Cave

[christian]

http://www.cave.co.jp/

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[christian]

Interview: Cave's Tsuneki Ikeda from 2010 - http://gaming.moe/?p=757

A lot of Cave fans don’t seem to care for Dodonpachi II.

As it turned out, Dodonpachi II performed extremely well. IGS sold it in Asia and then brought it to the Japanese market a few years later, where we first saw it. That was what convinced us to re-enter the arcade market.

Wait, re-enter? Did Cave quit arcades?

We were strongly considering it. We had reached a point where we were doing mostly contract work, people weren’t interested in publishing our stuff, and the risks for doing publishing ourselves were way too high. We planned to stop after Progear, which is why there were no new arcade games from us until DDP DOJ.

But then Dodonpachi II changed your minds.

After we saw how well it performed, we figured we could make our own new DDP installment and it could likely do just as well.

[christian]

http://www.caveshmups.com

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[christian]

The dream is coming true. Let's hope that these ports are given the level of quality that they deserve.

[christian]

Might have spoken too soon when I said "ports".

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... tcount=291

There are a lot of rumors about this. Only one game is 100% confirmed for now. There's been talk about a second game, but it's not set in stone by any means and I don't want to make promises I can't keep later (hence "a" game).

Beyond that, it really depends on how well this release does. In a perfect scenario, the game would be a smash hit and we'd get the opportunity to localize more games. Expecting the entire library is a tad ambitious though ^_^;

[christian]

It's Mushihimesama - http://www.caveshmups.com/mushihimesama

[christian]

https://d289qh4hsbjjw7.cloudfront.net/d ... elease.pdf

More CAVE games will be coming to Steam soon too!

Stay tuned for an interview with CAVE’s famous SHMUP Director Tsuneki Ikeda at the Tokyo Game Show on Sept 20th, 2015. The interview begins at 14:00 JPT on the Tokyo Otaku Mode channel: http://www.youtube.com/tokyootakumode

[christian]

TGS 2015 DARIUSBURST Chronicle Saviours and Cave Shmups - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAX0y5Q7-uo

[christian]

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 6#p1133746

... cave should have some sort of poll on their website or somewhere asking people what port they want most.

I don't think Cave is really interested in that information. First, all the results are limited to the people who find and take the poll which isn't necessarily the same group of people who end up buying the games (i.e. the group of people Cave is actually interested in). Second, Cave is looking for games that have the highest potential customer base while requiring the least amount of porting effort. What has been going on with Treasure is an interesting parallel - their Xbox Live Arcade games:

• Ikaruga 2008-04-09
• Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury 2011-05-11
• Radiant Silvergun 2011-09-14
• Guardian Heroes 2013-04-02

versus the Treasure games that have made it to Steam:

• Gunstar Heroes 2011-01-26 published by Sega
• Ikaruga 2014-02-18 published by Treasure

If Cave is going to act in a similar fashion to Treasure then Mushihimesama HD is going to be the only Cave game on Steam for a long while. Furthermore look at their choice for their first Steam release - two traits jump out:

1. Already ported to Xbox 360.
2. Release was NTSC-J region-locked AND not released in other regions.

"Already ported to Xbox 360" probably translates to a relatively easy (though far from effortless) port to Steam/PC. An exclusively region-locked release would leave the global market the "least saturated" in Cave's eyes. So if there are any further releases from Cave to Steam it is likely that priority titles would "already be ported to Xbox 360" but "released exclusively (region-locked) to the NTSC-J region".

What does this mean for other titles that people have been wishing for? Well, if a title had a region-free release OR was released in multiple regions it has to go to the end of the line - that includes "Mushihimesama Futari", "Espgaluda II", "MMP/PS", "DDP SDOJ", "Guwange", "Deathsmiles", "DDP DFK", and "Akai Katana". "Deathsmiles II X" is a bit in a gray area as it was released unlocalized in the NA marketplace. It is possible that fan response may push the odd title ahead in the queue - but that response cannot come from just a "vocal minority" as it needs to convince Cave that "double-dipping" isn't just exceptional behavior practiced by a few eccentrics.

"DDP DOJ" and "Ketsui" are in a category of their own. Cave licensed these to Mages/5pb.Games. The terms of the license are unclear to the public and its probably going to take lawyers (i.e. money) to figure things out. Even if the license leaves Cave free to do a Steam port, Cave still doesn't own the Xbox 360 port codebase as a starting point (which increases the porting effort) - Mages does. In all likelihood a Steam port would have to come from Mages, not Cave. Ketsui would be an unlikely Steam release after it's flatline PS3 release (which was also region-free) and the codebase of the DDP DOJ Xbox 360 port is probably still a mess which could make it quite unattractive for a "quick and dirty" port. So for the time being both "DDP DOJ" and "Ketsui" could be caught in eternal Steam limbo.

Finally there are the games that never had an Xbox 360 release (like "ESP Ra.De.", "Dangun Feveron", "Progear", etc.). There may be a reason these games never had an Xbox 360 release like licensing issues with past publishers. But just the fact that there isn't an Xbox 360 port available to use as a basis for a "quick and dirty" PC port puts games in this category even further down the queue. Basically the revenue stream from Steam would have to dwarf that from Cave's usual iOS/Android trinkets to motivate Cave to give a Steam release to a game in this category.