PawaMajor's Stock Plummeting
Discussion in the Video Games forum
Comments
Re: PawaMajor
[ Author: jomcclane | Posted: Jul 6, 2006 2:04 AM
]
"...and the overall crappiness of PawaMajor(sorry jomcclane)."
No need to be sorry, BigManZam. We have different opinions about PawaMajor, and that's fine. To each his own. Famitsu thought PawaMajor was pretty solid too - it scored one point higher than the upcoming Pawapuro 13. (See my post in your other new thread.)
The price for a NEW copy of PawaMajor does not seem to have dropped much, if at all. You list this NEW price under "5/11/06," but then the prices you list under "Mid-June" and under "7/5/06 - Today" are USED prices. If someone were just skimming your post, they might get the impression that PawaMajor's price has dropped from $61 to $22-23. This is not accurate.
Only the USED price has dropped, not the NEW price.
I agree that Pawapuro 13's upcoming release has a lot to do with the USED COPY PawaMajor price drop. But obviously, I disagree that PawaMajor is "crappy" and that this has anything to do with the price drop.
I'm relatively new to the Pawapuro series. I've only played 11 Chou Ketteiban, 12, 12 Ketteiban, and PawaMajor. My favorite out of these four remains 11 Chou Ketteiban, but PawaMajor is a close second. And based on information in one of your earlier posts, BigManZam, I'm seriously considering getting Pawapuro 9 Final Edition. Doesn't Pawapuro 9 Final Edition still have Ichiro and Matsui?
Based on my limited Pawapuro experience, here's why I think many Japanese gamers haven't warmed up to PawaMajor:
- It's a foreign/unfamiliar league with foreign/unfamiliar players.
- It plays like Major League Baseball (MLB), not like Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). The gameplay has been altered to emphasize power hitting and power pitching. This is also reflected in the final scores. I see more high-scoring games in PawaMajor, just as I do in real-life MLB. Over the holiday weekend out of four or five MLB games I watched on TV, every one ended with a score that looked like it came from the NFL (American Football) - every one.
For better or for worse, this is the state of MLB today. Bodybuilders swing for the fence regardless of the count or game situation. Steals are way down. And one or both teams scoring double-digit runs in a game doesn't even seem unusual anymore.
PawaMajor attempts to represent/simulate this new reality, this new MLB. And I think PawaMajor does it rather well.
Many who have issues with PawaMajor probably also have issues with modern-day, real-life Major League Baseball. But dissing PawaMajor strikes me as "blaming the messenger."
No need to be sorry, BigManZam. We have different opinions about PawaMajor, and that's fine. To each his own. Famitsu thought PawaMajor was pretty solid too - it scored one point higher than the upcoming Pawapuro 13. (See my post in your other new thread.)
The price for a NEW copy of PawaMajor does not seem to have dropped much, if at all. You list this NEW price under "5/11/06," but then the prices you list under "Mid-June" and under "7/5/06 - Today" are USED prices. If someone were just skimming your post, they might get the impression that PawaMajor's price has dropped from $61 to $22-23. This is not accurate.
Only the USED price has dropped, not the NEW price.
I agree that Pawapuro 13's upcoming release has a lot to do with the USED COPY PawaMajor price drop. But obviously, I disagree that PawaMajor is "crappy" and that this has anything to do with the price drop.
I'm relatively new to the Pawapuro series. I've only played 11 Chou Ketteiban, 12, 12 Ketteiban, and PawaMajor. My favorite out of these four remains 11 Chou Ketteiban, but PawaMajor is a close second. And based on information in one of your earlier posts, BigManZam, I'm seriously considering getting Pawapuro 9 Final Edition. Doesn't Pawapuro 9 Final Edition still have Ichiro and Matsui?
Based on my limited Pawapuro experience, here's why I think many Japanese gamers haven't warmed up to PawaMajor:
- It's a foreign/unfamiliar league with foreign/unfamiliar players.
