PS3 Virtua Fighter 5 in North America on Feb. 20, European launch title

No online?

Booooo.

Christ. Offline play? That's last gen. That's LAST LAST gen. Nice to know that the PS3 can't do what a fucking dreamcast was capable of.

The one plus about this is that we can finally bury the "PNP is equal to live" hatchet for good. If this game was on xbox, Live would have been easy. And on ps3, as in several other games, online is a no show. Looks like the $50 a year ain't so much a ripoff as an assurance that there will be more than 3 games to play.

If its still be restricted to offline-play, I think only hardcore VF fan will get this game. This game is really hard to master unlike Tekken series. Most people I know who play very well on VF4 has been fan since VF 2 or 3. Of course Hori arcade stick is a must have for this game.
Graphic on this game is looks amazing when zoom in on characters. The wrinkles on character's hand are very detail and reality. But screen shot from fighting I can't tell much of difference compare to VF4evo.

Great to know that there will be a quality game for the PS3's European launch this September :p

Name one fast paced fighting game that plays 100% exactly the same online and offline (for which the game was designed); there aint none unless you're into a sluggish, lag-fest... AM2 isnt into that, its not what VF5 is about.

In Japan, this is a technical game (the console version has a frame counter in the training mode to let you time your counters using the animations)... it isnt for noobs. So, unless they can get online to be 100% the same as offline, they arent going to do it.

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3155516

I have DOA4 on 360 and it plays like crap online. I'll stick with offline thanks.

Wow. Another PS3 game with no online. Shocker. I'm really seeing the online matching LIVE. / sarcasm.

And don't tell me they're working on it. They've had 4 years since LIVE launch to, at the very least, copy it. But Sony can't even do that right. Go figure

Learn to read, Usedtabe.

#8,

What exactly did I miss. It says in plain english the game will be "offline". So maybe you should be the one dialing hooked-on-phonics. Asshole

Im used to playstation games being offline, its really no big deal the majority of games that benefit for online use are mainly shooters anyways, So i have a Ps3 for all the action adventures and rpgs and a 360 for the shooters, which is really all they have and reason im glad the ps3 is out now.

If anyone thinks for one second that lag is the reason this game isn't online, well, from the 1-Up article linked earlier,
"Virtua Fighter is an institution in Japan, dominating the arcade revenue charts for over a decade..."

I am not a VF player but I have been interested in the phenomenon since I came to Japan 3 years ago. I will stand in the arcade, sometimes for over an hour, and watch these guys play. What is also interesting to observe are their stats. I noticed in Tokyo, most players sported a match count of between 3000-5000. That's a lot of matches. That's a lot of money. I know that if the game were online, everyone wouldn't suddenly abandon the arcades. The arcade players would still be around. But in the end, does SEGA really want to take that chance?

u cant release a fighting game these days without online capabilities and expect to break out in the mass market...VF will only be a niche title now( like it pretty much hs been anyway)...not to mention the fact that fighting games in general have been on a decline in popularity...

nothing online will EVER be 100% accurate but u have to make sacrifices and compromises with a game that cud've *potentially* been a show piece for the PS network...oh well...another one bites the dust.

"Christ. Offline play? That's last gen. That's LAST LAST gen. Nice to know that the PS3 can't do what a fucking dreamcast was capable of."

"Wow. Another PS3 game with no online. Shocker. I'm really seeing the online matching LIVE. / sarcasm."

Actually the decision to stay offline was made by the developers, not by any limitation of the PS3.

"AM2 isnt into that, its not what VF5 is about."

That's true. If you have any doubt about it, play VF4 Evo and see for yourself. Virtua Fighter is an incredibly complex and demanding fighting game that would be unplayable online which is why I can understand AM2's reluctance to do so.

"No online?

Booooo."

