Is it worth importing a JPN 360?

Dinodoedoe

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I want to play Deathsmiles but is it worth purchasing a JPN 360 for Cave shmups, especially since there might be a chance Cave will be bringing them to North America?

I have the money saved up BUT I'm starting to wonder if this purchase is a little TOO niche. What are the chances of Deathsmiles coming over to the States?
 

Poison Sama

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Deathsmiles? Who knows if it and others will really make it over. At this point, everything pretty much depends on how well Mushihime-sama Futari performs.

Things for you to keep in mind :

Having a JP360 gives you access to other shmups, not just Cave's.

The 3-year warranty for JP360's is still vaild in the US (I know from first-hand experience).

Most US-region 360 games run perfectly fine on a JP360, and for the few that don't, there's always the Asian versions (the only exception so far is Rockband).

That said, if you don't mind waiting a bit longer, you should wait & see what Cave says regarding Mushihime-sama's sales.
 

agustusx

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if its only for DS you can wait and see. Thats if you don't mind the agony. A j360 and DS are still cheaper than the pcb.

Normally I would say jump in, but unless you really want some of the other J exclusives it may actually benefit you to hold out. Do you already have a 360?
 

Dinodoedoe

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Yeah, I already have a 360 but I can use another one for the game room. I have a spare LCD monitor i can hook it up to. I've already confirmed that about 90% of my games will already work so I'll make the jump.
 

Poison Sama

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Since you're in Nevada, the best place for you to get one would be NCSX. Unless you know someone in Japan that can get one for you directly.
 

Poison Sama

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Japan Videogames is in Phoenix, that's closer.

Is this their site? http://www.japanvideogames.com/

According to their About Us page, they're in California.

But anyways, they seem to have JP360 consoles in stock and at a good price. Shipping to Las Vegas is a little less than $15, so it looks like that's a better place to get one than NCSX (unless you live in Califorina due to the sales tax).
 

Battlesmurf

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I have absolutely enjoyed my J360. It gets use with Shooting Love 200x as well- that game really is a blast with 4 people. There's a few other neat titles as well- not to mention if you are an achievement hunter you can double up on some stuff if that matters at all.
 

Dinodoedoe

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Will I need to create a new account or can I just transfer my account over? I have my X360 account on a memory card if that matters.

Also is DoDonPachi Daioujou really broken?
 
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Jedah Doma

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From what I hear, the port from Of Dodonpachi was handled by 5gp and wasn't done very well. Cave stated that is the reason they are internally handling the port of Mushihimesama Futari. Anyone have any idea if that is factually true?
 

agustusx

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From what I hear, the port from Of Dodonpachi was handled by 5gp and wasn't done very well. Cave stated that is the reason they are internally handling the port of Mushihimesama Futari. Anyone have any idea if that is factually true?

Will I need to create a new account or can I just transfer my account over? I have my X360 account on a memory card if that matters.

Also is DoDonPachi Daioujou really broken?

If you can come close to 1CCing DDP DOJ BLEX, then yes you will start to see the bugs. I can't, so the majority of bugs reported don't effect me. One notable bug is the game can crash in the 2nd loop if you 1cc it. There are also some scoring issues later in the game.

The menus and interface are a pain, but once you get in the game its ok. If you don't have DDP Black label, i think its still worth getting before the price shoots up(which could be a few years away). Also 5pb is supposed to be working on some patches for it, but busy atm.


If you have a US X360 account, its nice to have a silver j account to download content. If you ever wish to buy j exclusive content, for example Deathsmiles MBL you need to buy jpn xbox points via a site similar to play asia.
 
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agustusx

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and a bit more than a hunch tells me Cave ported DS and will port Futari on their own simply because they dont want to license newer stuff to 5pb. DDP already had a console release so I don't think Cave cared quite as much about it.

The way things are going Cave will likely port a ton of their own games in the future.
 

TheGreenMachine

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Let's be serious here. Take a look at what 5pb releases/has released(hint: mostly shitty ADV games). Do people really think they are any sort of hardcore go to company that will be releasing shmups?

