Not what I wanted to see on twitter

Last round we got a surprisingly awesome release in the US that was imported to the UK and absolutely nothing in Japan. You just never know what's coming with these guys.

Uuuuuhhhhhh DDR Hottest Party 5 for the Wii?

Also wow, Konami actually responded. And they responded HARD.

notbad.jpg for Konami, sucks what they posted though.

---

Based on the source, the comment is regarding current-gen (XBox and PS3) console releases in the UK. I'm 99% certain I know who's running that Twitter, based on the brands that it deals with.

Amazing how easy it was to forget that, I guess I was thinking along the lines of uniquely different releases. Fixed.

If DDR (or KONAMI in general) really is becoming such a burden in UK and US, then why are we even still putting faith in it?
Sooner or later, KONAMI is going to eventually run out of ideas, and will finally HAVE to turn to ITG. Evidence? KONAMI has the rights to ITG, do they not? KONAMI should've been contrabanded from USA in my opinion after pulling such a monopolistic move on ROXOR back in 2007. Does KONAMI not realize they're basically pulling a monopoly (which is a big no-no in USA for starters) by being the only big company selling dancing games in USAs video game market, and stopping ROXOR from doing them a favor by trying to stop that from happening? Why does KONAMI listen to no one anymore? They clearly have no idea what they're doing up there.

On another note, if KONAMI still wants to bombard us with any more unamusing DDR games, they should at least consider building on DDR Universe 3, the only time they ACTUALLY did things correctly, by inviting outsiders to help with the charts, primarily from the ITG community itself.

P.S. KONAMI needs to stop being such a coward and release MAX. in a future American/European DDR game. We're not THAT gullible. Then again, we still can be, even after almost a decade after MAX. was put into DDR Extreme JP

---

Let's see ITG/DDR beat Dance Central and Just Dance with all the licenses both games have compared to the ones the US DDR games seem to be getting. I think this isn't an issue about Konami not listening to us (that's only half), it's more so te problem of who in the hell nowadays would play on a plastic "peripheral" when we got Kinect and other games that don't require a secondary plug to be able to play it? Oh hey Guitar Hero and DJ Hero and Band Hero (HA what a joke) seems to be joining the party, Rock Band is still...alive because of Harmonix, pretty much the last fabrical piece of string that ties the American market to major music rhythm games nowadays. They seem to pretty much have the Western side by the balls in terms of music games. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they released their own "DJ-simulator" game and it would sell BILLIONS.

---

as far as I know KONAMI sued Roxor for releasing "upgrade" kits that converts DDR cabs to ITG cabs.

Also, no need to spoiler your stuff.
And people need to stop wishfully jizzing themselves to MAX. (period). I don't see anything special with that, it's lost its relevance.

and with DDR2010 (and II to some extent), they have shown us that even when they try to pick mainstream licenses, they did so badly and drove it to the ground with the charts.

(shit i kept appending to this post) don't forget to compare hardcore gamers and casual gamers. compare the numbers, and add the fact that casual gamers most probably don't know about KONAMI Original songs and that they probably prefer licenses... and that with the current consoles, motion-based dancing game would be easier to follow instead of hitting some arbitrary arrows.

their biggest market right now for DDR would be Asian arcades I believe as I saw a little girl here, 10 yr old tops, play DDR and she has a freakin' eAmuse card. And somehow they're extending eAmuse to Australia and New Zealand, hmm.

---

Holy shit stop right now.

Look, I'm a big fan of ITG, but this perception "KONAMI sued ITG because they're mean and wah!" needs to stop. They had very legitimate grounds for suing (the upgrade kits were what started it, but also unfair competition was a factor too), whether people like it or not. Was it a dick move? Probably, but most people don't seem to realize that it was the best thing to happen to the game; instead of RoXoR making most of the decisions for it, it was up to the community instead. There's now a wide variety of stepcharts, themes, courses, and noteskins to play with on machines.

And no, Konami does not have the rights to ITG. They have the rights to the title of "4 panel game" iirc, nothing more. Keep in mind that they are business like anyone else and have to find some ways to make profit. I'm not totally familiar with how monopolies work overseas (I only briefly learned about it in Economics) so I can't really offer an opinion on that end.

As to Konami not listening to anyone, yeah they do have a problem with taking feedback (be it positive or negative). They're targeting the casual crowd more however and as far as they know they're main approach to them seems to work fine. It makes the money the quickest I guess. Why they alienate the more elite players I don't know.


The only thing I could see ITG charts helping with in DDR is for boss songs. Otherwise it's two different approaches to stepcharts and two that don't intertwine together nicely IMO.


What is with this Max. obsession and why does everyone have a hard-on for it?


Apologies if this makes little sense; I don't usually make long posts like this unless I have to

---

I see you guys have made your points. Sorry for going off about this then. I guess I'm just all riled up over the series of unimportant events involving the closure of as many as three arcades within the last 4 years; there actually WAS a community in NY back then, but now it's like everything & everyone gone, with no reason why it keeps happening to that state in particular, while other places seem to fare off just fine up to now.

Long story short, I should just shut up, deal with it, and find somewhere else to play. Unfortunately I rest my case.

---

@SM Max : Well imo itg style chart would help better on anything BUT boss songs. A bunch of them are already too hard or overstepped while some "non boss song" could have some new good oni charts.
Btw, when i say "itg style" i don't mean "16th stream in chorus" i mean "using more of the potential of a song".

I readed all the posts and i can say that i agree with a bunch of them. To sum up, it seems that we are screwed, that's all.

Good that i bought StarCraft II 2 months ago. I guess that'll be my main game now.
I got surprised/happy because of Konami the past 6 years but i got way more dissapointed actually with all the little things that ruined my ddr experience here and there.

