Bullet Hell

The December 2008 issue of Edge, #195, has a wonderfully insightful article about the current state of the shooter niche. The inspiration seems to have come from the "3 Big Shooter Festa" hosted by Sega's GIGO Center in Ikebukuro.

The net of the article are several unfortunate points:

• The ports included in Fantasy Zone Complete Collection were done by redrawing every sprite and animation and recreating the exact frame rate of the original. This was done so the game would play identically to the original, rather than letting an emulator negatively impact the results.
• Shooters are too expensive to make to be sustained by the sales of most of their current releases.
• The PS2 and 360 are the only viable platforms for the genre, because of market penetration and ease of development, respectively.
• XBLA has too slow an approval process and too low an accepted price point to make it a viable platform for most shooters.
• The Naomi and Type X boards are the only arcade platforms financially viable from a development standpoint.
• Arcade revenues are slipping to the point where no arcade shooters may be solvent in the neat future.

One thing I don't quite understand is why the Wii isn't a good fit, but that wasn't discussed in the article, other than to mention Super Star Soldier R and Gradius Rebirth on WiiWare.

Help us, Thunder Force VI; You are our only hope.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

One thing I don't quite understand is why the Wii isn't a good fit, but that wasn't discussed in the article,

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Because the devs are smart enough not to be forced to put waggle in a genre that doesn't need it.

Wii isn't a good fit probably because people who bought it won't bother with a shmup. That's my guess anyway.

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XBLA has too slow an approval process and too low an accepted price point to make it a viable platform for most shooters.

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I think that's really too minor to even worry about, the problem here is that MS wants as few straight arcade ports as they can get away with. Many shooter developers want their game ported as exact as possible (for many obvious reasons) which is why MS denied some Cave shooters from getting ports onto XBLA. This is also why the latest shooter that's gotten accepted by MS (the name is slipping my mind) is redrawing all the art to be high-res, I'm willing to bet doing so is the only reason they are allowed to release it on the 360.

There honestly isn't a reason why the PC doesn't get most of these ports. I know it has gotten some of them recently, like Raiden 3. I'm sure ease of piracy plays a big part in the PC not being a viable platform, but I'm sure if they show the sales data, someone has to be interested in picking up an exclusive deal with them.

Most people that play bullet hell games are willing to pay a premium for them or they wait for emulation, which gets the developer as much $ as piracy if they were to put them on PC.

My ramblings probably don't make any sense.

As more of the games go to Type X, I would expect more PC ports.

Or at least hope for them.

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The ports included in Fantasy Zone Complete Collection were done by redrawing every sprite and animation and recreating the exact frame rate of the original. This was done so the game would play identically to the original, rather than letting an emulator negatively impact the results.

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I don't get this. They can't possibly not be emulated. Maybe it's a fuzzy translation or something of a partial emulation approach?

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# Shooters are too expensive to make to be sustained by the sales of most of their current releases.
# The PS2 and 360 are the only viable platforms for the genre, because of market penetration and ease of development, respectively.
# XBLA has too slow an approval process and too low an accepted price point to make it a viable platform for most shooters.
# The Naomi and Type X boards are the only arcade platforms financially viable from a development standpoint.
# Arcade revenues are slipping to the point where no arcade shooters may be solvent in the neat future.

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Last point should have been the first. It sounds like there should have been talk about how the genre is arcade-focused first and console-focused second; we (Western fans and media) simply aren't the target of these games, and if we keep thinking of the genre in console and console port terms, we're only going to recognize a small portion of what's out there.

Speaking of, I'm assuming the Naomi and Type-X bit is referring to open platforms.

Shmups should go to Steam or something. Screw XBLA.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

As more of the games go to Type X, I would expect more PC ports.

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I agree. But how do you fight the PC piracy issue. Although the shmup genre probably isn't a going to be a big target. Even ps2 cave shooters are hard to find on torrents. Going the steam route would be good and its not like they are going to give them any grief if they want to put their games up there.

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Originally Posted by Dyne

Because the devs are smart enough not to be forced to put waggle in a genre that doesn't need it.

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Nobody is forced to put motion controls into anything. I can point to all kinds of Wii releases without it.

Wiiware would actually be a pretty good spot for shooters just because of the widespread adoption of the classic controller. It's not like anybody's making arcade shooters in HD anyway (yeah, yeah, except for Otomedius), so nothing would be lost there.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

• The PS2 and 360 are the only viable platforms for the genre, because of market penetration and ease of development, respectively.

One thing I don't quite understand is why the Wii isn't a good fit, but that wasn't discussed in the article, other than to mention Super Star Soldier R and Gradius Rebirth on WiiWare.

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Maybe that is what they were referring to when they talked about market penetration? Maybe the gamers that buy shooters tend not to own Wiis?

That said, the controller for the Wii has everything you need for a good shooter: D-Pad and 2 buttons

I can't speak to the point about ease of development for the Wii...

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Originally Posted by StriderKyo

It's not like anybody's making arcade shooters in HD anyway (yeah, yeah, except for Otomedius), so nothing would be lost there.

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Except that a vertical shooter on a HD set lets a non-TATE setup work, while with low resolution it looks like horrible ass (as seen on the PS2). Plus we'd end up with the MM9 issue of possible lag through upconversion which would render it useless regardless of how it looked.

Aside from having a built-in audience that doesn't want them, the Wii strikes me as being the worst choice for shooters for the people that want to play them. You lack the no-region and resolution of the PS3, the resolution and ease of porting of the 360, and all three of those for the PC. Plus, if they wanted to add online leaderboards the Wii is again the worst choice, and I'm not sure if they could even patch that in later on that system if they wanted to.

I'm kind of suspect that a disappointing worldwide budget release via XBLA is really so disproportionate to what's earned from a semi-successful niche release in a single territory.

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The ports included in Fantasy Zone Complete Collection were done by redrawing every sprite and animation and recreating the exact frame rate of the original. This was done so the game would play identically to the original, rather than letting an emulator negatively impact the results.

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Completely and utterly anal? Yes, but damn the results were good.