About IIDX CS...what could have Konami done to improve sales?

Once again, just thinking about the end of the faithful IIDX CS arcade ports disappoints me...so much awesomeness, wonder, and potential just left in the dust. Of course this all started nearly 10 years ago, but the IIDX fire in me still burns with great intensity! Hardcore IIDX westerners like myself all face this.

So, as the topic asks, what could have Konami done to make beatmaniaIIDX MUCH more profitable (while still maintaining faithful IIDX AC -> IIDX CS ports) than what happened in the past decade(s), and could those changes have resulted in a different outcome today than it is currently (eg. beatmaniaIIDX INFINITAS)?


...had I the money to spare, I'd offer Konami 50 billion JPY (or 500 million USD) to get started on porting beatmaniaIIDX 17 SIRIUS ~ beatmaniaIIDX 25 CANNON BALLERS and *onward (if agreed upon).

They could use:
-10+ billion JPY on advertising globally
-7+ billion JPY on manufacturing new current gen console compatible Konami Official beatmaniaIIDX Controllers
-33+ billion JPY on licensing/publishing/development

All things considered, I'd hope that they would accept the offer, as the endeavor would open the door to new profitable possibilities. The ultimate goal would be to bring the series from a niche status to a staple status worldwide. Apparently, the packaging and advertising must be on-point in order to cater to those both familiar and unfamiliar with the beatmaniaIIDX franchise, especially in the West.

I'd say that they could package it as "beatmaniaIIDX [INSERT APPEALING TITLE HERE] Collection", which would contain at least 3 AC ports. For example:

-Release beatmaniaIIDX Legacy Collection I (contains SIRIUS, RESORT ANTHEM, Lincle) [2018]
-Release beatmaniaIIDX Legacy Collection II (contains tricoro, SPADA, PENDUAL) [2019]
-Release beatmaniaIIDX Legacy Collection III (contains copula, SINOBUZ, CANNON BALLERS) [2020]

^: All would be released globally with all licensed music (being included in the initial payment deal) from the AC versions intact along with multilingual support. The games would run on their appropriate standalone proprietary media (Blu-Ray, etc.), and provide the full game experience whether online or offline. In terms of further monetization from those games, I would ask Konami to only monetize on EXTRA (outside of the already in-game obtainable Qpro aesthetic items) Qpro aesthetic items only IF they feel the need to (a generous gesture to the greedy)...everything else could be obtained in-game via points/unlock system.

As for the new IIDX KOCs, they should be made affordable (eg. like the PS2 IIDX KOC) and durable, hell, they should just put them back into production with some modifications for current gen console compatibility to save some time on more R&D. beatmania (US) failed mainly due to poor design and music choices as well as bad advertising...these 'legacy' games should be much more appealing if done right, especially for newcomers.

Now, in terms of potential sales, let's say that the games are released for both PS4 and Xbox One.

Cost of each game (separately): $59.99 USD (or ~7,400 JPY)
Cost of the IIDX KOC (separately): $39.99 USD (or ~4,800 JPY)

Now let's use "beatmaniaIIDX Legacy Collection I" being bundled with a IIDX KOC for $89.99 USD (or ~12,000 JPY) as an example.

--> If they manage to sell at least 100,000 bundles worldwide, after associated fees and such, Konami should be able to net around 5.2 million USD (or 520 million JPY) in profits to the company in the first year for a game that they didn't even have to pay out of pocket to make. Note that the aforementioned possible microtransactions in the game are not included in this estimate.

If the game(s) actually makes the transition from niche to staple, then we can pretty much say that Konami accomplished the unthinkable, henceforth a more profitable future for the franchise to continue in such a fashion that caters to both the company and the consumer...just like in the good ole days.

If this were to happen, would Konami lose on coin-operated sales? Would Konami lose money on e-AMUSE Cloud services?