- It plays like Major League Baseball (MLB), not like Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). The gameplay has been altered to emphasize power hitting and power pitching. This is also reflected in the final scores. I see more high-scoring games in PawaMajor, just as I do in real-life MLB. Over the holiday weekend out of four or five MLB games I watched on TV, every one ended with a score that looked like it came from the NFL (American Football) - every one.
For better or for worse, this is the state of MLB today. Bodybuilders swing for the fence regardless of the count or game situation. Steals are way down. And one or both teams scoring double-digit runs in a game doesn't even seem unusual anymore.
PawaMajor attempts to represent/simulate this new reality, this new MLB. And I think PawaMajor does it rather well.
Many who have issues with PawaMajor probably also have issues with modern-day, real-life Major League Baseball. But dissing PawaMajor strikes me as "blaming the messenger."
Re: PawaMajor
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Jul 6, 2006 9:18 AM
| CLM Fan
]
John, I know you've dedicated a lot of time into making translation guides for this game, but what are you on? There are so many obvious shortcomings in this game, so you really shouldn't be defending these guys.
The whole used/new thing is a non-issue. I know how much games cost in Japan used, and this kind of pricing is only reserved for the crappiest of games. They call it "kusoge" or "kuso game" which politely translates to "crap game". It's actually harsher, but I have a no swearing policy on this board.
Sure, it's nice to have all these new stadiums and batting/pitch forms, but look at everything else. This game is almost like they released a beta test. There are bugs everywhere and slowdown in gameplay. Reminds me of when Konami released Winning Eleven one year with extreme slowdown on certain camera angles. You, of all people, should feel burned the most.
I think PawaMajor got big sales numbers at the start because people were like, "AWESOME! MLB players and presentation with Pawapuro gameplay! This is gonna be great!" Much like I was, but then they also came to my same conclusion and sold their copies at a rate large enough to justify a very low used price, due to overstock.
If they fix these things in the future, then that's great, but they have a ton of work to do. As for the Famitsu review, they've been VERY generous this year. I remember when platinum scores were being given out like tootsie rolls on Halloween earlier in the year. Don't think I'm biased and always think Pawapuro is better than PawaMajor. I personally think Pawapuro 13 is going to suck this year, because it's release is almost identical to PawaMajor's. However, it has a high school baseball Success Mode and jacked up My Life. I'd be able to play PawaMajor if it at least had My Life. It's that GM Mode and Success Mode that's totally awful. I have nothing to do, unless I want to play a single exhibition game, and that's not really fun to me.
The whole used/new thing is a non-issue. I know how much games cost in Japan used, and this kind of pricing is only reserved for the crappiest of games. They call it "kusoge" or "kuso game" which politely translates to "crap game". It's actually harsher, but I have a no swearing policy on this board.
Sure, it's nice to have all these new stadiums and batting/pitch forms, but look at everything else. This game is almost like they released a beta test. There are bugs everywhere and slowdown in gameplay. Reminds me of when Konami released Winning Eleven one year with extreme slowdown on certain camera angles. You, of all people, should feel burned the most.
I think PawaMajor got big sales numbers at the start because people were like, "AWESOME! MLB players and presentation with Pawapuro gameplay! This is gonna be great!" Much like I was, but then they also came to my same conclusion and sold their copies at a rate large enough to justify a very low used price, due to overstock.
If they fix these things in the future, then that's great, but they have a ton of work to do. As for the Famitsu review, they've been VERY generous this year. I remember when platinum scores were being given out like tootsie rolls on Halloween earlier in the year. Don't think I'm biased and always think Pawapuro is better than PawaMajor. I personally think Pawapuro 13 is going to suck this year, because it's release is almost identical to PawaMajor's. However, it has a high school baseball Success Mode and jacked up My Life. I'd be able to play PawaMajor if it at least had My Life. It's that GM Mode and Success Mode that's totally awful. I have nothing to do, unless I want to play a single exhibition game, and that's not really fun to me.
Re: PawaMajor
[ Author: jomcclane | Posted: Jul 7, 2006 4:44 AM
]
I'm not pumped for Pawapuro 13 either.
