Author Topic: Audio Interview with Victor Ireland & John Greiner (former head of Hudson Soft).  (Read 1028 times)

spenoza

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The revelation that Victor Ireland and team were offered Sakura Wars on the Saturn but couldn't take it because of the hostile political environment set up by Bernie Stolar was absolutely heart-breaking to hear about. I had no idea. I would have to have been in Victor's shoes turning down that deal.
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_joshuaTurbo

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Excellent listen, thank u for the post and link!

Colossus1574

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Great great post! I had so much fun learning how things came about behind the scenes of such companies like Hudson Soft and Working Designs. I couldn't believe it was possible to get something going by just "cold faxing" companies in Japan  :clap: Had some great rushes of nostalgia when i hear them talk about the old gaming days. Glad they made time to poke fun at bad Turbo box art, hahaha!
Thanks again for a superb podcast, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!  =P~

DragonmasterDan

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Vic also did a Retronauts podcast today.

http://www.1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3156908&ct=PODCASTS

A lot of TG talk here.
--DragonmasterDan

Joe Redifer

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He's sure making the rounds.  I'd like to get him on Game Sack for our RPG episode but by the time we could, his Call of Heroes 2 kickstarter thing would be over so it'd be like trying to book a talk show appearance for an actor who doesn't have a movie to promote.

I did listen to the podcast in the original post and it was great fun.  I'll have to check this one out tonight.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2012, 11:04:57 AM by Joe Redifer »

RegalSin

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So he basically did free advertisment, for various videogames.

I am getting really angry hearing him saying
"oh anime" I mean huge animation graphics, with sounds. This was the big breakthru.

Downward conjectury.

It was not done because they looked at the characters of Lunar and said "bleh, not realistic, manish enough, and all of these pro western ideas, like Ruby Spheres"

Back then the fans saw the fiction from east as the same, but now nobody really cares anymore.

It it is not fun or entertianing, because people grow up.
Like consumers grew up. So they rather appease to the english loving morons, who are interlectuals.

About puns, it's a soceity, thing. Like cartoons, from Merry Melodies, and Looney Tunes. A society thing.

Censoring...............

..............

I am still listening to the whole thing. I only got threw the half of the first interview.
Anybody remembers "Slayers: Perfect" ??? It was original advertised on late night television as adult media. I mean seriously they caught everybody by the balls.

As he said in the original interview, "everybody was suprised by the word "piss".
During this time everybody felt it was mature entertainment. A great way to con people out of their money to buy a Sega CD.

The same with other ports. I will admit

That is how all animations should be in the USA, but the interviewers were right. People want the originating source material, and meanings as well.
............................
« Last Edit: April 27, 2012, 09:39:22 PM by RegalSin »

TR0N

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Vic also did a Retronauts podcast today.

http://www.1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3156908&ct=PODCASTS

A lot of TG talk here.

I listen to it finally not bad at all though it's funny in the past the guys at retronauts,have made jokes about getting victor on and it finally happens.

Talk about a trip down memory lane for the games that wd publish.Sigh i realy need to get the sega-cd version of lunar ss&eb again.

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NightWolve

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Thanks, DDan! I found that the Retronauts interview was a little more interesting and it was entirely with Vic.

I dunno, with the first interview, the Hudson guy seemed a little clueless to me at times. Certain questions like about bad decisions made, I would've expected him to know the answers to, but with his responses, it always seemed like it was "somebody else's responsibility or call." For a president, it just didn't seem like he knew too much...

Anyway, I had forgotten that Vic had started as a programmer (err, programmer on the side) which I find pretty cool as one myself. And after listening to this newer interview, I need to find me Popful Mail on Sega CD, and finally play my Arc the Lad 1-3 disc collection (which is brand new in its BIG box, sitting in my attic in a drawer next to Lunar 2) - I'm pretty sure it was either that or Lunar 2 that I friggin' paid $79.99 for at a Target...

Oh, the other interesting tidbit was the interviewers asked if Vic knew approximately how many TG-16 CD units had been sold. He tied it to the sales of Cosmic Fantasy 2, so under ~20,000 people and said that even with the TurboDuo, the install base wasn't that much more afterwards. Sega CD install base was maybe 3 times that. Anyhow, if those figures are accurate, my reaction was sorta, "Wow, the few, the proud, for real! Is it really the case that so few of us got to enjoy this system at the time??"

spenoza

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I dunno, with the first interview, the Hudson guy seemed a little clueless to me at times. Certain questions like about bad decisions made, I would've expected him to know the answers to, but with his responses, it always seemed like it was "somebody else's responsibility or call." For a president, it just didn't seem like he knew too much...

He was probably also trying to figure out what he could say. He spent a long time at Hudson and worked extensively with NEC. He's still in Japan, too. If he wants to work in the games industry he has to keep those ties pretty clean. I imagine it was just a lot of political self-censorship. Victor has never been known for such things but he's aggressive enough he can usually get around it. The other guy was clearly more of a diplomatic type and that's probably why he got on so well with his Japanese colleagues.
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xelement5x

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I imagine it was just a lot of political self-censorship. Victor has never been known for such things but he's aggressive enough he can usually get around it.

