Ninja Gaiden Series

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm not sure if this is worth anything, but Shuhei Yoshida (President of Sony Computer Entertainment) said that Nioh is his most anticipated third party PS4 exclusive:

http://www.vgtime.com/article/4510485.jhtml

In general, this game is getting a lot of positive hype from both fans and media that fall into the demographic that like hardcore hack n' slash games like Ninja Gaiden and Onimusha, as well as the Souls RPGs.

This game still hasn't had that much revealed about it, but going by the gameplay demo, it really does look up my alley as well. Can fortune be kind to me for once? Is it possible that Team Ninja is starting to get back on track? I can only dream....

[gunswordfist]

Dreaming right with you..

[Spark Of Spirit]

Hayashi redeemed?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, it hasn't been revealed yet if he's directing this or just producing it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's him.

[Foggle]

It seems Nintendo of America printed less than 1000 retail copies of Devil's Third. It's already sold out everywhere and probably won't be coming back. Some people are predicting that Itagaki will never be able to direct a traditional home console game again.

I'm sorry, E-K.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, I wasn't expecting it to really do well after the bad reception (though I've heard from even some non-Itagaki fans that the multi-player is legitimately fun).

As for Itagaki never directing a home console games again, the people claiming that he won't are mostly ignorant haters. Whether he does or not is really up to him. One bad game that went through development hell from a publisher going under doesn't undo over a decade of critically and financially successful games from the rest of his career.

[Foggle]

I mean, the greatness of Ninja Gaiden 1/2 and the early DOA games will never be erased, but the game industry (especially AAA) is cold and heartless, and I feel like Itagaki might have a hard time finding funding for titles in the future. Most of my favorite niche action games get made out of luck more than anything - Platinum sustains themselves off of contract work, and thus will probably never go out of business or be particularly upscale, Grasshopper used to make a lot of fun titles for every publisher imaginable but might as well have closed down after getting bought by GungHo, Drakengard/Nier sequels only exist because Yoko Taro is friends with the higher-ups at Square Enix, etc. Mikami was able to bounce back after both God Hand and Vanquish bombed (though the latter was at least critically acclaimed), so Itagaki probably still has a chance with his similar clout, but considering how only Nintendo was willing to publish DT, and they basically sent it out to die, I'm worried that this really might be the end for him. Plus, Valhalla Games is apparently getting sued by the film studio Valhalla for copyright infringement.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I doubt that lawsuit will pan out.

As for making games, I'm willing to bet that he could get a smaller-budget game funded via Kickstarter and then work his way up from there.

[Foggle]

That's true. I'd Kickstart an Itagaki Ninja Gaiden-like in a heartbeat.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

At any rate, VGS is still trying to support DT's online multiplayer, so apparently a small but dedicated user-base still exists for it.

Hopefully the company can stay afloat, though, and start on a new project by 2017 for consoles and/or PC.

[Foggle]

Devil's Third's multiplayer service will be discontinued at the end of the year. http://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/16983/session/L3RpbWUvMTQ2NjY1NjYyMC9zaWQvclc2c0VLVG0%3D

That didn't last long...

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

That's only on Nintendo, though. The PC version is still there, and (apparently) has a small but dedicated community....in Russia.

Yeah, any way you look at it, the game is a failure, but it's still not quite dead yet.

[gunswordfist]

In Soviet Russia, game plays you!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

TS17 finally attempts to play through Devil's Third. The result is pretty funny: https://youtu.be/Wf7GuidGW4k

[Foggle]

God, this game looks bad... but in an extremely amusing way. Might be worth a playthrough if copies ever become super cheap. Video is very funny; also, I love TS17's voice.