With news of Ikaruga's imminent release, and the previous release of Triggerheart Exelica, it would seem to the casual observer that XBLA would be a great place for screen-scrolling shooters. Well, this is not quite so. In the most recent issue of Famitsu, 5pb, the developers in charge of porting Cave's Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label X and Ketsui X, speak out about their experience with Microsoft's Live Arcade decision making division, and the account sounds eerily similar to the tale told by the developers of N+.In a nutshell, Microsoft told 5pb that they could not put their games on Live Arcade due to the fact that Microsoft is "going to cut down on faithful arcade ports." So 5pb will have to put their two games out via traditional retail channels, but they're quite understandably frustrated and would prefer to bring these two arcade games, and more, to market via XBLA instead of via disc. And this is still horrible news in that it backs up Metanet's assertion that there are problems deciding what content makes it onto XBLA.
Hit the break for the full statement from Cave.
"Out initial plan was to port lots of good arcade titles to XBLA. We talked to IP holders of these titles, and persuaded them. We secured these licenses, and finally talked with Microsoft. There they rejected all of our proposals saying, 'We are going to cut down faithful arcade ports.' We felt so frustrated. We wanted to show them that their decision was wrong. So we switched our two most promising projects into retail."
Update: The comments were made by Masaki Sakari of 5pb, not Cave.
Update: The comments were made by Masaki Sakari of 5pb, not Cave.