Maybe one reason our opinions of PawaMajor differ so much is that I'm perfectly content just playing exhibition games, mini-leagues, and season/GM games. My Life and Success modes are non-issues for me, because my Japanese isn't good enough to fully appreciate them. But in Japan, I can see how the lack of My Life and a bug-filled Success mode could drive many away from PawaMajor.
I find GM Mode adequate. Though I also find the wacky #4 batters (Damon and Taguchi) annoying. But once when tweaking my Yankee lineup before an exibition match, it did almost make sense to bat Damon 4th! And I wish that you could use edited teams in GM Mode.
I don't know much about programming/gamemaking. But I'd bet that many of PawaMajor's shortcomings (except for the wacky #4 hitters) are actually the best the gamemakers could do given the aging PS2 hardware and the dramatic increase in teams and stadiums. One of my first thoughts after PawaMajor's announcement was, "how on earth did they fit all of those extra teams and stadiums into the game?"
I don't find PawaMajor's gameplay slowdown that bad, it's minimal at worst. Initially, the batter-pitcher interface frustrated me. But once I switched from ANALOG and NORMAL to DIGITAL and LOCK-ON, the problem disappeared. The game just feels fun on these settings.
I think I know which version of Winning Eleven you're talking about - as I recall, the slowdown on corner kicks was horrendous. And yet, I still enjoyed playing that Winning Eleven. Slowdown seems to have become more of an issue the closer we've come to the end of the PS2's life cycle. But I think Konami's recent releases have handled slowdown about as smoothly as it can be handled. Mind you, I'm not defending slowdown. I just think that it has become an unpleasant reality as the PS2 has aged.
So in sum, PawaMajor's gameplay with DIGITAL and LOCK-ON is fun. It's a great introductory game for those that have never played Pawapuro before. My Life and Success modes don't concern me because I don't speak Japanese. And I find the gameplay slowdown minimal. But I can also appreciate why many die-hard, Japanese-speaking Pawapuro fans have been turned off by PawaMajor's shortcomings, namley the lack of My Life. But gamemakers can only fit so much into a PS2 game!
Maybe one reason our opinions of PawaMajor differ so much is that I'm perfectly content just playing exhibition games, mini-leagues, and season/GM games. My Life and Success modes are non-issues for me, because my Japanese isn't good enough to fully appreciate them. But in Japan, I can see how the lack of My Life and a bug-filled Success mode could drive many away from PawaMajor.
I find GM Mode adequate. Though I also find the wacky #4 batters (Damon and Taguchi) annoying. But once when tweaking my Yankee lineup before an exibition match, it did almost make sense to bat Damon 4th! And I wish that you could use edited teams in GM Mode.
I don't know much about programming/gamemaking. But I'd bet that many of PawaMajor's shortcomings (except for the wacky #4 hitters) are actually the best the gamemakers could do given the aging PS2 hardware and the dramatic increase in teams and stadiums. One of my first thoughts after PawaMajor's announcement was, "how on earth did they fit all of those extra teams and stadiums into the game?"
I don't find PawaMajor's gameplay slowdown that bad, it's minimal at worst. Initially, the batter-pitcher interface frustrated me. But once I switched from ANALOG and NORMAL to DIGITAL and LOCK-ON, the problem disappeared. The game just feels fun on these settings.
I think I know which version of Winning Eleven you're talking about - as I recall, the slowdown on corner kicks was horrendous. And yet, I still enjoyed playing that Winning Eleven. Slowdown seems to have become more of an issue the closer we've come to the end of the PS2's life cycle. But I think Konami's recent releases have handled slowdown about as smoothly as it can be handled. Mind you, I'm not defending slowdown. I just think that it has become an unpleasant reality as the PS2 has aged.
So in sum, PawaMajor's gameplay with DIGITAL and LOCK-ON is fun. It's a great introductory game for those that have never played Pawapuro before. My Life and Success modes don't concern me because I don't speak Japanese. And I find the gameplay slowdown minimal. But I can also appreciate why many die-hard, Japanese-speaking Pawapuro fans have been turned off by PawaMajor's shortcomings, namley the lack of My Life. But gamemakers can only fit so much into a PS2 game!