Why does every game have to feature online play? Some games simply should not be taken online and should not have arbitrary multiplayer modes added just to say that they are online-enabled. Are we now going to start complaining about it for every last game?

so oblique wat action adventure games and rpgs are available for the ps3..??...dark ( low scoring) kingdom??...or Untold ( massive damage) legends..??..

great selection!

you've got to love the Playstation haters like Embassy and Usetable. The decision to not include online play was down to developers, not Sony. Want proof that the PS3 is more than capable, play Resistance online, its fantastic.

And those who attack the PS3's games line-up, how fickle and forgetful you lot are. I remember a certain machine launching a year ago which had a just as bad, if not worse line up of launch games, launch consoles and there wasnt a decent game out til Oblivion. Hell even the oh so wonderful Wii has one 'must have' game, and thats it for a few months. You guys need to realise its nothing to do with the actual console, but the bloody people that make the games for it.

But ill be suprised if you thick fanboys wake up and realise it.

Well Seeing that you are a retard Embassy, People like me actually by game systems for the long term if I bought a system for launch titles alone I would be as dumb as you. And from your comment it sounds like your an xbot or just a jealous punk that I have a ps3.

I bet you didnt buy your 360 for he launch games alone did you, no i didnt think so or else you wouldnt still own it.

And to add another reason why your a retard Embassy those 2 games you just stated are actually one game: Untold Legends Dark Kingdom. And the massive damage joke originates with the PS3 game Genji which is an excelent and very beautiful looking game, the low score wasnt called for because its really a good game, similar to onimusha, but on sheer graphics alone this is the game eveyone should be comparing to the 360 its excellent on my 40" 1080p screen.

to all the "no online?" whiners on here, name one good fighting game that has a competent online mode.

so, a game SEGA makes for a system does not have internet play, so in turn, everyone that hates sony automatically blames the PS3. Damn, nice logic. You all talk bad about sony fanboys, but man, you sony haters are just as bad.

Get this through your little brains, there is no point in being a fanboy for anything or being a hater for anything, if you don't like it, fine, no one cares.

When are you idiot people going to wake up and realize that it is 100% IMPOSSIBLE ATM to recreate a reasonable online experience when it comes to fighting games? The bandwidth technology for the average household just isn't there yet.

AM2 isn't being neglectful, IT'S A QUALITY ISSUE, which I applaud them for.

Now get out in the world and go make some friends, you losers.


-SynikaL

"When are you idiot people going to wake up and realize that it is 100% IMPOSSIBLE ATM to recreate a reasonable online experience when it comes to fighting games? The bandwidth technology for the average household just isn't there yet."

They forget about that part or are plainly ignorant. They smart Xbox fanboys declined to comment this time probably knowing this.

Hmmm....Maybe if the game was coming to the 360 with no online,I would bash Sega. But it seems to be a PS3 issue only so far. And although I agree with those who have stated that it wouldn't play online like it does off, they could have at least tried.

but usedtabe there, so far, have been no announcments of VF5 coming t 360 at all at this point. So thats wishful thinking at best and not going to happen at worst.

But even so, if the devs dont want it online, it being on 360 probably would have noe ffect on that.

'course SEGA doesnt want to include online play... That would mean THEY would have to pay for the servers....
Now you Sonies understand why we pay that $50 a year for LIVE GOLD membership?

Japan's average internet bandwidth is more than enough to handle online play even in a fighting game. Most pings are what about 50-100 or so miliseconds, I don't see how that can make much of a difference, I mean 1/20th of a second isn't exactly long in any type of game.

Its getting boring reading all of the PS3 apologists comments, I mean how long exactly are we supposed to wait until the PS3 gets any good.

"'course SEGA doesnt want to include online play... That would mean THEY would have to pay for the servers.... "

And we get down to the real reason.

It isn't about latency problems.
It is because thanks to Sony, Sega would have to pay for the servers and their bandwidth/maintenance. With such little profit they will make from this PS3 release, they can't afford to do that, or else they will start losing more than they make, not good for business.

I still do not know why they aren't porting this to the 360, it would make so much more money there, even more than what Sony is paying them to keep it an exclusive.

