.hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film)

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Kuukai
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by Kuukai »

Takao wrote:The fact it's a re-skinned Naruto game should tell you that this is another case of lax effort.
How is it a re-skinned Naruto game? I'm not a STORM expert but the battle system looks different. Also the distinctive cel-shading engine has been completely replaced by a new graphics style that mirrors the movie. Plus it's in 3d. If they're re-using some code, good. Japanese programmers are notorious for blowing perfectly good chances to do this.
Sadivinedevil wrote:but then again this entry has a game and a Movie packed together and the bundle costs as much as an average game.
Actually, in Japan, games and movies cost about the same. Trilogy retailed for ¥7,140. But, that said, it's great you brought up Liminality because Liminality was a perfectly good anime that was included with the games basically for free. By normal Japanese pricing, if Liminality had been released standalone each OVA episode would have cost as much as a game, and this would have been considered completely normal by Japanese consumers. Don't ask me why. If you go to a DVD store in Japan it is absolutely mindblowing how expensive everything is and how otaku could ever afford it. But anyway, my point is they've essentially done this before--given away a "full" thing for free. And that was also a game-anime hybrid, at least as much as technology would allow at the time. Same company, so I have some hope. History tells me, blah blah.
Takao wrote:But take a look at .hack//Versus. Look at its packaging. Is it in a PS3 case, or a standard Blu-Ray movie case?
True, but the box outside the box, at least, has a bunch of pictures of characters not in the movie...
Zer0 wrote:*shakes Kuukai violently* Give me a translation!
Of... the ad? THERE'S A GAME! YOU CAN DO STUFF! ON SALE LATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Might be worth doing a proper translation of the first part, but I'll see about that later... I'll check AIM.
SSJScygoku wrote:His name is David i'm pretty sure @.@
Yeah, I wrote about him on the main page a while back. He works for the NAB. He speaks in Kansai-ben and has a character called Kusame:
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by Sadivinedevil »

Kuukai wrote:
Sadivinedevil wrote:but then again this entry has a game and a Movie packed together and the bundle costs as much as an average game.
Actually, in Japan, games and movies cost about the same. Trilogy retailed for ¥7,140. But, that said, it's great you brought up Liminality because Liminality was a perfectly good anime that was included with the games basically for free. By normal Japanese pricing, if Liminality had been released standalone each OVA episode would have cost as much as a game, and this would have been considered completely normal by Japanese consumers. Don't ask me why. If you go to a DVD store in Japan it is absolutely mindblowing how expensive everything is and how otaku could ever afford it. But anyway, my point is they've essentially done this before--given away a "full" thing for free. And that was also a game-anime hybrid, at least as much as technology would allow at the time. Same company, so I have some hope. History tells me, blah blah.
Really? I guess different cultures definitely have different norms when it comes to buying things. Oh well. Anyway I'm kind of wondering if 7,140 yen (don't know how to enter the symbol) is actually a good price point in Japan as it converts to roughly around $85-90 in the U.S. which is crazy expensive for a movie or a game. Then again most games in other countries, Australia for example, are around $80 as well, seriously makes me want to take world economics while I'm still in college.
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by Alerow »

SSJScygoku wrote:His name is David i'm pretty sure @.@

Which reminds me,at the end of .hack//Legend of the Twilight Complete Edition vol 2 there was this:

http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t127 ... 2517470728

Woah whut? //Legend of the Twilight? Like...Shuugo/Rena Legend of the Twilight? Is that really in there?!
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by SSJScygoku »

Alerow wrote:
SSJScygoku wrote: Woah whut? //Legend of the Twilight? Like...Shuugo/Rena Legend of the Twilight? Is that really in there?!
At the back of the book,much like what they did before with GU in the normal japanese/english editions but this only appears in the Complete Edition of the manga (two japanese manga that were released not too long ago) ^_^
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by Alerow »

Oh ok.. *deep breath*

Even I couldn't have believed they planned stuffs that far back. >> Thanks.
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by SSJScygoku »

xD yeah I doubt they thought this far ahead at this stage as GU wasn't even out lol

ALSO for anyone looking to preorder the Combo set you can do so here: http://www.yesasia.com/global/search/ha ... /list.html or just search .hack sekai on the site ^_^
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by Alerow »

$178?! >< Yikes. The yen to dollar ratio puts it around $130. Is that including shipping or just some miscellaneous "we want to make a profit" addon?
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by SSJScygoku »

Most likely a profit unless they reduce the price slightly later on, you can have free shipping or pay $30 for express. Not sure why the price is double that of the normal edition though,the japanese version were 7000 odd and 10000 odd yen,so must be after some cash ^^'
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by TrueNeptune »

bleh, unless they make it the price of a normal game, like $60 at most(I understand a higher price for the special edition, but for the standard edition, no higher than 60) i wont be buying it.
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

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TrueNeptune wrote:bleh, unless they make it the price of a normal game, like $60 at most(I understand a higher price for the special edition, but for the standard edition, no higher than 60) i wont be buying it.
It is normal game price in Japan though, digital media is just more expensive there. FFXIII was ¥9,240 just for the disc. Persona 4 on Vita costs about 200 yen more than the normal edition movie+versus hybrid pack. (But it comes with stickers!)