Re: PawaMajor
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Jul 7, 2006 11:58 AM
| CLM Fan
]
See, I am a Pennant and My Life guy in Pawapuro. Once you take those away from me, it's just not worth playing. Good to understand the perspective of an American fan, though. I'll try playing Exhibition soon enough.
Re: PawaMajor
[ Author: Guest: Shini | Posted: Jul 7, 2006 1:31 PM
]
I am a success, mylife and pennant player XD
Btw, jo, I think I can tell u it's not the best the producers can do. In fact, look at ur disc, pawamajor is only like 3gb, and at max a single layered DVD can go to 4.7gb.
the older pawapuros are only around 2.6-7 gb as well. So ur opinion about thinking how good they are to even fit those all stuffs into the game...isn't really very good. Because of the same sprites for every players, it's basically just change stats and u get a different player, and stats doesn't occupy a lot of memory.
Reason for why they got these wacky lineup...well...I suppose is bcoz of their stats and attributes. Bcoz of their stats and attributes, CPU's auto-adjust finds it appropriate to put them in the cleanup spot...which in turn shows how poorly the stats were. Ok...I dun wanna gett into this topic...as we've done it too many times before
Btw, jo, I think I can tell u it's not the best the producers can do. In fact, look at ur disc, pawamajor is only like 3gb, and at max a single layered DVD can go to 4.7gb.
the older pawapuros are only around 2.6-7 gb as well. So ur opinion about thinking how good they are to even fit those all stuffs into the game...isn't really very good. Because of the same sprites for every players, it's basically just change stats and u get a different player, and stats doesn't occupy a lot of memory.
Reason for why they got these wacky lineup...well...I suppose is bcoz of their stats and attributes. Bcoz of their stats and attributes, CPU's auto-adjust finds it appropriate to put them in the cleanup spot...which in turn shows how poorly the stats were. Ok...I dun wanna gett into this topic...as we've done it too many times before
Re: PawaMajor
[ Author: jomcclane | Posted: Jul 8, 2006 12:21 AM
]
Don't get me wrong. I'd love to try My Life, Success, and delve into Pennant Mode's intricacies.
But unless Konami releases an English version (I'm not holding my breath), someone patches Pawapuro (again unlikely), or my Japanese improves (this is up to me but I'd have to get motivated) - I'm stuck with the game modes that only require a cursory knowledge of Japanese.
And again, this is fine for me. I don't know if it's an American tendency, but I'm definitely more of a "casual, pick-up-and-play" gamer when it comes to sports titles. This is the case even with games that are entirely in English. For example, I don't normally play Master League in Winning Eleven.
But based on all of the cool stories I've read about Success and My Life, I suspect if I could understand it that I'd love it.
Shinigami,
Again, I don't know anything about programming/gamemaking. I was just guessing/speculating. Your observation about the DVD gbs is interesting.
I just don't think that Konami's gamemakers set out to intentionally include slowdown in their games. Although I did find the sudden disappearance of slowdown from Winning Eleven mysterious. How could slowdown come and go that quickly from Winning Eleven? Did the gamemakers leave it there intentionally to guarantee stronger sales of the follow-up "slowdown-free" version? We'll never know.
And I agree with you about the players and player stats. By getting rid of the unlockable OB players, they likely freed up space. But I still believe that cramming all of those ultra-detailed stadiums into the game was probably pretty tough.
But unless Konami releases an English version (I'm not holding my breath), someone patches Pawapuro (again unlikely), or my Japanese improves (this is up to me but I'd have to get motivated) - I'm stuck with the game modes that only require a cursory knowledge of Japanese.
And again, this is fine for me. I don't know if it's an American tendency, but I'm definitely more of a "casual, pick-up-and-play" gamer when it comes to sports titles. This is the case even with games that are entirely in English. For example, I don't normally play Master League in Winning Eleven.
But based on all of the cool stories I've read about Success and My Life, I suspect if I could understand it that I'd love it.