Well i'm not even sure all xbox live games have a server, in fact i believe most of em are peer to peer connection, so whoever starts the game is hosting.

Now games like Gears of war, i believe, have servers, as i suffer verry little to no lag, but games like SVR 2007 i believe are games hosted by other players as evidenced by the horrible lag one will receive if even one person has a bad connection.

So which i ask is, why am i paying 50 bucks a year to host games from my box?

Oddly enough i notice the lag on games if i'm hooked upt o my router, but when i connect directly to my modem the lag dissapears, if all games were on they're own server (like Gears or something) then thats not a problem but on most games, it is.

and Ben... how is this sony's fault? It was a dev decision.

But are we in the business of decrying a system simply because a dev makes a dumb choice? IF thats the case then you can forget about the Wii...as ubisoft is making horrible choices so therefore the wii must suck right?

Holy shit, anything Sony related brings out the haters.
Of all the good things - Virtua Fighter's great quick gameplay, awesome visuals, being a launch title for the March release in Europe, you pick on the most irrelevant and useless feature (or lack thereof).
Online is out of place in fighting games, you get that or did the laggy crap that is DOA4 not get through to you?

ONLY on Joystiq will you find this level of stupidity amongst 360 fans.

jj

That's the whole point, Microsoft work hard to make sure just about every game is playable on Live, certainly in this genre. Sony are just focussing on getting software out the door ASAP, thats why Japan has an unfinished Motorstorm.

Of course Sega could just make it so they dont have to put up servers and just make it some that peoples PS3's host the games, i dont think that would be too hard to do and wouldnt be a drain on any of Sega's resources either and in that sense it would work like some games on live (because as i said earlier, i belive some games are hosted by servers where as others are hosted by individual peoples boxes, in which case the service should be free for those certain games...but i digress)

on XBL Some games work fine, they're big releases, but on the other hand, a majority of the ones I play, are unplayable on live unless i have a direct connectiont o my modem, which frankly, isn't always an option.

Which leads me to believe, that not all live games are made equal, which, if thats the case, i dont feel i should have to pay for a service that I have to use my box to host from.

and while MS does work hard, there should be no reason, on a broadband connection for a service designed with broadband in mind (that we pay for mind you even if its only 7.99 a monthr or 50 a year), that i should receive game ending lag because of another player, because a developer doesn't want to put of servers.

and i remember hearing, weeks ago, that motor storm was rushed in japan, its not liek its new news, personally if and when they get the online component working right for the NA release, i'll pick it up.

and sure online play is a great thing to have, but its not the end all be all, in fact i think a few of 360's games suffer from thatnotion. In fact take GoW, without its online component the game wouldn't be worth 60 bucks at all.

Personally i love online gaming, in certain games, but its not the end all be all, not yet anyway. Its just like High definition gaming, some people like it, most dont do it or have the means too, yet.

I must say this looks the best on the PS3 i cant wait to play it.

And Microsoft haven't been accused of rushing games out? Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (or Winning Eleven, depending on what country you live) has been well knwon to be pressured, by Microsoft, to release the product early in Europe. Therefore, there was a half-assed online mode, no edit mode, half the stadiums compared to ps2 versions and almost half the teams.

Like i've said, before blaming Sony, look at your own favoured company before making comments, because there all guilty of virtually the same thing.

Benn Hobbs!?! How long exactly did people have to wait for the 360 to produce? Where only starting to see what the system is capable of over a year after launch with GoW etc. Infact, all console's are the same, so theres no logic to your questioning.

But again, i wouldnt expect anything less from mindless fanboys.

All I know is I'm a huge Virtua Fighter fan and I plan to get this, as well as the Virtua Stick High Grade, which looks sweet.

So, as far as I'm concerned, chalk one up for Sega here.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled bitching from those who wouldn't have bought the game anyway, because to them Dead or Alive is what counts as a quality fighter.