On the other hand, if we told them how much we pay for manga they would fall over laughing. It's over twice as much here...
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by SSJScygoku »

xD atleast we have them beat on game and anime prices,plus doesn't japan release single episodes or something little per dvd?

I've already got my pre-order down since this was the only place to order right now, I picked express shipping though ^^' don't want this lost in the mail
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by Sadivinedevil »

Kuukai wrote:
TrueNeptune wrote:bleh, unless they make it the price of a normal game, like $60 at most(I understand a higher price for the special edition, but for the standard edition, no higher than 60) i wont be buying it.
It is normal game price in Japan though, digital media is just more expensive there. FFXIII was ¥9,240 just for the disc. Persona 4 on Vita costs about 200 yen more than the normal edition movie+versus hybrid pack. (But it comes with stickers!)

On the other hand, if we told them how much we pay for manga they would fall over laughing. It's over twice as much here...
So what you are saying is that it is dependent on what you buy in which country you buy it in. In reality the conversion from Yen to dollars probably doesn't matter to consumers in Japan as I'm guessing 9,000 yen is sort of the equivalent of $60 for customers whereas 7,000 yen is somewhere between $45-50, it only concerns those who are Importing merchandise.

I guess it's kind of like gas prices we are paying almost $4 per gallon at the pump in the U.S. and in other countries they are paying the equivalent of $8, and the U.S. is the loudest country that really complains about it. It's the norm and people get used to it.
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by Kuukai »

SSJScygoku wrote:xD atleast we have them beat on game and anime prices,plus doesn't japan release single episodes or something little per dvd?
Yep, often 2 to a disc at normal price, it makes even more unbelievable.
Sadivinedevil wrote:So what you are saying is that it is dependent on what you buy in which country you buy it in. In reality the conversion from Yen to dollars probably doesn't matter to consumers in Japan as I'm guessing 9,000 yen is sort of the equivalent of $60 for customers whereas 7,000 yen is somewhere between $45-50, it only concerns those who are Importing merchandise.

I guess it's kind of like gas prices we are paying almost $4 per gallon at the pump in the U.S. and in other countries they are paying the equivalent of $8, and the U.S. is the loudest country that really complains about it. It's the norm and people get used to it.
The basic idea that you can get different countries to think different prices for something are normal is the same, but everything else is a little different. Here, there are a lot of government-related reasons why gas is so much cheaper. We tax it less, and oil is traded for dollars and nothing else.

In Japan, the purchasing power of 100 yen is roughly $1 for most things--we had the same things on our dollar menus, in our dollar/100 yen stores, etc. Gas and games/videos/manga are exceptions, but while gas has some decent reasons behind it, DVDs there and manga here just cost however much the companies are able to get people to pay for them. You could feed more people for a Japanese copy of FFXIII there than a U.S. one here. So 9000 yen is like $90, they just think $90 is normal for a game. Under the premise of "next-gen" we've seen our prices go up, so it's not hard to see how that happened.
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by Sadivinedevil »

Kuukai wrote:In Japan, the purchasing power of 100 yen is roughly $1 for most things--we had the same things on our dollar menus, in our dollar/100 yen stores, etc. Gas and games/videos/manga are exceptions, but while gas has some decent reasons behind it, DVDs there and manga here just cost however much the companies are able to get people to pay for them. You could feed more people for a Japanese copy of FFXIII there than a U.S. one here. So 9000 yen is like $90, they just think $90 is normal for a game. Under the premise of "next-gen" we've seen our prices go up, so it's not hard to see how that happened.
Well, then again norms are norms and people who pay one price in one country all the time, being ignorant of the price in other countries, might not have a problem with a high price because they are used to paying it. This is kind of what I meant that 9000 yen might be equivalent to $60 in Japan because it is the normal starting price for most games, but in reality the prices are higher in Japan.

Also "next-gen" doesn't always correlate to higher prices. From what I know the market determines the price point. If a publisher wants a bigger cut of the profits the price will go up. Sony and Microsoft lose X amount of dollars when they make a console these days and they have to make that up some how, that is where royalties come in. Royalties depend on the difference in how much a console costs to make and how much it sells for, when the PS3 was made it cost $800 to manufacture and sold for $600. The actual increase this generation is more due to royalties than it is to other factors. The PS3 and 360 came out with the latest technology and literally could not be sold at or above the manufacturing cost levels, a portion of the $10 increase is used to make up the difference. The Wii used relatively old technology and sold for more than it's manufacturing costs so the $10 increase wasn't necessary to make up the difference.