---

When people talk about charts being "more like ITG", they're focusing purely on the rhythm aspect. There's the flow/turning aspect of a chart that factors into the fun and that's where most ITG charts fail. And quite honestly, the problem with "the community" based games, there's no central unit of quality control. There's no consistency between hacked machines. When you name a chart, which version are you referring to? How "newbie friendly" is ITG today, being community driven and all, vs when it first came out?

Quite honestly, I don't blame Konami for their decision: DDR II was pure fan service. We got most of the X2 content, RDA and X3vs2nd mix content. Japan got NONE of that. Sales were still abysmal. What else is there left to try? Sorry, but Max (period) isn't going to drive sales. The hardcore fan base simply lacks the purchasing power of your casual gamer since they prefer stuff like Stepmania anyway.

DDR needs to take a break and come back at a later time. Just like how the AC scene died in Japan in 2003, it revived in 2006 with SuperNOVA. I think the series outside of Asia has definitely been languishing with a lack of direction and central oversight for the series. A break is probably a good thing; let them focus on where the series is still popular, let the game interest simmer for a while, and maybe in a few years it'll be appropriate to try another release outside of Asia.

---

While I mostly agree with this, my only issue is the fact that DDR was in it's hey day in America when Japan wasn't giving us official AC releases and when they weren't giving us AC perfect ports. I don't think anything Konami does will ever restore DDR to its former glory. It's always going to be a niche arcade game from here on out.

At this point, I'm pretty convinced that if we want to play new content, it's either get SM, find an already rare r21 cab, or save enough to either visit or move to the Asia regions. IMO, if Konami wants to save the western market, they oughta release a base DDR game on Steam and do DLC a la jukebeat.

I know what you mean, and that's exactly what ITG style is (Do not look at the officials in ITG 1 and 2, because at least 90% of those charts are garbage and nobody likes them anymore. I'm talking custom simfiles here). Stuff like VD Oni or PRevo could use a lot of direction from sims like Boulefacet (mute sims 7) or U Got 2 Know (The Legend of Zim 5), just to name a few examples. Seeing as the majority of songs are in the 9~14 range (like 13~20 on DDR X scale), I'd figure some of the more technical files in the 11~13 range could really help guide boss charts in DDR so as to not become crap.

I agree that every song should have an oni chart (I mean why not at this point?), but I'm not sure if relying on ITG style is the best way to go for oni charts. It can certainly help, but it shouldn't be the majority of them IMO.

Also on a side note: most of the 16th stream charts are at least 15's on the ITG scale and FAR beyond what most people who play DDR can do. Would I like that in DDR? Hell yeah haha, but I'm in the minority for that one.


If you look at charts made in 2007 or Groovestats maybe. People nowadays are extremely careful with watching flow in stepcharts for ITG. We don't all just slam streams into a file and say "yep that's perfect" (even the stream files for the most part have a certain flow to them that follows the music. Most of Archi's Pendulum songs have a distinct rhythm they follow in the streams that matches the music more or less); we're usually careful with putting crossovers in, notes that go to nothing, and in general listening to find the exact rhythm of the song. Are they harder than DDR? Yeah most of the time, but that doesn't mean they aren't fun.


It's usually pretty easy to tell who made it just by looking at the gfx of a particular song. And if that doesn't help there are a bunch of themes that show who made it near the top (Chromatic, Altitude, Tatctics (iirc)).
Most people nowadays try to keep the crap out of machines and only the quality packs instead. At least as far as I've seen that's the case.

And WELP THIS IS TURNING INTO A ITG VS DDR DEBATE GET YOUR GOGGLES ON EVERYONE

---

Which I don't get... how DDR II did so badly, I mean. Were all the hardcores camping on the PS2/Xbox 360/ maybe PS3...? That was why I didn't get it initially, anyway...

And yet, months after its release, people were still asking for an X2 port. Either it was badly advertised or some fans are... just... not smart. Agh.

---

DDR II was probably a last-ditch effort to appeal to the core fans, but was too late. The series had probably shed a lot of the PS2-fanbase that never moved to Wii, and the Wii fanbase was clearly getting tired of the formula after 5 games. Anecdotally, I've noticed the casual Wii players tend to say things like "I have DDR for Wii!" and don't distinguish, or feel a need to distinguish, the versions. They're happy with one version and don't really care that others exist since they don't play it the way we do. They bust it out once in a blue moon for some drunken party fun or something.

The CS team was really lost and dropped the ball; rebooting the series and calling it "DanceDanceRevolution" in 2010 absolutely didn't help, and calling DDR II that also did nothing to advertise the X2 content the hardcore fans were looking for, whereas I can easily see casual consumers being confused by the weird naming reboot.

---

The availability of any Wii DDR games was mere low in my country (in such a degree that I had to import HP5). Just Dance etc. has gathered the market completely here.

I think that the US "retirement" will add focus on better eastern arcade releases

If DDR were to take a break and into a long retirement, how would it cause a revival in interest? Wouldn't that just cause DDR to die out forever at this point?

Mixed with the fact that with games like Dance Central and Just Dance, DDR is out-dated technology, even with a revival the use of a peripheral is pretty much now looked down upon and shafted to what the future holds for rhythm games.

SuperNOVA's revival hit it well, but it was primarily since it was still in the age of CD-based games, technology at that time wasn't anything too advanced yet, so really there was nothing at the time that could out beat DDR. Well, look where we are now...it would be a long shot for Konami to recreate DDR to be something like this (NOT Dance Evolution), but using a DDR pad? That's unfortunately late 90's technology (maybe earlier, hello Nintendo Power Pad). The only people who would keep playing DDR would be it's hardcore fanbase, and even then when Konami tried to reach to that fanbase, it just crumbled all over since it never had MAX.(period). And other extremely good reasons why.

---