Just maybe Cave let 5pb port DDP because they weren't all that interested in releasing it, at that time.

Based on Deathsmiles performance if future Cave shooters continue to perform well it seems a pretty safe assumption that we will see future Cave shooters from Cave. So long as they continue to perform well and meet/exceed sales expectations.

Maybe some of the less popular Cave shooters will get licensed for release by other companies. Maybe Cave will release them. Maybe they will never get released. Really all people can do at this stage is speculate.

But the skys not falling, so no need to panic.

- TGM
 

Poison Sama

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Let's be serious here. Take a look at what 5pb releases/has released(hint: mostly shitty ADV games). Do people really think they are any sort of hardcore go to company that will be releasing shmups?

I'm pretty sure MS gave 5pb some suitcases full of money and some free 360 dev kits, under the condition that they'd secure the licenses to a couple of Cave's games and release them exclusively on the 360.

Where else do you think such a small company with little to no experience in games other than ADVs suddenly got the idea to start porting Cave shmups exclusively to the 360 (and the amount of money needed to cover Cave's supposedly expensive licensing fees)?

It's pretty clear that 5pb didn't put any serious effort into porting DDPDOJBL, since they outsourced the job of porting to a shady company that illegally reverse-engineered Arika's PS2 port of DDPDOJ to create the 360 port. You'd think that if they were genuinely interested in these games they'd put way more effort into them.

Another interesting thing to note is that 5pb has been releasing a lot of ADV games on the 360 lately, and in many cases exclusively (to be fair, some of them are actually pretty good).
 

TheGreenMachine

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I'm pretty sure MS gave 5pb some suitcases full of money and some free 360 dev kits, under the condition that they'd secure the licenses to a couple of Cave's games and release them exclusively on the 360.

Where else do you think such a small company with little to no experience in games other than ADVs suddenly got the idea to start porting Cave shmups exclusively to the 360 (and the amount of money needed to cover Cave's supposedly expensive licensing fees)?

It's pretty clear that 5pb didn't put any serious effort into porting DDPDOJBL, since they outsourced the job of porting to a shady company that illegally reverse-engineered Arika's PS2 port of DDPDOJ to create the 360 port. You'd think that if they were genuinely interested in these games they'd put way more effort into them.

I don't think MS would be shoveling money at a relatively small primarily ADV game publisher under any conditions that they try and secure rights to games from XYZ company. That's pretty risky and circuitous.

It would make better sense to directly court XYZ company and negotiate licensing. Cave seems to be on pretty good terms with MS. It seems odd that they aren't releasing titles on the PS3.

Another interesting thing to note is that 5pb has been releasing a lot of ADV games on the 360 lately, and in many cases exclusively (to be fair, some of them are actually pretty good).

5pb has been releasing a lot of ADV games on many platforms lately(someones gotta publish all those KID titles :)). And a lot of those titles being released on the PS2, PSP, and Xbox 360.

Aren't there only a handful that are really exclusive to the 360? And even then, isn't Chaos Head a port of a PC game? Though I don't know as pending Steins;Gate has dropped/is dropping on PC.

Maybe we need an official 'Cave speculation\prognostication' thread.

- TGM
 

Poison Sama

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I don't think MS would be shoveling money at a relatively small primarily ADV game publisher under any conditions that they try and secure rights to games from XYZ company. That's pretty risky and circuitous.

MS has been known for doing similar deals with other Japanese companies. MS actually approached G.rev and asked them to port Senko no Ronde exclusively to the 360, giving them 360 dev kits for free in the process (possibly other things as well), and there is also this (has some NSFW stuff). But in this case, I think it was 5pb who approached MS first, but it was MS who laid down the conditions. I agree that it was risky, and I'm sure MS has learned their lesson now. But keep in mind that the 360 is in last place in Japan, so MS sometimes needs to take risks to try to get ahead (or at least to keep from falling even further behind).

It would make better sense to directly court XYZ company and negotiate licensing. Cave seems to be on pretty good terms with MS. It seems odd that they aren't releasing titles on the PS3.