Shinigami,
Again, I don't know anything about programming/gamemaking. I was just guessing/speculating. Your observation about the DVD gbs is interesting.
I just don't think that Konami's gamemakers set out to intentionally include slowdown in their games. Although I did find the sudden disappearance of slowdown from Winning Eleven mysterious. How could slowdown come and go that quickly from Winning Eleven? Did the gamemakers leave it there intentionally to guarantee stronger sales of the follow-up "slowdown-free" version? We'll never know.
And I agree with you about the players and player stats. By getting rid of the unlockable OB players, they likely freed up space. But I still believe that cramming all of those ultra-detailed stadiums into the game was probably pretty tough.
Re: PawaMajor
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Jul 8, 2006 10:17 AM
| CLM Fan
]
I need to look into patching, because I'm really tempted to try and patch this series into English. I definitely have the abiity to patch everything, but lack the technical knowledge.
Re: PawaMajor
[ Author: Guest: Shinigami | Posted: Jul 8, 2006 3:39 PM
]
translation part aint really that difficult, as BMZ mentioned already...if u are really doing it, I can help with the translation part, i DID take a very advanced translation course before in university...so I suppose it'd be fair enuff to read >__>
as for jo...i dunno, since i have like very little knowledge of how a game is programmed and stuffs...but the slowdown to me is probably some kind of programming error or bug, which i suppose they could've found ways to smoothen out if they got more time for debugging. Seems to me they kinda wanna rush it for release. I have no clue, and is very not sure...so I could end up all wrong XD
As for the leftover space...actually I think I am a bit wrong there...true the stadiums and stuffs did not take much space, but they DID have to work on all the stadium details and such...which is what u were talking about about the new stadiums things.
as for jo...i dunno, since i have like very little knowledge of how a game is programmed and stuffs...but the slowdown to me is probably some kind of programming error or bug, which i suppose they could've found ways to smoothen out if they got more time for debugging. Seems to me they kinda wanna rush it for release. I have no clue, and is very not sure...so I could end up all wrong XD
As for the leftover space...actually I think I am a bit wrong there...true the stadiums and stuffs did not take much space, but they DID have to work on all the stadium details and such...which is what u were talking about about the new stadiums things.
Re: PawaMajor
[ Author: Guest: James | Posted: Jul 8, 2006 8:08 PM
]
I made an attempt to patch Powerful Pro Baseball 2 some time ago.
Considering that I'm quite the retarded gorilla when it comes to computers, I made some reasonably good progress on the game.
You can check out my old and outdated webpage and post some feedback if you would like me to join in this project as a team member.
http://www.angelfire.com/goth/patches/
Thanks. :o)
Considering that I'm quite the retarded gorilla when it comes to computers, I made some reasonably good progress on the game.
You can check out my old and outdated webpage and post some feedback if you would like me to join in this project as a team member.
http://www.angelfire.com/goth/patches/
Thanks. :o)
Re: PawaMajor
[ Author: jomcclane | Posted: Jul 10, 2006 6:25 AM
]
If you guys were to attempt a patch, then I'd do all I could to help. Although I don't know how helpful I'd be since I'm not good with computers and I only know a bit of Japanese.
It would involve a lot of work, but just the thought of a Pawapuro patch excites me!
Anyway, if this project is given the "go ahead," I'm all in.
It would involve a lot of work, but just the thought of a Pawapuro patch excites me!
Anyway, if this project is given the "go ahead," I'm all in.
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5/11/06 - PawaMajor's release date
List price was 6980 yen or 61 US dollars.
Mid-June
Multiple fans report buying used copies for 4500 yen or 39 US dollars.
7/5/06 - Today
Fans report on the status of PawaMajor after putting in their pre-orders for Pawapuro 13. The manager of a store discusses how many people are coming in to sell copies of PawaMajor and how it's a terrible game. Used copies are reported to be around 2500-2600 yen or 22-23 dollars.
This is a pretty accelerated rate of price decrease. To give you an idea of how a decent yakyu game sells when used, I remember seeing used copies of Pawapuro 11 for around 40-45 dollars 5 months after it released.