OK, fighting games has no place being online, but it is possible to make it work. DOA4 is optimized for online play, some of you may not consider this a real fighting game, but it is still a fighting game for it has almost the same play mechanics of VF. Now for you guys that hate DOA4, its because you don't get to know how to play the game, and this game was designed for both online and offline play, that is why the rock vs. scissors vs. paper gameplay is fleshed out in DOA4. The only way to play a smooth gameplay is to have a good connection.

It is the developers (Sega AM2) decision if they want to include online play or not, in this case they opt not to, but it could have been sweet if they did (would have been nice if they included some kind of online support like uploading your stats online and comparing them to friends, or some kind of ghost mode like training your fighter to fight with your buddies online). But still this won't change my decision to purchase a PS3 for a VF5, I'm a fighting game genre fan.

Ben Hobbs:


"Most pings are what about 50-100 or so miliseconds, I don't see how that can make much of a difference, I mean 1/20th of a second isn't exactly long in any type of game."

You obviously don't play fighting games much. If you do, you don't play them competitively enough to know how ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE it is for a 3D fighting game as technical as Virtua Fighter to run at 60fps at ALL TIMES (I assume this is the problem with most people).

1/20th of a second is a HUGE compromise in a game that requires vast amounts of inputs that require FRAME SPECIFIC timing. Genres like FPSs and racers can get away with lag because they don't require these types of inputs and a games' code can help in approximating a networks' mishaps in attempts to "hide" lag -- Halo 2 is a poorly executed example of this (shotgun, anyone?).

A fighting game can be rendered virtually UNPLAYABLE online if it suffers from ANY latency.

Imagine attempting to execute a move were the command deems it necessary to make an additional input during frames 6-10 during the exucution of another move, for example. That's only 4/60ths of a second, which is a VERY short time indeed, making the move hard enough to execute as is. Now imagine half the time you're playing, latency is causing the game to skip through half, or even all four frames of that small window of execution. Can you imagine how frustrating that would be? That's just a very simple example of why techincal fighting games don't work online.

Games such as Dead Or Alive can get away with being online, since the game is relatively less technincal, system wise, and doesn't rely as much on difficult command inputs. The consequence is that very few people take the series seriously not only online, but in general.

AM2 prides themselves in creating what is quite likely the most technical fighting game series of all time, and sees little reason to compromise the games' competitive merits to please a mass of whiney, often wholly casual, online gamers that would likely drop the game for the newest FPS within a month.

This scenario has NOTHING to do with your percieved lack of Sony's quality standards and EVERYTHING to do with a venerable game developer and its series' very obstinate, yet virtuous decisions against wolly unnecessary conventions.


-SynikaL

So, Sony launches with better online than the non-existant, non-voice communication Wii but people give Nintendo a late pass? Why such fanboys?

THREE WEEKS ago it came out. The 360 launched better with a new version of LIVE but I'm willing to hold off on declaring the PS3 dead until I see the next year unfold.

Sega knows what they are doing with their franchise and people in Japan will eat this game up; it'll sell a ton of consoles assuming Sony can get it on the shelves. It's funny that ever hear expects every game now to have an online element, but the guys overseas aren't focused as much on that. This is just another reason why Microsoft isn't going to ever lead the pack in Asia; they just don't get it.

EVERY SINGLE XBOX GAME (except maybe a small handfull) includes some form of online play. I think we'll see more of this as Sony continues to chuck out steaming turds at their fan base throughout 2007. Sony fans must have brand loyalty coming out of their asses to put up with this garbage. You pay a shit ton of money for a system that doesn't outperform anything on the market. Meanwhile your beloved company chucks turds like VF5 at you while you spend your day on boards like this defending them and their actions. It's like being pussy whipped, only much more expensive.

Chumps!

Have any of you haters even played DOA4 online? You don't lose frames when the game gets laggy - the frame rate actually slows down, and the game goes into slow-mo. The common assumption is that the lowered frame rate means MISSED frames. That isn't true. Hell, in general, DOA4 isn't all that laggy - it's only maybe one match out of ten that actually has serious issues.