--> To answer this, I'd say that with the timed IIDX CS releases, coin-op sales would be no more affected than they were back in the PS2 IIDX CS days, and as for their e-AMUSE Cloud services, I would suspect some losses in revenue, but those losses could be mitigated by the aforementioned microtransactions in the "Legacy Collection" games. There aren't a whole lot of people playing beatmaniaIIDX INFINITAS anyway, but for those who still play despite the availability of the "Legacy Collection" games, their money will still go directly to Konami....so overall, that's two big PASELI venues for Konami to net profit from---e-AMUSE Cloud and coin-op. Konami would get their market share of revenue as well as their PASELI revenue, so all in all, money would still be coming in.

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Please move on. You've been baselessly speculating about an IIDX 17 console release for years, and it's clear that PC releases are the way of the future. Go play Infinitas like everyone else

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I'm pretty sure I remember reading that beatmania US didn't do all that badly in sales, but Konami shelved a sequel because of all the bad reviews it got (mainly the idiots saying they ripped off Guitar Hero).

Also, porting the existing AC releases to anything other than PC would likely require a fair bit of effort. That's probably why the CS releases stopped at Empress, as they were able to keep reusing the same engine (with minimal modifications) since 9th Style. But Sirius introduced Charge Notes, which were probably a not so insignificant change. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the sales for each successive IIDX CS release were on a downward trend.

With Infinitas, they were able to use Spada's engine with very little modification, since the AC releases are already PC based. Also, music licensing for all regions (which would be required for global release to include the licenses) probably isn't easy (just look at the licenses which were left off of DDR A's overseas releases). Plus, with the issues that beatmania US faced, I doubt Konami would be willing to consider US and EU in further CS release plans (IIDX GOLD was shown at E3 almost unmodified save for an English translation, but it didn't really do anything from there, which says something).

Hell, I'm still surprised that Round1 was able to get access to some of the Asian exclusive Bemani games at all (though I think they started negotiating that as IIDX was making the transition to tricoro).

The major problem with this is that, if I'm not mistaken, non-handheld consoles are pretty unpopular in Japan nowadays. Their best bet would probably be to release them on the Switch and have a bundled minicon, and then release it on PS4 with a regular size controller if that's popular enough (but definitely not Xbox One since it never sold well in Japan).

also what tf do you mean by "like everyone else" lmao no

Bruh, he's been making threads about this for years. Like, it's not fun anymore and it hasn't been for a long time.

And by everyone else, I mean the IIDX players that play Infinitas instead of sitting around waiting for a console release of Sirius.

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I want to see Bemani games on the Switch with peripherals that link to the Joycons so badly. It might not be very possible, but considering that the Switch seems to be doing pretty good, who knows?

Ok fr what's with it with you guys and acting like if a thread exists you have to look at it? Like sure it's kinda pointless to question whether Konami will ever release BEMANI titles on home consoles again beyond pure hypotheticals, but that doesn't mean you have to look at it. For a site dedicated to interacting with other people who like rhythm games, you people really seem to hate the fact that other people use this site.
You say that like LR2 doesn't exist.

bmUS had a legitimately bad song selection. The licenses didn’t make any sense at all except for First Day and the 5key songs they chose were mostly unlistenable garbage that made up half of the songs on the disc and only had one chart. Some of the IIDX choices, even if I personally like them, have extremely niche appeal. Also, IIDX’s lifebar is relatively hard and you have to accept that you’re probably not going to pass that frequently as a beginner even on the easiest songs and I don’t know if people were prepared for that.

I'm gonna defend bmUS here, I honestly enjoyed a few of the licensed covers (You Really Got Me, Toxic, and Virtual Insanity), even if they were pretty easy and didn't have any Another charts. There was a good selection of the essential classics in IIDX mode. And at least the game was kind enough to start you off on the easy groove gauge, and give you a wide selection of really easy charts.

I have a feeling that one factor that put off players that hasn't been mentioned here however is that disgusting UI recolor.

In speaking of beatmania (US), let's not forget about how X-Play (the bastards) depicted the game:

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