Why VF4 is about to die in the US

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KTallguy said:
The majority of Tekken players are in Korea and Japan, and the US is just a minority, an expansion market.

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This is news to me. It's kind of disturbing - I guess there's just no arcade scene here at all. I bet we've got a lock on the fucking piece of trash "Cruisin' USA" game, though - it must be in every movie theatre and Wal*Mart across america. I always guessed Tekken to be more popular here than anywhere because all the combo VF / Tekken tourneys I've been to have this comparatively large entry for Tekken.

Excuse my short sightedness.

It's just bullshit...

Japan = VF4Evo (soon to be FT) and Guitar Freaks wherever you go.
USA = Cruisin' USA or some other abomination wherever you see arcade games.

 

Actually, Tekken is pretty dead in Japan. Its popularity peaked around the third game but has rapidly fallen off since then due to gameplay changes the general populace found unappealing. It still has a few die-hards, but you won't see even a fourth of machines with Tekken as you will with VF4 in Japan.

ALL of Namco's fighting games have done considerably better outside of Japan than in their native country. The Soul Calibur series continues primarily because it does well in the US and Europe. It's not well regarded in Japan at all, as shown by the fact that it was dropped from the Super Battle Opera in favor of Vampire Saviour, a game that's 7 years old!

 

Zero: Well, I do know that there are some Korean players that still mess around with TTT. I'm not surprised that everyone dropped off so quickly...

What's even more interesting is that although Starcraft is an American made game, Koreans flocked to it like wildfire. That and Diablo 2 =)

Plague: Yea... it is pretty depressing that the US arcade scene is pretty much dead. There are a few choice arcades in LA (eg: arcade infinity) that seem to be doing all right. They import most of their games though.

It's just that Americans don't go to arcades as much. It's not an "outing" like it might be in Japan.

 

I will play whichever game has the most depth, and application. Simple as that. Right now it is VF4:evo. Perhaps the best 3d fighter ever... It can only be improved upon. Tekken 5 will come out, but who is to say it will not be broke as all hell like Tekken 4? That could be the end of the Tekken series. VF5 can come out, and perhaps it will get a lot more recognition when Tekken(if it does) dies.

But I do hope that Tekken 5 is the best fighter ever. I just like to play fighting games... Perhaps Tekken 5 being great will just push VF5 to be greater. It's all relative.

 

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KTallguy said:

It's just that Americans don't go to arcades as much. It's not an "outing" like it might be in Japan.

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In Korea, arcades are everywhere. If you search around any school where a lot of potential gamers are frequent, you will even find 7-8 arcades in one block of street.

The big difference here and Korea is in Korea the infra structure is very different. There are lots of high-story apartment complexes around school, and kids walk to their school which are normally placed 10-15 minutes on foot. Arcades are placed on the way from home to school. Therefore, arcades are very easily accesible as you get to walk by them everyday. When you want to play, all you have to do is just walk in, and there are always lots of competition.

In addition, it only costs 10-30 cents per game in korea which is way cheaper than it is in America. I heard it's expensive in Japan, so it's just the matter of Korea, but the low price certainly attract more teenage players, which results in the arcades making profit even with the low price.

 

Heh... it's like the culture incites game playing. No wonder Koreans are considered to be the most avid game players.

I wonder, is it like the US, with many adults preaching about the effects that games have on kids, or perhaps the feeling that games are "something you do as a kid"? Korea doesn't seem to be like that, at least, with the way they play games.

 

Video game always has been big in Korea. Most players are teenagers with the exception of Virtua fighter which the majority of gamers are in their mid 20s.

The concept about game is not that favorable among parents in Korea, either. However, the emergence of progamers have changed the whole concept of it in a certain degree. Polls that have conducted thesedays show that Korean teenagers most wanted future job is a progamer. However, the characteristics of progamer have many flaws with it to be continuous.

 

well. through gaming i have st my career goal on designing characters for games. it combines drawing skills with something that can be applied and used in a game. /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif perhaps thats some recognition that gamers can be easily influenced to take up a career involving gaming.

 

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maddy said:
In addition, it only costs 10-30 cents per game in korea which is way cheaper than it is in America. I heard it's expensive in Japan, so it's just the matter of Korea, but the low price certainly attract more teenage players, which results in the arcades making profit even with the low price.

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In every arcade I've been to in Japan a game of VF costs 100 yen, which (according to the current exchange rates on x-rates.com) about 94 cents, although if your lazy (and most of us are) you can just say it's about a buck per game of VF, which is pretty costly. /versus/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

Imho, Sega/AM2 should add a TKD guy to the VF series, just to get the Korean players. Or officially make Sarah, a TKD person. That's what MS/ES did with the Age of Kings series, and it worked to some extent.

 

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agios_katastrof said:

Imho, Sega/AM2 should add a TKD guy to the VF series, just to get the Korean players. Or officially make Sarah, strictly a TKD person. That's what MS/ES did
with the Age of Kings series, and it worked to some extent.

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i would prefer they made a new character that used TKD rather than make Sarah a TKD character. I'd have a hard time w/ that cosidering she's been a Jeet Kun Do character for the looooooongest time.

 

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I'd have a hard time w/ that cosidering she's been a Jeet Kun Do character for the looooooongest time.

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She has? I know that Jacky uses Jeet Kun Do, but I thought that the instruction manual listed Sarah as just using "Martial Arts." Unless you just decided on that by watching her moves, in which case I would have no idea since I don't actually know anything about martial arts. /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

if you played since VF you'd know that... don't mean anything by that comment, it's just... the truth. guess that means i'm a bigger geek than you, not cooler hahahaha