MIA developers

[Jabberwocky]

By this I mean developers that have neither released nor announced anything for a significant period of time. Such as:

Platinum Games
Vanillaware
tri-Crescendo
tri-Ace
Monolith Soft
Treasure

What could they be up to?

[Himu]

Konami

[Great Rumbler]

Uh...almost all of those are developers that released at least one game within the past twelve months...

[Howard Alan Treesong]

By this I mean developers that have neither released nor announced anything for a significant period of time. Such as:

Platinum Games
Vanillaware
tri-Crescendo
tri-Ace
Monolith Soft
Treasure

What could they be up to?

collecting food stamps

[Beezy]

Da fuck? Vanquish just came out at the end of October.

[Bebpo]

Monolith Soft just released Xenoblade and are hiring for their new rpg project (on 3DS, available in 2-3 years)
Platinum just put out Vanquish and are probably going to announce Bayo 2 or something at E3
Vanillaware is rumored to be porting Odin Sphere and Muramasa to PS3 and maybe working on an original game as well
Tri-crescendo is probably trying to avoid bankruptcy after the failure of Trusty Bell & Fragile by doing art/music for other people's games
Tri-ace is the only one really MIA, after Infinite Undiscovery & Star Ocean 4 were terrible and bomba and Valkyrie Profile DS didn't light up the charts, they're probably trying to figure out how to stay alive.  My guess?  Star Ocean 5 or VP3 announcement this year.
Treasure just put out Sin & Punishment 2 and is making Bangai-o XBLA and Radient Silvergun XBLA.  They also might be working on a shmup for X360 or maybe it's cancelled depending on which day you ask them.  Note, treasure is very very small, so in reality they're probably just making 2 XBLA ports and nothing else atm.

[demi]

Uh Bebpo, TA released ROF... which bombed as well cause lts be honest it was straight garbge

[Bebpo]

and since I'm at it and taking a break during studies, I'll update some progress reports on other j-devs:

R&D1 (aka, main SMT team) is about to put out Catherine in a month and is hiring for their next big game which appears to be Persona 5 for PS3/X360 in mid/late 2012
Other SMT team led by Kaneko hopefully making another real megaten for 2010/2011.  Most likely stuck on handheld since Kaneko projects get underbudgeted
Tales team working on Xillia for summer/fall 2011
Final Fantasy team who the fuck knows, probably FFXIII-2 for 2012
KH team finishing up FFXIII Versus, hopefully it's out by the end of 2011
New KH team just put out KH BBS Final Mix, and is working on KH 3DS for either xmas 2011 or early/mid 2012
Sega is finishing up on Yakuza of THE END and then working on some stupid robot shooter
Super Robot Wars licensed team is finishing up SRW Z2 for release in April and then moving onto Z2-2 for late 2011 or 2012
SRW OG team who the fuck knows, rumored to be doing SRW OG3 for PS3 but it's been over 3 years now...
Sony Japan finishing The Last Guardian and doing absolutely jack shit else besides Move minigames
EDF team making EDF2 Portable and EDF4 hopefully for real consoles with real online
Cave porting shmups, making shmups
Nippon Ichi releasing Disgaea 4 in Feb, Classic Dungeon 2 in March, going out of business in April
Irem releasing Zettai Zetsumei 4 in April and hopefully staying in business to finish up Bumpty Trot 2

[Phoenix Dark]

miyamoto

[Bebpo]

Uh Bebpo, TA released ROF... which bombed as well cause lts be honest it was straight garbge

Whoops, yeah forgot about that.  So 4 bombas in a row now.  They're so bankrupt or bought out in the next year or two.

miyamoto

Pikmin 3!

[Beezy]

miyamoto

shut the fuck up

[pilonv1]

miyamoto

ice cold

[Himu]

miyamoto

lmao

[magus]

miyamoto

doing two crappy zelda game in a row

[chronovore]

miyamoto

His project is called "Windsurfing in Cancun and Occasionally Showing Up at Conferences."

[Robo]

Wave Race 3?! 

