+- Tendo City (https://www.tendocity.net)
+-- Forum: Tendo City: Metropolitan District (https://www.tendocity.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Tendo City (https://www.tendocity.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=42)
+--- Thread: Sony of America is EVIL! (/showthread.php?tid=3396)
Sony of America is EVIL! - A Black Falcon - 14th December 2005
Sony of Japan isn't as bad, Sony of Europe evidently is slightly better... but Sony of America...
Working Designs closed (American company that translates and releases Japanese games in the US market). Why? Because of Sony's extremely restrictive American publishing limitations.
http://www.workingdesigns.com/forum/showthread.php?t=118916
Games that they don't like don't get approved. So, even though Working Designs put years into them, Growlancer 2 and Growlancer 3 were not allowed to be sold as individual games. They only could be sold as a collection, Growlancer Generations -- which sold, but not as well as the games seperately would have.
Goemon PS2 was also being translated (and improved) by Working Designs. Sony of America denied the game certification permanantly, even though the game is close enough to being finished that it still might come out in Europe even though Working Designs is gone.
So? Those were their two main projects, and Sony sabotaged both of them, so by Working Designs... the founder (who made that post) said that he might work with Microsoft to translate some of the X360's Japanese RPGs (you know, the ones Microsoft is making sure get developed this time by probably funding them themselves...)... we'll see.
WD aren't the only ones hurt because of this, of course. SNK also has... ever wonder why Metal Slug 3 isn't out on PS2, while Metal Slug 4&5 is? Why PS2 got King of Fighters 2000/2001 and KOF2002/2003 but not SNK vs Capcom... why Samurai Shodown 5 is only coming out for Xbox (it's being released in a week or two)... yet the US Xbox got all of those games except KOF00/01? Yup, because Sony didn't allow single Neo Geo games to be released in the US, only twin packs. At least SNK is big enough that it doesn't hurt them too badly, though... it just annoys gamers.
I didn't even know that they were making PS2 Goemon... probably a good thing, because the Goemon games are fantastic, and I really, REALLY wish that more of them would come out in English... the two N64 games are so great. I really want the DS game to be released in English... but it's probably a lost hope... :(
Sony of America is EVIL! - lazyfatbum - 15th December 2005
damn, that eats wang.
I guess when you're at the top you can dictate what developers are able to release on your system and what they're not. At the same time, Nintendo was completely ignored.
Killing off Working Designs raises an eyebrow though, who's going to handle the bulk of jap to english translations? Certainly not SCEA.
Sony of America is EVIL! - A Black Falcon - 15th December 2005
I can't think of anyone other than Atlus, for the more 'non-US-mainstream' games... who are small and can only make so many games.
Quote:I guess when you're at the top you can dictate what developers are able to release on your system and what they're not. At the same time, Nintendo was completely ignored.
Nintendo has definitely done the same thing... they choose what you can release. They just don't have this hard rule against 2d or 'niche' stuff... MS doesn't either. Nintendo does not release some games in the US for whatever reason, though... but it's companies like Working Designs that sometimes picked up those unreleased titles and offered to bring them out here. :( (well, not first-party Nintendo stuff, but other games)
That said, in addition to Goemon (GBA, DS, PS2, whatever...) I'd also love to see the KuruKuru Kuririn games for GBA and GC... first-party Nintendo, never released in the US... great stuff, I don't know why it wasn't released. It's not like it's so overly Japanesy and weird... just an actionish 'avoid the walls with this helicopter-like stick thing' game... to describe it poorly... :)
Sony of America is EVIL! - lazyfatbum - 16th December 2005
I could have sworn there was a GBA game where you played as the weird helicopter... but on the flip side look at Earthbound. There were 2 Earthbound games on NES and the only reason Nintendo brought the 3rd to the states was because of the booming interest in RPG's (read: Chrono Trigger)
But we're not talking about unusual games with no genre or market, those games you mentioned are part of specific genres with mass appeal and a sellable market. Arena Fighting, 2-D fighters, 3-D platformers, shooters, etc. All games we've played a million times before but these are *gasp* original - and therfore unproven. They might have to take 'risks'! oh noes! but at the same time, Goemon did quite well on N64 and SNES and even the handhelds.
I think what's happening is that because of sony's ideals (and companies like square), the vast majority of people who play video games today do so because of the 'interactive movie' like experience and disregard anything else that's even remotely catagorized as a 'plain' video game. They're even making scripts for side-scrolling shooters now - suddenly people want to have motivation of 'why' they have to shoot the thousands of targets. Fucking idiot people. It's a video game, it exists to test your abilities and allow you to use and gain techniques to win against a series of challenges, as in - A GAME.