In retrospect, that would have been the better option, but it wasn't until 5pb's incompetence showed itself that it became apparent. I'm guessing it was cheaper (and/or would seem less desperate) for 5pb to do it than for MS to do it directly. MS, 5pb, and Cave were all going to get something out of the deal. It also wasn't until after the 5pb deals that Cave became directly involved with 360 development.

5pb has been releasing a lot of ADV games on many platforms lately(someones gotta publish all those KID titles :)). And a lot of those titles being released on the PS2, PSP, and Xbox 360.

Aren't there only a handful that are really exclusive to the 360? And even then, isn't Chaos Head a port of a PC game? Though I don't know as pending Steins;Gate has dropped/is dropping on PC.

The majority of ADV games begin life as PC games and are then ported to consoles/handhelds, but it seems like 5pb's focus is shifting more and more towards the 360 for console exclusive ports of them. The upcoming port of Tayutama will be console exclusive for the 360 (as was the Chaos;Head port). Steins;Gate will be a 360 exclusive from the very beginning (maybe timed, but who knows). Though I find it odd that they're starting to focus so much on the 360, when the market for ADV games is still far larger on the PS2 (two the recently released Memories Off 6 games sold much better on the PS2 than the 360, despite being released at the same time).

But anyways, if you have a more logical theory for what's going on, I'd be very interested in hearing it. Seriously.
 
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Dinodoedoe

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Placed my order for my JPN 360 and still waiting for Death Smiles to arrive from Play-Asia. Now the waiting game...
 

lidiaandmichael

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:buttrock:Has anyone ordered from Japan Video games before I am really thinking of geting a Japanese 360 from them??????
 

Dinodoedoe

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I bought my 360 from them and I got my console from them in less than 24 hours. Not bad for UPS ground. Awesome benefits for living so close to California. I like their service so much I pre-ordered Mushihime Sama and purchased a 1400 MS point card from them as well. Received the code for the points in less than 4 hours. I HIGHLY recommend them.

Big thanks to brentsg & zombiesara for pointing out Japanvideogames.

Also, DeathSmiles is the bee fucking knees. Man this game is really good.
 

Electric Grave

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I think just DS alone is worth the purchase, everything else is gonna be a bonus. Futari is gonna be amazing. First time I played Futari it was 1.5 and I felt like I was in a trance, the game is so incredibly laid out that everything seems fluid like a dream, even when you die you don't get upset 'cause you can defenately agree with the reasons why you died unlike some other shmups where you want to pull your hair and beat the screen to a pulp.

DOJ is awsome, the menus might be a bitch and the loading at the start can be bothersome but in exchange for a chance to play another DOJ "scenario" is defenatley worth the aggravation. In this case I personaly see ports such as this where slowdown and bullet speed is altered as another version of a game, sort of like an extended mode or something. I usually go for both PCB's and ports so the jp 360 was well worth the purchase for me and if you have no means to get the PCB and you really like these type of games then the jp 360 is defenately the way to go.
 
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Poison Sama

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I bought my 360 from them and I got my console from them in less than 24 hours. Not bad for UPS ground. Awesome benefits for living so close to California. I like their service so much I pre-ordered Mushihime Sama and purchased a 1400 MS point card from them as well. Received the code for the points in less than 4 hours. I HIGHLY recommend them.

Big thanks to brentsg & zombiesara for pointing out Japanvideogames.

Also, DeathSmiles is the bee fucking knees. Man this game is really good.

You're welcome, and also a question for you : is your JP360 a Jasper?

And yes, Deathsmiles is fantastic. If you haven't played 1.1 mode yet, do so.
 

Dinodoedoe

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Yes my xbox 360 is a Jasper and 1.1 takes a little getting use to.

Also: I just downloaded the MBL DLC and I'm not sure what I just paid for. Besides an extra character, what's the big deal again?
 
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Yes my xbox 360 is a Jasper and 1.1 takes a little getting use to.

Also: I just downloaded the MBL DLC and I'm not sure what I just paid for. Besides an extra character, what's the big deal again?

Tonk detailed a list someplace around here...
 
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