So, Lagi and Abadd, what do you guys think of the idea of a Panzer Dragoon Saga remake? (just curious)
Sega reshuffled their development teams so that now Smilebit are developing mainly (or only) Sports games. Most of the Panzer Dragoon Orta team is part of Amusement Vision, who are now designing “epic, cinematic” titles, such as the new Shining ‘Force’ game. So, if another Panzer Dragoon game arrives, it’s most likely to come from them.
A PSP port might work quite well…
Seriously, just how many items would a port of PDS sell? 1000? 2000?
There is absolutely no way there will ever be a remake or a port of PDS ever ever.
You can put the arguments in two categories: there are arguments pro and contra.
Unfortunately 90% of all pro arguments come from hardcore fans (who noone takes seriously) and all the arguments against come from people who actualy worked or still work in the industry professionally.
- PDS didn’t sell in Japan and it didn’t do that well in the rest of the world either. (Japanese executives are not interested WHY it didn’t sell, that would be accepting own failures which is a nono in (Japanese) management culture)
1.1 A port or remake would never sell enough copies to be worth the effort, yet would still bind ressources that could be used elsewhere to produce more profitable titles.
- Right now SEGA still tries to bring new value to the SEGA and the PD brand, a port or remake would be a step in the oposite direction.
(IMHO it would be more efficient to revive the old cool SEGA image they had 10 years ago. But then again for that you would need a charismatic leader who at the same time is NOT a crazy crazy person, like yuu suzuki for example)
Again, I personally hope no SOJ devteam will touch the PD license in the next couple of years. Nothing good would come from that, neither for SEGA, the PD brand nor the fans of the series. Right now it would be a financially and planning-wise ill fated project just like Orta and would decrease the brand’s value.
yay thankyou, and i baisically agree with nearly everything you said above =)
A direct port of Panzer Dragoon Saga on the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP might do well. Panzer Dragoon Saga does carry quite a legendary status after all and I’m sure there must be a few gamers out there who missed out at the time, but would still be willing to buy PDS if it came out on a console that they owned. If it was only marketed right…
Gamespot gave Panzer Dragoon Saga RPG of the Year in 1998, did it not?
I’m not entirely sure about the accuracy of that number (could very well be true), but Bizarre Creations and Lionhead are hardly the reason why. There’s a little-known developer called Rockstar North from Britain. Maybe you’ve heard of them? ;)[/quote]
30% was a number that came from the lips of the head of Lionhead Studios in 2000. If you disagree with it, take it up with him. 
Even if that number is way off the mark (which it probably is), my point is that the market for games stretches from coast to coast now instead of being centered around Japan.
[quote=“lagi_webmaster”]
[quote]
30% of all games made come from Britain now, believe it or not [/quote]
Going of topic, but that is kind of a wierd statement, 30% of console titles? 30% of purchased titles? 30% of titles purchaseable in the UK? I know if I walk into a US game store, 30% of the games on the shelves are not from the UK (are you counting Canada?). I do realize the UK does a lot of game you wouldn’t think of, but I’m pretty aware of the devlopers who make stuff …[/quote]
You can thank quite a few British developers for making the original Playstation the huge success that it ultimately turned out to be. Where would Sony be now without Core (makers of Tomb Raider) or Psygnosis (makers of the Wipeout series)? A lot of high profile games have come from Britain – I’m not sure if we should regard Sudeki as one of them though.
Sony turned the Playstation into such a huge success by securing the support of many third party developers outside of Japan (some even before the console was launched) who could garner the support of gamers in their respective countries. And it worked.
Sony succeeded in creating the global market it set out to create during the Playstation/Saturn era while Sega was too shortsighted to see past Japan.
So again I ask: if Sega considered making a new Panzer Dragoon RPG, why must it be developed with Japanese gamers in mind ahead of all others when there’s a global market for the game waiting to be found?
Because the majority of Sega’s big names live in Japan (Yu Suzuki, Yuji Naka), and Sega itself started in Japan originally.
The video game industry right now is like a game of No-Limit, Texas-Hold-Em Poker. Sega is on a short stack of chips, and the blinds keep coming around to it. The only time it can afford to play any of it’s chips on a hand now is to go “all in” on an absolute certainity (Sonic, for example), until it’s doubled up enough to try anything innovative. Meanwhile, Sony has like 74% of the chips on the table and uses the “all in” manuver to bypass and buy off any moves that could in theory make other companies rich.
Sorry if you don’t play poker!
Absolutely true.
One thing regarding a sequel : I would much prefer a PDS remake than another PDO.
I agree with Solo about the possible success of a PDS remake on the PSP or DS.
Correction “…Hack,even my country…”
Sega was founded by an American called David Rosen, and the last time I checked, Sega was an international company with headquarters in America, Britain and Japan. Also, the former head of Sega of America, Tom Kalinskie, helped make the Mega Drive/Genesis the massive success that it was outside of Japan (but not in it) all thanks to some clever American business tactics. If Sega of Japan hadn’t been so arrogant and listened to him by launching the better-equiped Saturn he recommended, then Sega would still be an industry leader. Much of Sega’s wealth came from America and Europe before the industry shifted its focus to 3D games (with Sega leading the way).
