Virtua Fighter 5 Xbox 360: AM2 Interview

We talk to SEGA AM2's Tohru Murayama, Hitoshi Iizawa & Nobuyuki Minato for the most extensive discussion on the online-enabled Xbox 360 version of VF5.

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Murayama: We just can't say about the details, it is under consideration - are you wanting to play Japanese players online?

Kikizo: Well actually we know a lot of players in Japan who play the game a lot and they have asked us to ask you, they want to know if it will be released in Japan. And if so would you remove the online play? Some say this would impact on arcade revenues there if people can play any other players from their home.

Murayama: It is one of the issues we have to consider. Actually, we have had this kind of discussion internally, for the overseas market, they have no arcade Virtua Fighter 5...

Kikizo: Actually, it is starting to appear in western arcades now, there is at least one in London... location test, and they are starting to sell it now. It is version C as well.

Minato: You know about what is going on very well!

Kikizo: Haha, but anyway, when we think about the major addition of online play, can you comment on your decision to change your mind about including online play? Because previously, Mr Kataoka and all of AM2 had said there is no way and it would never happen. Was there a specific thing that made you change your mind?

Murayama: It's kind of a special challenge, because all of us were aware that we would have to have an online versus mode at some stage in the future at some point or another, so we considered that this was a good time to try this very new thing for AM2. And we will look forward to feedback from the fans.

Kikizo: Previously, you talked about translating the game from Lindbergh to Cell, was there any difficulty converting it to Xbox 360?

Hitoshi Iizawa: What we did was first converted the graphics and interface to the PS3 version and then converted the new version to 360; from the Virtua Fighter code, the graphics interface is the same for both, but inside, the technical issues there are some modifications but it is basically the same result.

Kikizo: With the experience you have of both conversions now, do you think it would be possible to get VF5 running on either console at 1080p?

Murayama: Actually we have had this discussion internally, and technically we can do a 1080p version, but for that of course additional work would be required, and we wanted to focus on online versus mode; so considering this we concluded to keep 720p just like the arcade version.

Kikizo: Also, the PS3 version used a hard disc, so a guaranteed hard disc in every PS3, caching the game data made it faster to load. We have noticed this Xbox 360 build takes longer to load fights. Would you like to have used Xbox 360's hard disc to improve this?

Murayama: As you know, we can't utilise the hard disc drive for Xbox 360 titles, because Microsoft requests this. So we had to concentrate on optimising the program faster the PS3 version, and ultimately, it does depend on the stage that you are about to fight on, but I actually think that the loading time could be the same for most parts of the game.

Kikizo: Actually some MMO developers are now authorised to use the HDD for game data... but I guess this is not an MMO. So, would you now also consider upgrading the PS3 version, with Version C improvements and items, or online play? You could maybe do this via the PlayStation Network?

Murayama: Frankly, we have no plan to update the PS3 version like that, for online versus mode or Version C.

Kikizo: One of the main criticisms of the PS3 version was to do with AI. Even though there was a good Quest mode, which had nice structure, the AI routine was always the same regardless of the other player's skill; it got more difficult but no less predictable and with no dynamic CPU learning. Could you comment this time if you have improved AI, and have you recorded more player data from real players?

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