[The Sceneman]

Radiant Silvergun XBLA will light up my pants

[Howard Alan Treesong]

miyamoto

Miyamoto is working on a measuring game based on the Dad in The Wasp Factory

[The Sceneman]

featuring public domain midi compositions

[Howard Alan Treesong]

featuring public domain midi compositions

Exclusive footage of Miyamoto's next 3DS game:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[close]

[Smooth Groove]

3D Realms

[Great Rumbler]

I wanna know what's going on at:

Starbreeze Studios
Monolith Productions
Human Head Studios

Especially with Monolith. They better be doing something big to hand F.E.A.R. 3 to another studio.

Starbreeze is [supposedly] doing a Syndicate game.

[Bebpo]

I wanna know what's going on at:

Starbreeze Studios
Monolith Productions
Human Head Studios

Especially with Monolith. They better be doing something big to hand F.E.A.R. 3 to another studio.

Wasn't Monolith doing Shogo 2?

[Sho Nuff]

I wanna know what's going on at:

Starbreeze Studios
Monolith Productions
Human Head Studios

Especially with Monolith. They better be doing something big to hand F.E.A.R. 3 to another studio.

Wasn't Monolith doing Shogo 2?

Monolith was eaten by WB. AFAIK they are doing a lot of licensed stuff now.

[The Sceneman]

so theres two Monoliths? I doubt the same guys that did the Baten Kaitos games did the F.E.A.R games... sounds like you guys are getting confused lol

[cool breeze]

I think 3D realms made Blood and Monolith just finished it or something.  I remember that being the rationale for why Blood 2 was so weak by comparison.

As for what Monolith is doing, I remember rumors of another NOLF game (in spirit) from sometime last year.

[EmCeeGrammar]

miyamoto

He's implied he's working on a new character franchise, but who knows when that will materialize.

[tiesto]

so theres two Monoliths? I doubt the same guys that did the Baten Kaitos games did the F.E.A.R games... sounds like you guys are getting confused lol

There's Monolith Productions which made awesome games like Blood and F.E.A.R. and then theres Monolith Soft which makes a bunch of weeaboo games.

Baten Kaitos series and Xenoblade >>>>> generic FPSes

[Positive Touch]

I think 3D realms made Blood and Monolith just finished it or something.  I remember that being the rationale for why Blood 2 was so weak by comparison.

As for what Monolith is doing, I remember rumors of another NOLF game (in spirit) from sometime last year.

bzzt wrong

suck jason hall's roid-shrunken cock as penance

[Great Rumbler]

I think 3D realms made Blood and Monolith just finished it or something.  I remember that being the rationale for why Blood 2 was so weak by comparison.

As for what Monolith is doing, I remember rumors of another NOLF game (in spirit) from sometime last year.

bzzt wrong

suck jason hall's roid-shrunken cock as penance

Development was underway at 3D Realms in parallel with a number of other well-known titles. Following the success of Duke Nukem 3D, development progress was made public starting in June 1996 with weekly updates on their website. It was originally scheduled for release in early 1997. On January 22, 1997, a press release announced that all rights had been sold to Monolith so that 3D Realms "could focus efforts on Shadow Warrior," another Build engine game slated for release the same year. Released on May 31, 1997, it utilized an enhanced version of the Build engine from Ken Silverman which featured the addition of voxels.

[Van Cruncheon]

featuring public domain midi compositions

Exclusive footage of Miyamoto's next 3DS game:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[close]

[Bebpo]

so theres two Monoliths? I doubt the same guys that did the Baten Kaitos games did the F.E.A.R games... sounds like you guys are getting confused lol

There's Monolith Productions which made awesome games like Blood and F.E.A.R. and then theres Monolith Soft which makes a bunch of weeaboo games.

Baten Kaitos series and Xenoblade >>>>> generic FPSes

The thing is non-weaboo people like to go har har Monolith FPS >>>> Monolith Soft rpgs, but they do that because of old love for Monolith great games like NOLF.  The fact is the Monolith of late is a fairly average developer hardly worth putting on a pedastal.  Fear was decent, great combat, average everything else.  Condemned was cool.  Condemned 2 was terrible and FEAR 2 was forgettably average.  They haven't made a good game in 4 years+  It's one thing to say Bungie >>>> jrpg dev or Infinity Ward >>>> jrpg dev, but Monolith??  really?  

