I went to my desk, did some work, took a breath, and opened this thread again to see if I was overreacting about the design…
…Nope, still sucks. I doubt any amount of perspective will make this suck less. What dumb a combo of priorities this was.
The logo shape really is the controller. I wasn’t dreaming. It’s like a narcissist from Capcom designed the input device. I didn’t even know it was possible to do such a thing. Then it got approved and made.
People at the company are complicit with this thing existing.
They should make a new game to go with it where you play as the logo and need to kill enemies that are also the logo. Every level in the game will also be shaped like the logo. But they should also make sure to show the logo when starting the game just in case you forgot who made it. Then they should also show the logo under the logo so that you’re certain about who made the logo.
I read this somewhere online, but it’s quite possible Capcom went for this very aggressive design to help mitigate/differentiate itself from all of the clones and bootlegs.
(This does not take away from the fact that it is an embarrassment to any room it’s in.)
This thing reeks worse than the PS1 Classic. at least that looked good.
But you know, it’s really great that things like this are coming out, along with the arcade collections, the mini consoles, and the like. It’s a great sign that retro gaming is still gaining traction, and gives me hope for what could potentially come in the future.
And there are good signs here too. That’s certainly a custom mold they’re using, as ugly as it is. That’s not cheap. Sanwa parts are good, and FBA is… well, it would be okay if this were a cheaper product*. This looks like it could be a great two-player stick if you can get over the looks.
*So is FBA code truly non-commercial? How are they using it if so? Is this just a flagrant violation of the license or would it be possible to develop a closed-source fork without violating it? I have an SNK collection on PC that uses FBA as well, so I’m thinking there’s a history there.
For Pete’s sake, I’m at work! I’m not going to be able to stand up for hours!
But seriously Sega, you did well with the Retro-bit reissues, time to step up and use that bank to reissue the Virtua Stick and Virtua Stick Pro in OG, USB, and Wireless forms.
I thought the same thing. It was probably an internal April fools design proposal, and the boss that approves projects didn’t get the joke and ran with it.
If it was a switch collection I would buy it, but as is no thanks. I’m also not sure why but if Namco released a version of this that said Namco and had their games or all of the games in Namco museum I would buy it.
I really think that the majority of their arcade hardware could be replicated/duplicated on the cheap and allow any number of cps based titles without so much as a hitch. Why they don’t do that, I don’t know.
This isn’t true. It’s very much oversimplifying how things work. You’d have to look at whether terms were negotiated at the time that each contributor to the software made their contribution. If the made such contributions without any expectations of at least partial IP ownership of FBA, then their permission isn’t necessary.
That includes MAME contributions. It all depends on how the FBA owners negotiated the license to use MAME code in their product and what the non-commercial use claise specifically forbids. It prevents the use of MAME in commercial products, but FBA seems to be completely separate product with its own IP even if it’s built on MAME source code.
If MAME did not contribute their code to FBA specifically under terms that forbids FBA from licensing FBA code for commercial use, OR specifically retaining ownership over their own code, then they don’t seem to have any legal right to prevent this from happening.
Without looking at the terms MAME had in place when their code was used by FBA authors, it’s not a question that can be answered. We don’t know whether MAME authors even own part of FBA.
It’s kind of frustrating how often these homebrew people are not represented by counsel and instead try to use twitter to assert their rights. Like, they kind of improvise and don’t plan with the aid of counsel, then get upset when they realize they didn’t protect their IP as much as they could have.
I think the issues here are more about how the licensing of FBA (and any large open source project like it) is not well-known to even the people making changes to it rather than any maleficence from Capcom. It feels like most people jumping into this conversation (pot calling the kettle black here, but) really have no clue as to how the licensing works for FBA or how it works in general.
Agreed. But everyone is responsible for protecting their own work. You can’t contribute to a project without specifying the terms then after the fact be mad when things don’t go your way.
Nor could you require people seek your permission after the fact without negotiating such term in advance.
Loosely organized community gets upset that their project to circumvent video game developers’ IP is used by IP owner after a rogue member gives them permission to do so. Sigh.
I really don’t get the lack of games here. Capcom owns most of their games outright without the need to pay licenses. AvP is the only here that may cost extra. Are they afraid it would hurt their current generation collections (Street Fighter/Beat Em Up)
