See Konami. See Castlevaina. See Konami do nothing.
John Hokanson Jr
isamu@usagi.com"We are currently monitoring the Saturn situation and we'll let you know if anything changes. Please do not take this dicission personally."
- Chris Munoz Konami of America (actually it's a paraphrase, not a word for word quote, I accidently deleted his e-mail).
This is just more of my habitual whining, so if you don’t want to hear it, just hit the back button on your browser to make the bad man go away……One thing that has pissed me off right from the word go is Konmai’s lackadaisical handling of the Saturn. The Saturn has been getting status and attention slightly better then that of a leper, and Konami won’t touch it with a ten foot pole. The Saturn versions of Castlevaina: Symphony of the Night, and Suikoden are coming, but you can pretty much write off Konami translating them for US release. Things must be pretty hectic when Konami won’t even translate some of their most popular titles. Hell, Castlevaina has already been translated on the PSX, all that would be required is to cut and past that into the Saturn version. In all fairness, the Saturn version is reputed to have some extra "features" (a rather vague reference, don’t you think?) added by KOJ so as to make the game seem more appealing to those that already own the PSX version, but I doubt very much it would take much more then a week for the translation process to go though successfully.
Don't use Working Designs as a gauge of how long it takes to translate a video game. They're the epitome of what is commonly reffered to as a "worst case scenario". They're understaffed and lack a lot of helpful meterial (which ultimately stymied Dragon Force's release). Of course, an inordenant amout of perfectionism on the part of Victor Ireland (which I still maintain is totally contradictory to the translations they do), and a tight budget, doesn't help either.
Is Konami yet another company burned by the notoriously inept management of one Bernard Stolar? Can we chalk them up as yet another victim of circumstances? Hold on here, Konami’s not getting away that easily. Let’s look at this from a marketing standpoint. Can anyone here think of any reason why Castlevaina would NOT sell well on the Saturn? Bear in mind here, this *is* Castlevaina we’re talking about. That gloriously entertaining and timeless franchise that up until now has been the sovereign birthright of every major system. Yeah….*that* Castlevaina. I’d be very surprised if Konami didn’t at least break even with it.
We have a userbase sitting somewhere between 1.6 and 2.0 million. This is subjective and depends on who you want to believe. The 1.6 figure by the way, was reported in the December 1996 issue of Next Generation, and there has been countless rumors that suggest that NG’s info is skewed by their inability to poll all sources accurately enough. Sega’s last press release from June this year puts them somewhere around 1.7. That’s a good six month gap here. And I must respectfully remind you at this time that six months is damn near an eternity in the gaming industry. So, despite the incessant moaning and groaning from nay-sayers (some of with have been my peers on the net), I refuse to believe that the Saturn doesn’t have enough of a userbase to justify releasing one game that could likely milk some more money off our dying system. Any lingering doubts? Release it in limited production numbers then. Which reminds me (while we’re on the subject of Castlevaina); in a recent poll on Sega’s site, the Action/Adventure genre nearly beat out Fighting in the category of games Sega fans would like to see most of. However, on the contrary, I think we’ve already demonstrated the (in)effectiveness of Sega’s feedback capabilities (see Thunderforce 5, or lack thereof).
Maybe I’m being too analytical here. Perhaps Konami isn’t supposed to make sense. Look at the lack of Policenauts. A game that was suddenly pulled from Konami’s "coming soon" list. The outcry was tremendous but ultimately fell on deaf ears. The favorite rumor that had been circulating concerning the lack of a PSX release was because Sony had a qualm about the main character’s smoking habits (since when is Sony the Surgeon General?). But hey…..look who was in charge of Sony’s third party affairs at that particular time…………Bernard Stolar. You remember him, don’t you? By the way, any attemps to confirm this are for not. Konami’s lips are sealed, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before you get anything out of Stolar. SCEA probably won’t say anything because it’s a page in their history book they much rather burn (and I for one don’t doubt them). Fortunately, Sony made amends for this with a uncensored translation of FFVII (Thank you Phil, my faith in humanity is restored once again).
Now if only they weren’t seemingly 3D bias……..
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Games I think would sell well on the US Saturn if given a fighting chance:
1. Grandia
2. Any Sonic Game
3. Burning Rangers
4. Castlevaina
5. Shining Force III…….and maybe Suikoden.
The opinions of John Hokanson Jr. are not the opinions of DaveZ's Sega Saturn page. As a freelance writer, John Hokanson makes no guarantees as to the accuracy of his information. He does not however, knowingly or intentionally spread misinformation. Mr. Hokanson is NOT an English major, so don't expect everything to be grammatically correct. Gripes, complaints, corrections, and death threats from anti-sega zealots, or intelligent, mature individuals alike may be sent to: isamu@usagi.com. Have a nice day. ^_^