[Brehvolution]

1st party 2011 360 devs.

[Positive Touch]

well color me embarrassed

still blood 1 > anything 3d realms ever put out

[Smooth Groove]

so theres two Monoliths? I doubt the same guys that did the Baten Kaitos games did the F.E.A.R games... sounds like you guys are getting confused lol

There's Monolith Productions which made awesome games like Blood and F.E.A.R. and then theres Monolith Soft which makes a bunch of weeaboo games.

Baten Kaitos series and Xenoblade >>>>> generic FPSes

The thing is non-weaboo people like to go har har Monolith FPS >>>> Monolith Soft rpgs, but they do that because of old love for Monolith great games like NOLF.  The fact is the Monolith of late is a fairly average developer hardly worth putting on a pedastal.  Fear was decent, great combat, average everything else.  Condemned was cool.  Condemned 2 was terrible and FEAR 2 was forgettably average.  They haven't made a good game in 4 years+  It's one thing to say Bungie >>>> jrpg dev or Infinity Ward >>>> jrpg dev, but Monolith??  really?  

Still, Monolith FPS games are anything but generic. 

[Don Flamenco]

hopefully Platinum is working on Bayonetta 2!

[Sho Nuff]

so theres two Monoliths? I doubt the same guys that did the Baten Kaitos games did the F.E.A.R games... sounds like you guys are getting confused lol

There's Monolith Productions which made awesome games like Blood and F.E.A.R. and then theres Monolith Soft which makes a bunch of weeaboo games.

Monolith was eaten by WB. AFAIK they are doing a lot of licensed stuff now.

Seriously? How did that happen? F.E.A.R. 2 just came out in 2009, why would they put them in-charge of turdy licensed stuff when they should be making awesome games?

WB likes money. They are pushing for licensed stuff with most of their devs

I have no idea if a F.E.A.R. sequel would recoup dev budgets, I kind of doubt it.

[Smooth Groove]

Bayonetta had a pretty low budget, right?  Or at least that's what it seems like, based on my early impressions of the game. 

[Smooth Groove]

DMC4 probably had a minuscule budget compared to God of War 3 or maybe even Enslaved.  The tech behind DMC4 was great but the assets were noticeably limited in quantity and quality. 

[Bebpo]

Well in that respect, all Japanese game budgets outside something like a mainline Final Fantasy or MGS are miniscule in comparison to the rest of the world.  That last poll had PS3 game budgets at something like 2-3 million iirc.  I'd wager actual nice looking quality stuff like Bayo is probably closer to 5-10 range while stuff like Disgaea is closer to 500k-1 million range, but I think it's rare to find any Japanese developed game going over 10 million in budget this gen.  Whereas you have stuff like Brutal Legend costing 25 million.

[iconoclast]

I want to know what Natsume's been doing. They haven't developed a game since Omega Five I think (which was pretty good all things considered)

VF5 is done and Sega AM2 hasn't announced their next arcade game yet IIRC. Hopefully they've been hard at work on Border Break and VF5FS console ports. ( )

I was also going to say something about Moss not making anything since Raiden 4, but then I remembered they made KoF Sky Stage... they must have fallen on hard times.

[iconoclast]

Yeah, but I'm kinda hoping that VOOT and After Burner were side projects while they were waiting to begin work on the glorious VF5FS console ports. The arcade game was only released in July, I'll give it the rest of the year before I give up completely.

[magus]

featuring public domain midi compositions

Exclusive footage of Miyamoto's next 3DS game:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[close]

that turkey is made from the same stuff of nightmare's!

[Jabberwocky]

Also what ever happened to Matrix Software (FF remakes) and Game Arts (Grandia)?

I want to know what Natsume's been doing. They haven't developed a game since Omega Five I think (which was pretty good all things considered)

I think Omega Five 3DS was announced not too long ago.

[Beezy]

Game Arts

:'( Grandia 4 :'(