies of the game; no one gives a crap. The 2D graphics didn’t help it much in an age where 3D graphics reign, but to top it off, the gameplay is mediocre as well. I love being right.
Once again, Sega’s marketing remains utterly clueless. Fat lot of good hiring fancy artists and music composers did, eh? Maybe if you stuck to your guns with more games than just Sonic The Hedgehog and listened to your fanbase, maybe you’d see some more success. We don’t play Shining games for Tony, we don’t play Shining games for cheesy Jpop with opening videos, and we don’t play Shining games for anime cutscenes.
This is why Nintendo has a cult following with Fire Emblem, and why they sell well with every release. They stuck to their guns from day one, and don’t turn their backs on their established fanbase. Those of you looking for a tactical strategy/RPG similar to Shining Force should look into this, since it’s been confirmed for an English translation on GameCube for mid 2005.
Edit: As of note, if any of you want to have a quick laugh, Phantasy Star Online Episode IV will be in Beta testing in little over a week.
I really wish that Yoshitaka Tamaki (who works for Amusement Vision now) was given the job of drawing the main character designs in Shining Tears and/or the new Shining Force game since I loved his character designs in the original two Shining games (for the Mega Drive/Genesis). Of course, just by looking at the female characters in Shining Tears, you can see why Sega hired a Hentai artist (Tony Taka) to draw the bulk of the artwork.
The only thing that really matters to Sega is that nearly every copy of Shining Tears Sega distributed in the first week has been sold.
Call it nostalgia, but I’m still holding onto the faint hope that the other Shining Force game that Sega started developing recently is a true Shining Force game. Only time will tell.
From a graphical standpoint the new Shining Force does look beautiful though, even if the artwork and the new battle system leave a lot to be desired.
A lot of people literally fell in love with the game during the Dreamcast era. It’s just that Sega recycled the game for all that it was worth instead of taking the franchise forward.
I’ve been meaning to give Fire Emblem for GBA a try since I’ve heard it’s very similar to Shining Force in that each unit is a character rather than some random soldier you hire at the bar (or the store or guild or wherever else you get them). If it would just drop down to $20 I’ll pick it up.
Depending on how that goes I may pick up the GC version.
Regarding PSO, it could be quite a lot of fun playing online with the right set of people. I had a regular group I met up with every Friday/Saturday night back during the Dreamcast era and that made all the difference. But after the DC servers went down I stopped playing since there’s not as much of a point to it offline.
It’s good, and very similar to Shining Force in many ways.
One interesting - and at times annoying - feature is that once a character dies, they’re gone for the rest of the game (although their are certain circumstances when they’ll appear again). You have to be a lot more careful with your units than in Shining Force.
It’s definitely worth picking up though, if you’ve got a GBA.