I love having video games with stories, dont get me wrong. I wouldn't know what to do if Metroid or Zelda never existed, imagine a Chrono Trigger-less world? hell no. But not all games need to have a director of photography, voice actors, 3 acts and a love interest. There's a reason why old school gaming is so popular right now. Think back to the good old days (I cant believe i said 'good old days') and think about the first time you fired up CT. That game is a work of passion, there were no demographics meetings, they didn't think about 'how to appeal to the inner city youth' or what the game should be rated to generate negative publicity, it was just a group of underpaid Square employees who wanted to make something special
You could have two different directors with the same budget and the same script and you can even use the same cast and crew and one version of that movie is going to suck and the other will be awesome and the only difference is passion and we can see that happening over and over in the games industry, it's business games that appeal to the lowest most common demographic to gaurantee sales that are on all the production schedules of any major publisher while the new and experimental games, the ones made by a group of people who actually have a passion are getting shit on. Fuck, I need an uzi.
Sony of America is EVIL! - A Black Falcon - 7th January 2006
To state Sony of America's guidelines out explicitly...
Quote:SCEI Future Concept Approval Process Guide Lineshttp://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?t=47758
Rev 19.1 -2004-
Development of two-dimensional games is to be discouraged for the chief home consoles. (PS2, PS3)
This also applies to the handheld market. (PSP)
All games genres under this rule include Action, Adventure, Driving, Role-Playing, Simulation, Sports, and Strategy. (Plus unlisted sub genres)
All games genres not under this rule include Puzzle, and Novel.
Gameplay is irrelevant, as long a graphics standard is kept (3D)
In the case of a non agreement the game will be suggested for the handheld market. (PSP)
This doesn't mention the "or if we don't like it" subclause that denies Working Designs the rights to publish Growlancer or PS2 Goemon, but it covers the main points...
Really, just about anything with "modern" 3d graphics (and gameplay; Viewtiful Joe, for instance, was evidently hard to get approved) will now be hard to get released on a Sony console -- and now it looks like this policy is worldwide.
Sickening, because 2d is just as good a gameplay medium as 3d is. Making such a superficial and pointless distinction, and forcing it on their consumers, is not the act of a good company... and sickening, because, for no sane reason, it denies consumers access to fantastic games that publishers want to release and people would buy...
Sony of America is EVIL! - The Former DMiller - 7th January 2006
Wow, that is really just sad to discourage games just because they aren't 3D. I hate to see the videogame industry reaching the point where graphics take such a precedence that good games are denied the chance to succeed just because they don't meet certain graphical criteria.
Sony of America is EVIL! - A Black Falcon - 7th January 2006
Oh, this is nothing new for Sony, remember how in the early days of the PSX they banned 2d game releases for the first year or so, to try to exploit the popularity of 3d at the time and show how much better 3d PSX was from the 2d 16-bit consoles or the inferior Saturn? Their policies have just continued, or even gained strength, with time, while the rest of the industry isn't as restrictive on the whole (there are certain other restrictions, like Xbox games cannot use mouse or keyboard peripherals I believe, but nothing like THIS... 2d games get released on Xbox, Microsoft has a place for 2d/old-style stuff in the Live Marketplace, Nintendo does all kinds of stuff with 2d (though in Nintendo's case it has admittedly been hard for an unknown developer to get published on a Nintendo console)... but yeah, isn't it awful?
Sony of America is EVIL! - Paco - 8th January 2006
A shame, really. I'm sure PSP could produce some fantastic 2D visuals.
A Black Falcon Wrote:(there are certain other restrictions, like Xbox games cannot use mouse or keyboard peripherals I believe
This is in the interest of the gamer. Keyboard + mouse players would dominate those who used a controller over Live. There has been the arguement to have seperate classes over Live (one online class would be controllers, the other KB+M) but that just complicates things and splits the userbase.
Sony of America is EVIL! - Great Rumbler - 8th January 2006
It's a good thing Nintendo's still around.
Sony of America is EVIL! - A Black Falcon - 8th January 2006
Dreamcast had an optional keyboard peripheral, and was online... I think that the real reason there is that Microsoft wanted Xbox to be looked at as a console and not a PC, so they didn't allow standard PC control devices to be used...
Sony of America is EVIL! - Paco - 9th January 2006
A Black Falcon Wrote:Dreamcast had an optional keyboard peripheral, and was online... I think that the real reason there is that Microsoft wanted Xbox to be looked at as a console and not a PC, so they didn't allow standard PC control devices to be used...
Dreamcast was online but I don't recall any of the games having an option to control via the keyboard. It was used for messaging only.
Xbox Live has voice chat so there's no need for typing.