In the past I believe some consoles had games that marketed for $70-80 because the console used the top of the line technology for the time. The $50 trend from last generation was actually relatively cheap when compared to some of the previous generations. Your statement might ring true for future generations past this one though because gamers want the latest and greatest more than ever now and in order for console manufacturer's to keep up with that the price point of games might go up another $10 or more next generation in order to make up for the losses of selling the next consoles below the manufacturing cost.
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

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I'm not sure about that. I can't find anything saying the royalties were hiked, if anything that would be a last resort for recouping costs because it actually dissuades developers from developing on your system. According to Wikipedia at least, publishers have to pay console royalties on all games that ship, even if they don't sell, which is different from every other industry. This makes even a slight increase in royalties a huge pain for the publisher since it can be the difference between profit and loss. Every article I've ever seen about recouping console costs says the console manufacturers focus on install base and getting developers as a way to increase their royalty stream. $20/unit royalties on games that might not even sell would be like selling the PS3 to consumers at the $800 it costs to make--it's just bad business and won't get you any money. And royalties can't explain why PC game prices went up the same amount. Even if it was, say, mimicking the change on the console side, that itself clearly demonstrates there are more forces at work here than console royalties.

In any case, back to Versus, you get a 3d movie and 3d possibly-mini game for ¥7,140, which isn't all that bad even by American standards. The suggested retail price of Thor 3D is $55. If they game is even 50% of a standard fighting game (= the $30 price difference) it's worth the cost in dollars.
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by Sadivinedevil »

Kuukai wrote:I'm not sure about that. I can't find anything saying the royalties were hiked, if anything that would be a last resort for recouping costs because it actually dissuades developers from developing on your system. According to Wikipedia at least, publishers have to pay console royalties on all games that ship, even if they don't sell, which is different from every other industry. This makes even a slight increase in royalties a huge pain for the publisher since it can be the difference between profit and loss. Every article I've ever seen about recouping console costs says the console manufacturers focus on install base and getting developers as a way to increase their royalty stream. $20/unit royalties on games that might not even sell would be like selling the PS3 to consumers at the $800 it costs to make--it's just bad business and won't get you any money. And royalties can't explain why PC game prices went up the same amount. Even if it was, say, mimicking the change on the console side, that itself clearly demonstrates there are more forces at work here than console royalties.
Correct, the royalties are just part of the reason the price hiked this generation. The retailer takes their cut, the console manufacturer takes about $12 of the price in royalties, the Publisher takes about $10-15, and the developer gets the rest according to Micheal Pachter, don't know how reliable he is though. The publisher and developer have influence as well. HD games cost more to develop and publishers are working with an ever expanding market. A major problem with the industry today is that too many games are being developed with high budgets and what the console manufacturer takes and the publisher takes leaves the developer with a wider margin to break even, this is partly why it is more likely for developers going bankrupt or be bought out by a publisher this generation. The reality is that HD games are being sold at a relatively low price and for a lot of games to be profitable they have to sell at least 500,000 units which is actually very hard to do when the game is for a specific audience. This is why niche games are less likely to be developed for an HD console and more likely to be developed for a handheld.

Hypothetically if the next .hack game was an RPG and it wasn't packed in with the movie it would have a very difficult time breaking even as the audience for RPGs from Japan has shrunk, a very sad truth, and Namco Bandai would consider it a bad investment because of that. This may be one reason why Versus is a fighter instead of an RPG, other factors may be more influential in the decision as well.
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by SSJScygoku »

Two new screenshots for //Versus found here: http://mugenguild.com/forumx/index.php? ... msg1542174

Pictures found by Quicksolver
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by Sadivinedevil »

I wonder how much different the battle system for Versus will be when compared to Ultimate Ninja storm, seriously need to play one of the storm games. If it doesn't differ by much then there isn't much incentive beyond it's title and the packed in movie to get this game. I wonder if they'll take a Dissidia like approach where leveling up and other RPG elements are added in to expand the experience. Unfortunately, from what I've seen in the screen shots and trailer this game seems a little more simplistic than Ultimate Ninja Storm.
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by Keyaki »

Too be honest, I'm still surprised about the whole thing. Me and my friend we're both surprised when we saw this together. Though, of course has to go and say is like STORM-can't really blame him~

Though, at the same time I can't help but feel...I dunno...mis-lead? Seeing with the earlier screenshots of Haseo, I thought it would be another RPG with Haseo as the protagonist, then again...there wasn't absolutely nothing suggesting that so I guess I just jumped the gun~

But a fighting game? Seems like such a weird turn of events to me, I honestly don't know what to make of the whole thing. Then again I guess it doesn't matter, since I'm gonna buy it regardless, that is if Bandai decides to publish it NA. Not sure if I'm gonna enjoy it much though, since fighting games are really my best(Except DBZ, but if you suck at DBZ then you shouldn't be playing fighting games at all)~

And that "9" character(awesome name btw), it sure as hell does look like Tokio. IMO that be an awesome comeback for him~

Its gotta be him, since he's the only character we know on the outside.
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Re: .hack//Versus announced for PS3 (Fighting game + CG film

Post by (Phantom) Thief »

The concept for the game is awesome. I want the individuals to be the same however .hack is not famous for returning characters. 9 looks similar to Tokio, but it might not be the original version. As for the system look at the DLC for Asura's Wrath. No one has compared them but CC2 could have a generic fighting engine for their games. In addition I would not be surpised if the company grabbed ideas from Soul Calibur 5, since they worked with Project Soul as well. Namco's team handled the fighting engine but I doubt that excluded CC2 from examining the code.
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