That aside, there's no reason that Sega couldn't implement an online mode for those of us who aren't as hard-core as the average Japanese arcade-fanbot. I have no idea why this is being cast as "online play would ruin offline play". If you don't like online play, don't play online - you can play offline with your friends. But for those of us lacking a hardened cadre of gaming pals next door, online is very handy. Maybe Microsoft doesn't get it about the Japanese market, but Sony and Sega are showing handily that they don't understand the US or European markets anymore.

Amen to that Erwos

Firstly, Kimosabae beat me to arguing out the stupidity of Ben Hobbs comment. 1/20th of a second is too long for VF games, and that's the best case scenario for the average internet connection.

DOA4 being "optimised" for online, ~sigh~.

DOA4 needed to make the counters more difficult in DOA4 (requiring different directions) because they increased the window in which they needed to be done. The "same mechanics" are not true when the timing is loosened so that it just becomes counter after counter.

Play a half-decent Live person and it's just a matter of countering every move. Gah.

But yeah, the "how long do I have to wait" comment is also pretty foolish, I waited 6 months for 360, and still think I should've waited a few more, because DOA4 and GRAW weren't enough for me really, by now there's a couple more titles, but it's only been a month for the PS3, too early to judge.

Too early to even judge their online, they're implementing a new service here, I recall Live for Xbox not exactly hitting the ground running, with a low adoption rate at first.

I'm still holding my breath for PS3, will probably get one later if the games start showing up, but VF5 being offline has nothing to do with the success of the PS3. Casual fans that want online and don't understand why VF isn't aren't the types that really play it.

It's a good Euro launch title, bonus for a few diehard friends of mine, but it is a niche series, and doesn't change the grand scheme much.

I still think its funny that "SEGA" not wanting to add online play is somehow a dig at sony.... yet the Wii not having online out of the box and its still heralded as a great system (which it is no doubt, but all 3 are great systems to me too).

Yes all games on XBL require live functionality to some extent, not all are exactly online playable however, some are just scoreboards, etc etc. For instance, 360's surprise hit of the year Dead Rising by capcom... has not online functionality, just a scoreboard and a lot of other games they're online functionality is extremelty limited or tacked on and not even worth bothering with.

But seriously does every post concerning the PS3 have to turn into a flamefest? Fanboys, give it a break please.

neither 3 companies is going anywhere,a nytime soon, and thats a good thing. Why would you want the console market to be a monopoly by one company is beyond me. The more competition, the better consoles/games we get as consumers.

For the record, original Virtua Stick for the Saturn: best. stick. ever. Now if someone at SEGA would just learn how wonderful it is to make money and release VF5 for the 360...

The 360 fanboys on this site are breathtakingly stupid. Just because VF5 isn't coming to your console doesn't mean you need to piss your pants crying about its lack of online play.

First of all the decision to not include on-line as nothing to do with Sony. I am not a Sony fan by any means but fact is fact. Sony can't make AM2 include on-line play. Well they could but why risk ticking off a AM2 when VF5 is a system selling game in Japan.

With that said, I can see both sides of the argument. I am huge VF fan and even if I had a PS3, I'm not sure if I would pick it up without on-line play. Even when the arcade scene wasn't dead in my area, it was hard to find people that played VF. Everyone gravitated to the shallower Tekken titles. With DoA, I know a half dozen people that will come to my house and play versus mode with me. With VF, outside of my brother, it would be me against the computer. I had VF4 for my PS2 and I couldn't get anyone to play it outside of my brother and that because it was him that got me into the VF series. He began playing VF and told me about it so I gave it a shot.

There is no disputing that getting on-line play to work for fighting games is difficult. So I can see AM2's reason for their decision. Particularly in Japan where they could be costing themselves money from the still viable arcade scene. Unfortunately that means most of us VF fans in the west are screwed. How many people know enough VF players to get some good multiplayer going without the aid of on-line play?