Why do you think that Sammy is so eager to establish itself stateside and in Europe? If Sega doesn’t want to act like an international company (like Sony), then I suggest that it doesn’t release its games outside of Japan.
Do you really want Sega to only care about Japan, feed everyone else living in the rest of the world mere scraps and expect us to be grateful for it? Thanks, but no thanks. Sega of Japan did that during the Saturn era and its insular politics almost cost Sega its life.
Shouldn’t Sega learn from its past mistakes?
Hey… care to elaborate on this point a little? Something i never knew
direct port of Panzer Dragoon Saga on the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP might do well.<<
I was actually thinking that this might be a really good idea- they could do a direct port and the graphics would hold up pretty well- the DS isn’t much more powerful than an N64, and the PSP’s screen is so small it might look really good. They’d have to release it as a launch title, though, when there isn’t much RPG competition.
a direct port? how would that work when theydon’t have the original assets? I guess about 70% of the game had to be reworked from scratch. that’s not a direct port anymore.
By ‘direct port’ I mean that the game could be ported to the either the PSP or DS, as accurately as possible using the code and resources that they still have from the Saturn version of Panzer Dragoon Saga - without changing things in the story, art style, etc. Obviously, a lot of the game would need to be reworked as the systems are quite different, but the game design has already been done, and there’d really be no need to change it, so that would save Sega some resources and time.
Thinking about the idea again, someone would probably feel the need change things, and that could be for the worse, but a proper conversion of Panzer Dragoon Saga on a handheld system would be awesome.
I dearly doubt there are any assets left. Therefor you had to start from scratch and you also had to write a whole new game engine. Probably you have no idea what developing a game is like?
It’s not really some dark magic involved, but some things can be done and some just can’t.
If you have all the assets (textures, 3d models, animation data in raw format) it could be theoretically done, but for a PSP or a DS port you had to write a totally new game engine. And remember the Saturnn used an awful lot of 2D hardware effects that neither the PSP nor the DS are capable of, and you had to work something out that looked similar (yet in 99% of all cases it would look different to worse).
It simply would not sell enough to compensate for all that work.
It’s not really some dark magic involved, but some things can be done and some just can’t.<<
Since I really don’t know the exact state of the Panzer Saga code + assets I couldn’t say how easy or hard it would be for Sega, but you’d be suprised what can be outsourced for very little money. The game company I work for sent over some 3-D previous gen (arcade) games to China- a lot of the source assets weren’t there and the code was in very poor shape, but the company did an amazing job of recreating the game, with the old shipping product on the system as their guide on how to make it. It was really crazy what they were able to do. They just set an army of programmers (and a few artists) and it was done for a very low expense.
A lot of the ‘retro’ style collections are created this way, when they aren’t straight emulated and the source material is lacking.
[quote=“Solo Wing Dragon”]By ‘direct port’ I mean that the game could be ported to the either the PSP or DS, as accurately as possible using the code and resources that they still have from the Saturn version of Panzer Dragoon Saga - without changing things in the story, art style, etc. Obviously, a lot of the game would need to be reworked as the systems are quite different, but the game design has already been done, and there’d really be no need to change it, so that would save Sega some resources and time.
Thinking about the idea again, someone would probably feel the need change things, and that could be for the worse, but a proper conversion of Panzer Dragoon Saga on a handheld system would be awesome.[/quote]
I know I would buy a new handheld just to play PDS DS/PSP
Now that, you just can’t now.I actually think it would sell VERY well.Specially in the PSP.
[quote=“Scott”]
Hey… care to elaborate on this point a little? Something i never knew[/quote]
Sega of Japan released the Saturn we all know and love/hate instead of a Saturn that was built from state-of-the-art hardware at the time and built around a single chip processor Sega of America’s Tom Kalinskie recommended.
The Saturn Sega of Japan chose to release used dual processors which no one in the games industry except Sega was familiar with and was constructed out of cheaper “on-the-shelf” parts.
Do you know what I hate? Sega refusing to acknowledge that it did anything wrong. The only thing that’s worse than that is Sega fans defending Sega’s fatal mistakes.
The question is: should Sega focus on Japan most of time (like it did during the Saturn era), or start acting like an international company again? Thinking about Japan first (like in the case of RPGs) and everyone else second or not at all is not in Sega’s best interests. Sega is finally waking up to this fact.
A company never “shoulds” anything.A company sets it’s own goals.In the end we gamers my gain or lose with it’s decisions but unless we are stockholders we can’t really blame it.
I still doubt that would be an option. There are games that are more famous and sold better whichcould be re-released that way (if at all).
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]
Sega was founded by an American called David Rosan…(and so on)[/quote]
Just goes to show, kiddies, never assume that a video game show that airs during kids TV is well into the facts!
What exactly does SEGA mean, or stand for, anyway?