Apparently, SEGA is making a perfect edition of VF2 for the PS2. What is up with that - does the X-Box not exist for Sega fighting games. They turned their noses up at porting VF4 and VF4 Evo to the Box and now VF2.

WTF?!? Does the sales of DOA on X-Box not show the sales that a good fighting game on the X-Box can do? Soul Caliber 2 did well on the X-Box as well. I guess the attraction of a better system and online fighting doesn' t interest SEGA-Sammy.

Nope. The attraction of userbase that' s four times the size of Microsoft' s is what attracted Sega. That, and the fact that Japanese companies, for the most part, tend to side with other Japanese companies.

If they want the game to sale and have a pretty big userbase all they would have to do is add Live compatibility...instant success on two fronts as there will be quite a few that would just buy it for the one player alone.

Sony can' t be paying them that much money for exclusivity. Bring it out on the PS2 and the Box; give the Box Live compatibility and we can all smile and whip eat other with Palms of Death combos.

Where' s the love?

" Give it LIVE compatability and the userbase goes up"

This argument may not mean as much as you would think. There are millions of PS2s with a network adapter now, and check out this article from IGN:
article

SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALS has averaged 373,000 online player hours per day, apparently more player hours daily than all Xbox Live titles log worldwide.

The total player hours on SOCOM II is approaching 94 million hours, or 10,835 years of straight gameplay.

While this has only to do with Socom II, it still means that many ps2' s out there have the capability of getting online. Therefore, even if the game were to be online, I' d agree with fathoms and state that a company would rather have the larger user base

SOCOM is the PS2 online game. Do any other PS2 games get serious playtime online or does it drop way off from there? Sony doesn' t make it a priority like Microsoft does, so the PS2 games don' t get into as much - IMO

One has to ask himself...how does Sony know how many people are online on Live?

ORIGINAL: Beef Shala

SOCOM is the PS2 online game. Do any other PS2 games get serious playtime online or does it drop way off from there? Sony doesn' t make it a priority like Microsoft does, so the PS2 games don' t get into as much - IMO

That may or may not be true, but that' s beside the point of why I put that article there. If that many people are able to get their PS2 online, then there is a huge market for an online fighting game. Whether or not Sony makes it a priority doesn' t change the fact that so many millions of users have a network adapter sitting in their ps2 waiting to be used for their favorite type of game.

Here' s my problem:

Microsoft recently said they had sold over 1,000,000 Xbox Live kits. So if I understand this correctly (and the way it' s worded I could have) one is to believe that Sony' s SOCOM game has more people on it daily than all of the Xbox Live titles out right now. If this is the case then I find it hard to believe that the average Xbox Live player spends less than 30 minutes daily...I know I personally spend multiple hours everyday on different games.

Unfortunately, according strictly to the numbers, most companies don' t give a crap about online play. 1 million Live Kits...so what? There are around 24 million Xbox' s out there in MS' s userbase. That' s 1/24. There are more than 100 million PS2 owners around the world.

MS themselves has admitted that online play will not really hit mainstream until well into the next generation. Bottom line: 1 million potential online players on Xbox doesn' t add much in the way of sales to a number that is already at 100 million with just producing the game for one system.

I don' t really care where Sega is one way or the other, but business is business. The numbers are obvious.

My real problem with this is that Sony trying to take away from Xbox' s online thunder with this " impressive" announcement. Having played both online...well, it' s not much competition on the PS2 front especially since EA' s came over to Live. SOCOM is great ...Sony' s online is not.

Taking away from their " thunder?" Uh...it' s called competition. It' s what MS was trying to do when they came onto the scene to challenge Nintendo and Sony. Were they just trying to steal their " thunder" with an impressive announcement too? Or was that just a savvy business move?

Again: business is business.

True enough, Sony is just competing and using smart business. But you have to admit that they are the king of stealing other companies' thunder.

Whenever a new system is being announced or hitting the market, Sony has a press conference about their up and coming system. There will be no specs, no demos, no games, they' ll just announce that PS8 will come out some day and it will be better than this system.

ORIGINAL: Beef Shala
Whenever a new system is being announced or hitting the market, Sony has a press conference about their up and coming system. There will be no specs, no demos, no games, they' ll just announce that PS8 will come out some day and it will be better than this system.

I would do it too if it worked. If Sony was my company, I would want to stay in the sales lead for as long as I could. This started as a discussion about Sega not sending their fighter to xbox, though.

Apparently, SEGA is making a perfect edition of VF2 for the PS2. What is up with that - does the X-Box not exist for Sega fighting games. They turned their noses up at porting VF4 and VF4 Evo to the Box and now VF2.

WTF?!? Does the sales of DOA on X-Box not show the sales that a good fighting game on the X-Box can do? Soul Caliber 2 did well on the X-Box as well. I guess the attraction of a better system and online fighting doesn' t interest SEGA-Sammy.

Unfortunately the Xbox had TWO things going against it that would have prevented Virtua Fighter IV from being released on it.. First of all the ALL important Japanese userbase of the Xbox is quite pitiful. The Virtua Fighter series is WAYYYY more popular in Japan than it' s ever been in the U.S., so with that, would you release the game on the console with the biggest userbase there? Or take a chance with a console that only has no more than 1-1.2 million owners in Japan and have the game sell less than 70,000 copies??

Secondly, supposedly back then, Sony the exclusive grapper snagged the first edition of Virtua Fighter IV as an exclusive PS2 release for about a year I believe..
The year was over and still no news of an Xbox version. I strongly believe that where Virtua Fighter IV is concerned, Sega first looks at the Japanese market where it' s much more popular. The putrid Xbox userbase there just may not be worth their time and effort.

I' d LOVE to see the Virtua Fighter series released on the Xbox and I' ve been disappointed that any version has yet to make an Xbox appearance but I guess Sega has their reasons.

Part of me wants the next Virtua Fighter game to be released on the Xbox arcade board. That way there' s a much better chance of seeing it appear on Microsoft' s console.

That is a very good point about the user bases. I wonder how much a port from PS2 to XBox would cost Sega? If it could be done at a minimal cost, then an additional port to the Box would be worth it. Then it would just have to be localized for the US/UK markets and released.

I knew about the exclusive rights, but I thought that those would have expired by the time that VF4 Evo was released.

Maybe its just me but has anyone else consitered: The controls for VF on playstation are perfect. the buttens are all perfectly used IMO. If it was released on Xbox i just think it would be wierd... Xbox controlers are great for HALO but i think it would butcher VF.

The button layout is the same diamond configuration on the Xbox as it is on the PS2. I actually prefer the d-pad on the Xbox over the PS2 controller, so I think the game would actually play a little nicer on the ' box.

Basicly the layout could be consitered the same but i still think it would be very different. The buttens are a bit smaller and dont feel right for fighting games. my friend has Soul Cal 2 and i just dont like the feel.

The only default controller I' d want to use for fighting games is the GameCube controller! Snug fit, great button layout ...