DOA4's online play was hit or miss. From my experience it was soley due to poor implementation by Tecmo. I have had tons of lag free matches on DOA4. Problem is someone with a 1 bar or 2 bar connection would always join in and cause the whole room to lag. They needed to add an option that prevents players with low connection speeds from entering your lobby. It would have done wonders for DOA4's online play.

Actually, O Fanboys, the decisin to not have online has EVERYTHING to do with sony.

Because sony lacks MSs vision and is forcing devs to pay for their own servers and online costs, few of them are willing to make the effort required to make a decent online mode. that's why so many PS3 games lack online alltogether, simply because the devs don't wanna put in the effort.

Sony could have fixed this but helping devs out like MS does, but they chose not to. So it is their fault.
Sony promised (and all you loyal fanbots parotted it back) that their FREE online service would beat live. And now you are seeing what every xbox user saw from day one you would get: free online means lower quality. It means less games with online play, and fewer features for those that actually have it.

Pedro, you have the most idealistic visions of MS it's gonna be hard to say anything to you.

Sony's online service has only just started three weeks ago, Xbox Live at three weeks old was crap, about the same amount of games as PS3 and a load of leaderboards. It takes at least a few months, and there being less than ten games for the PS3 means that of course there's gonna be hardly any online games.

As mentioned before not all 360 games use Live servers, this should be obvious from some games lagging all the time and some being consistently smooth.

All of this is of course IRRELEVENT as more than once have VF developers spoken about their problems with online, as have Namco and other companies. MS paid for DOA, paid for it to be a flagship near-launch title, and as such the gameplay was loosened and a laggy online mode was hastily released, with no unranked matches and pisspoor games even though I'm on 16mb (2mb up).

Sony has nothing to do with AM2s decision. Wake up. Criticise Sony for what you like, but this has nothing to do with them.

It has nothing to do with idealism, merely reality. DOA4's gameplay has nothing to do with online and everything to do with DOA being a substandard game that relies on sex appeal to sell.

Had sony actually understood how to do online, they would have absorbed the costs themselves and charged for it to cover them. This would allow the creators to enable online quite easily. And this isn't even an isoltaed issue. Several ps3 games lack online. Tony hawk for example. Motorstorm for another. This is a decision of the devs, but it is one that sony's incompetence forced on them.

And i'm sorry, but the "it's only launch" doesn't work. When yu launch a year late, you get certain advantages: access to better hardware, knowledge of what mistakes to avoid, the ability to call your opponent's console last gen. And the only condition is that you have to deliver. The original xbox and cube delivered out the door what they promised. They both showcased tricks that the ps2 couldn't do. No one said they needed a year, because they didn't have a year to justify themselves. Their extra year was the year in which the ps2 was uncontested.

And now the shoe is on the other foot and sony ISN'T prepared to deliver even the bare minimum of what they promised? Tough. They don't get an extra year. They don't get extra time. The other consoles are out NOW. Live is out NOW, Sure it may have sucked when it launched, but that was years ago. No one had done it before and there was no roadmap. With Sony, they had a roadmap, they know what to do. All they needed to odo was copy it exactly and they couldn't even do that right.

And they STILL crowed about their obvious generational superiority to the 360. Sony doesn't get sympathy, or time, or an easy pass. THey have to put their money where there mouth is, and they aren't doing that. End of story.

Haha, first off, launch of the service, not launch of the PS3. In which case these things are not only allowed, they're unavoidable with a new online service.

And yes, they DO have months, they DO have time. The war isn't over in a few months heh.

The initial lull in online is expected, inevitable and meaningless. The launch games are always going to be poor, so it's a good time to test out online on a few games before the bulk of games hit the console.

It's not about laziness, Sony DO get an extra year, and you just have to wait, so does everyone. The following year these problems will be forgotten, irrelevent.