Gamers not digging great arcade games?

The old school style side scrolling shooter Sine Mora released on the Xbox Live Arcade this week and will also release on the PSN, thus far it has been met with glorious praise from many critics.

[CrimsonEngage]

I have a lot of XBLA games. Some are great and others i regret buying. BF:1943, From Dust, Monday Night Combat are some of my favorites. Recently just got Burnout CRASH and i'm enjoying it as well.

[pucpop]

daytona usa all day

[Tai_Kaliso]

Its a great game, but this article got it wrong, its not going to PSN as far as I know. Its a XBLA exclusive, not sure if it'll always be that way, but it was published by Microsoft Game Studios.

Its a solid and fun game for sure, not sure why this article is saying people aren't enjoying it.

[SleazyChimp]

Isn't obvious? The game is cool and all, but is it really worth $15? I think the lack of sales says no! Most arcade games are over priced. $5-$7 is more than plenty for these types of games. Kind of funny how this never occurs to the author. That shows how "normal" it is for a company to charge such a ridiculous price for a mini game.

[Frankfurt]

A game like Sine Mora has more content and is more fun than Battlefield 3's single-player (you know, one of two discs of a $60 game).

Saying it's not worth $15 is preposterous. There are $5 arcade titles with more content than the average AAA linear, hand-holding $60 title.

There's a reason XBLA is the best console platform, far above retail $60 titles on PS360.

Also, i agree with humbleopinion - ANY real shmup fan has a 360 already, as it has at least ten times more shmups than the PS3.

[ninjaman999]

Thats not as much of the problem as is the fact that gamers like me who would eat that game up without a second thought are left in the cold since its only on one platform (The one I would argue has the least dedicated hardcore gamers IMHO) so the much more hardcore and varied PC crowd and more single player and old school centric PS3 users (Not the kiddies who play LBP like my sis obviously) are unable to throw their money at the dev w/o getting a new system as well. Bad decision to be honest since niche games like that NEED to be on more platforms...

[humbleopinion]

You might have been left in the cold, but regarding that argument of yours I believe that the true story is quite the opposite: Sine Mora is a shmup, and for any serious hardcore gamer the Xbox 360 is the obvious system of choice. Perhaps you're just no that dedicated?

While each offers unique gems (Jamestown for example is one of the top games in the genre IMO) The PS3 and the PC together don't even get a fraction of the games in this genre on the Xbox 360.
- All the classic shooters got an Xbox Arcade version: R-Type Dimensions, Space Invaders Extreme, Galaga Legions, Robotron 2084 etc.
- The top games from Treasure were re-released exclusively on the X360: Ikaruga, Bangai-O HD, and Radiant Silvergun.
- The top games from Cave are available on the X360 as well: Deathsmiles, Guwange and Do-Don-Pachi
- HD version of past generation games like Rez HD and Alien Hominid HD are also exclusively available on the X360, and even rare japanese gems like Raiden Fighters Aces managed to make it to the service.
- Great new games were introduced to the service, like Geometry Wars which spawned countless of clones, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet - and now Sine Mora.
- The XBLIG channel also allows indie developers to bring awesome new experience like shoot1up from Mommy's best games and Radiangames Joyjoy etc.

So you see, while I agree that niche games like Sine Mora NEED to be on more platforms (infact, I think every game should be available on every platfrorm that can run it), people interested in this specific niche should own an Xbox in the first place thanks to how dominant the console is in this niche genre.

In fact, I think that the niche genre is one major thing that attributes to relatively low sales. The other thing is probably the complete lack of marketing of this game: it came out a week after MS finished their big "house party" promotion, and there was not even a tiny hint that the game is coming out this week. It just took everyone by surprise...

But this is the nice thing about arcade games: good games have a long tail and pick up sales over time. It's not like big budget games where half of the units are sold in the first week because of all the marketing and advertizing beforehand. Sine Mora WILL see good sales as time passes - and trust me it deserves it.

(And it will probably also make it onto the PS3 in time. My guess is that Microsoft only picked up timed exclusivity in publishing the game like they did with Braid, Limbo and other games).

[ninjaman999]

"Perhaps you're just no that dedicated?"
Im sorry man but my PSN and Steam accounts beg to differ on this note. And frankly, there are much more awesome titles on the PS3 then there are on the 360 since games like the Yakuza series, Disgaea series, Valkuria Chronicles, Demons Souls (The sequal went multiplat form obvious reasons), Motorstorm series, Infamouse 1 + 2, Twisted MEtal, Uncharted series, GT5, Ico and Shadow collection, Resistance 3, the pixeljunk series, Flower, Journey and MANY others that are nothing to laugh at since they are all amazing, varied and quite hardcore series (Cept for the last 2 mentioned) so to say the 360 is the most hardcore is hard to justify. Not to mention the PC has the entire manifold of hardcore exclusive and indie games available on it like Project Zomboid, Overgrowth, Natural Selection 2, Kenshi, Red Orchestra 1 and 2, Unepic, Tribes Acend, Trackmania united and Canyon, Project C.A.R.S, Space Pirates and Zombies, Really Big Sky,revenge of the Titans, Dungeons of Dredmore,Serious Sam 3, The Binding of Issac and many others. You have much to learn young gamer :)
But your right about the no advertising part but believe me, sales would be 10 fold with a steam release in particular.

[humbleopinion]

Then it seems that you just don't understand what Sine Mora is...

NONE OF THE GAMES YOU MENTIONED (apart for a few of the awesome pixeljunk series) are SHMUP games, not to mention HARDCORE shmup games.
You just posted a list of completely unrelated games, most of them actually being quite mainstream games that have nothing to do with this niche genre. Your list has zero relevance to Sine Mora, except for the fact that all these games would have greatly benefited as well if they were made available on other platforms.

One can put up a similar list of Xbox or even Wii games and argue forever about it's hardcore-iness, but it will still have nothing to do with the point mentioned: SHOOT'EM'UP GAMES.

Perhaps you are not familiar with the term, but this is what proper hardcore shmup looks like:
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Have a good luck trying to find your arms and legs in there before calling other people "young gamer" (especially while not being able to even mention a game older than a decade in your list of supposedly hardcore PC games).
How many games in that genre have you purchased in recent years? Why do you think Sine Mora is relevant for you if you haven't? Why do you think that the right place for these kind of games is the PS3 and at the same time can't come up with any *similar* PS3 game?

[Perjoss]

After playing Sine Mora demo for just 2 mins I quit out and bought the full game, and I'm not even a big scrolling shooter fan, but Sine Mora has great graphics and 4 difficulty levels, which for me is perfect as I'm not very good at this genre.

[euchreprof]

Here is a few of the many PS3 Shmups

PixelJunk Shooter 2
PixelJunk Shooter
Gravity Crash
Super Stardust HD
Soldner-X 2 Final Prototype
Soldner-X Himmelssturmer