Cave Going Region-Free For Mushihime-sama Futari

[MCD]

http://kotaku.com/5368190/bullet-hell-shooter-creators-cave-going-region+free-for-next-xbox-360-game

Speaking with Cave's Makato Asada at Tokyo Game Show, we inquired about the developer's upcoming shoot-em-up release Mushihime-sama Futari for the Xbox 360, wondering if the title would be mercifully region-free and therefore import friendly. He had good news.

"We had a lot of good feedback from overseas users," Asada told Kotaku, happy with the strong response to the insect-themed, vertically-scrolling shmup. "So for this time, as a test, we're going to make the game region free so that overseas users can play it." Previous Cave games for the Xbox 360 like Do Don Pachi Daioujou Black Label Extra and Death Smiles have been limited to Japan only. So, why the change?

"By making Mushihime-sama Futari region-free, what we're doing is measuring the amount of overseas users," Asada explained. And if you care about your Cave shooters, it's probably a good idea to import a copy. Or two.

"This will have a direct impact on whether Espgaluda II and other titles will be localized for America," Asada warned us. "So it's probably a good idea to pick it up!"

The Japanese release of Mushihime-sama Futari is planned for November 26. We got a chance to play the home port at Tokyo Game Show this week, with our impressions right here.

We'll have more news on the future of Cave from our interview with Makato Asada later this week.

paging drohne...

[demi]

Meh, another crappy shooter. Cave is about to get a hard lesson in life

[MCD]

yeah, now that xbla limit is 2 gigs dunno why they just don't release it there.

[Don Flamenco]

This has pretty much been known, but it's nice to see them explicitly confirm it.  agh, so tempting...but $70.  I complained about Raiden 4 being $40, but this is Cave...i might pre-order  

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-br-49-en-15-Mushihime-70-3cq6.html

there'll be a limited edition too:
http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-br-77-1-49-en-15-Mushihime-70-3j1c.html


I haven't been up with importing in years...are there places cheaper than play asia? also, Cave is like 5 years too late on this and this experiment is distinguished mentally-challenged. 

[Sho Nuff]

+3 copies

[bork]

makes you wonder why none of these other shmups are region free. seems like a great way to get some extra sales out of niche games that'll likely never be localized

Yeah, that's really awesome of them to do that. 

I haven't been up with importing in years...are there places cheaper than play asia? also, Cave is like 5 years too late on this and this experiment is distinguished mentally-challenged. 

They seem to be the cheapest.  These games would make better PSN/XBLA titles, but I think they got denied.

[iconoclast]

They're better off as full retail releases though. Cave probably wouldn't have gone the extra mile redrawing the spirtes for HD, adding in new modes, developing DLC, etc. for a $10-$15 XBLA release. Like when (if?) Guwange comes out, I'm sure it'll be exactly the same as the game you can play on MAME along with achievements and leaderboards.

Anyway, I'll be getting at least one copy. I might buy 3 more for Christmas presents, but I'm kinda broke.

[Bebpo]

Nice to see a Japanese company acknowledge an importing fanbase

[Mr. Gundam]

Nice to see a Japanese company acknowledge an importing fanbase

Totally.

[pilonv1]

yeah, now that xbla limit is 2 gigs dunno why they just don't release it there.

Because Microsoft will only release it on XBLA in Japan. At least this way everyone can play it.

About time they did this though. Although it's too late for Raiden

[Mr. Gundam]

Saw this over at NCSX this morning in reference to Mushihime going region-free:

   One of our own examples we can throw out is Ikaruga on the Dreamcast. That was our best selling import game ever and NCS probably sold 35% of the entire production. It took us three days to process, pack, and ship all of our preorders. However, when Ikaruga was ported over to the US Gamecube in 2003, the overall sales numbers weren't great. We still had copies as of last Christmas although we did eventually sell out at US$80 per copy.

That's pretty impressive that ~35% of the entire print run went to importers.

[Don Flamenco]

Saw this over at NCSX this morning in reference to Mushihime going region-free:

   One of our own examples we can throw out is Ikaruga on the Dreamcast. That was our best selling import game ever and NCS probably sold 35% of the entire production. It took us three days to process, pack, and ship all of our preorders. However, when Ikaruga was ported over to the US Gamecube in 2003, the overall sales numbers weren't great. We still had copies as of last Christmas although we did eventually sell out at US$80 per copy.

That's pretty impressive that ~35% of the entire print run went to importers.

I'm sure the left over copies of Ikaruga had nothing to do with the fact that they were $80 each. if they kept the regular price while the aftermarket value rose, people would have picked up on it and bought their copies.

I see their point though and it's a good argument for not releasing the disc in other regions.  People who are really into shmups are not going to wait to buy a U.S. release and even if they did, they are probably not a large enough community to support a full scale release, unless it was a limited run by Atlus (hyped with shitty borderline hentai artbooks, of course.)

[originalz]

This is a really good game.