Yeah, in the Retronauts podcast is was interesting to hear that when he gave the US rights to Lunar back to Game Arts for the GBA version he had to agree not to speak out against the series.  Kind of sad actually that he's legally bound to not be critical of any direction the series goes in.
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DragonmasterDan

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Yeah, in the Retronauts podcast is was interesting to hear that when he gave the US rights to Lunar back to Game Arts for the GBA version he had to agree not to speak out against the series.  Kind of sad actually that he's legally bound to not be critical of any direction the series goes in.

Just on a side note, that (when Lunar Legend came out) wasn't when he gave the rights back. He had first right or refusal on Lunar Legend and refused thus allowing Ubisoft to license it. When he talked about giving rights back to the series, from my understanding (and keep in mind, this came from an outside source so it might not be exactly correct) that involved selling the "first right or refusal rights" back to Game Arts, along with the rights to the localization of the Sega CD versions.
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esteban

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Oh, the other interesting tidbit was the interviewers asked if Vic knew approximately how many TG-16 CD units had been sold. He tied it to the sales of Cosmic Fantasy 2, so under ~20,000 people and said that even with the TurboDuo, the install base wasn't that much more afterwards. Sega CD install base was maybe 3 times that. Anyhow, if those figures are accurate, my reaction was sorta, "Wow, the few, the proud, for real! Is it really the case that so few of us got to enjoy this system at the time??"

Aha! That is interesting. I have yet to fully listen to the podcast, but it would have been wonderful if we had the sales figures for a few more WD titles.

Even if Cosmic Fantasy 2 wasn't purchased by all owners of TG-CD, at least we have a base number to work with. Also, this might be the closest number we can get to the number of "active, engaged" TG-CD owners (actively purchasing software). "Total TG-CD units sold" is an aggregate over several years...but it doesn't really help us understand how strong the TG-CD was in a given, shorter time period (year, quarter, etc.). Sales for (I'm assuming) top-sellers like Cosmic Fantasy 2 help sharpen the blurry picture we have.

But was Cismic Fantasy 2 a top-seller? I wonder what other TG-CD games (Ys???) were big-sellers. If only we had those numbers, too.

MOST SHOCKING:The suggestion that the Sega-CD was only 3-times as large (installed user base). Personally, I always thought Sega-CD had a much larger user base.  So, let's just say that, at the very least, the potential audience for WD's games might have been three times larger on the Sega-CD...

Which leads to my next question: what kind of sales figures would a publisher have to hit in order to be profitable in the Sega-CD and/or TG-CD world? Given the low sales of hardware (relative to cartridge-based consoles), I am surprised that CD-ROM received as much support as it did.

I suppose I wouldn't be able to make sense of anything unless I had a few data points (sales figures) to use as reference points.

Finally, the (speculated) print runs of the final DUO titles seem reasonable now (~1,500-3000).
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DragonmasterDan

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MOST SHOCKING:The suggestion that the Sega-CD was only 3-times as large (installed user base). Personally, I always thought Sega-CD had a much larger user base.  So, let's just say that, at the very least, the potential audience for WD's games might have been three times larger on the Sega-CD...

Which leads to my next question: what kind of sales figures would a publisher have to hit in order to be profitable in the Sega-CD and/or TG-CD world? Given the low sales of hardware (relative to cartridge-based consoles), I am surprised that CD-ROM received as much support as it did.


That was at the time in 1993, when the Sega CD had only been on the market a year in the US. And the Turbo CD had been in the market since 1990. More Sega CDs were sold in 94 and even into 1995. The Turbo CD/Duo sales really died out by 1994.
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Joe Redifer

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I had a Turbo CD when Cosmic Fantasy came out and I never bought it until a few years ago.  I did play my friend's copy all the way through to completion, however.  What?  You guys didn't have friends with Turbo CDs and Duos that you could loan and borrow games to/from?

DragonmasterDan

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I had a Turbo CD when Cosmic Fantasy came out and I never bought it until a few years ago.  I did play my friend's copy all the way through to completion, however.  What?  You guys didn't have friends with Turbo CDs and Duos that you could loan and borrow games to/from?

When I was growing up I knew lots of people who had the stock TG16 between 1989 and 1992. So borrowing HuCard games with people was no sweat.

However, I knew 0 people who had the Turbo CD add on. When the Duo came out, the only person I knew with a Duo was me. So I had to buy every game I had played myself. I knew of no stores that rented Turbo CD games, and no one else who owned one.

Added in edit: Also, for a little while I was the only person I knew who had a Sega CD. When the Sega CD 2 came out I knew a few more people who got them as the price went down when they revised the hardware. Fast forward a little over a year later and I was the only person I knew with a Jaguar as well. I bought up the unpopular systems.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2012, 04:09:14 AM by DragonmasterDan »
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