Tecmo US has received some videos of the upcoming MR4 game in progress. Details are sketchy, but many fans will be pleased. From what I hear, there are more monsters than MR3, and lots of cool scary-looking types. Some innovations from MRA2 have been carried over, but I cannot say much more than this. (Plus, Tecmo US just has this one short tape...) The console has not been announced yet.

Yay!

Yay! Scary types! MRA2 carry overs! Lets just hope it's harder than MR3. PS2 PS2 PS2 PS2 PS2 PS2...

The sooner it comes out over there; the sooner it will come out in the UK (if at all). Hurry up Tecmo, and put it on the PS2!

Yay! Does this count as being announced? Because if so, then Tenrai752 was the closest without going over (March 28th, 2003) with me in a close second (April 1st, 2003). If it is formally announced on march 29th-30th then I so am calling myself the winner of that poll.

Yay! Yay!

This isn't official....this is carefully planted gossip, I think...

(Torey can mediate the situation.)

The poll asked people to play a little game of "'guess when Tecmo will announce MR4'". What is on this thread [besides being great news] is Lisa passing on some information about the receipt of vidoes by Tecmo USA.

Good call, Torey. When they tell us platform and tentative release date along with some hard info, I think that should be when we judge the winner.

"O fabjous joy!! Callooh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy"

I think these those two lines of the Jabberwocky poem describe my feelings on MR4, and Ghouls and Ghosts Online (They already have screen shots, and a promo for G+GO, and it looks SWEET!!).

One question on this matter if you know, is it cel-shaded?

When will this short tape be shown in public? And I do hope that some of the old monsters from MR1 and 2 will be in this game.

Hmm...I wonder if it will have mini-games (wink wink)

MRA2 carryovers sound interesting...I just hope that it's not the coaching system (I just don't think it will work in a console version of MR).

In any case, this is great news and I sure hope it'll be on PS2!

Actually, DeadBuffalo, I said that March 15th would be the date that they'd first have to start talking about it if they were going to produce it. Considering that's tomorrow, it looks like I was correct.

I think this game footage will be shown at E3.

::Weeps with joy!::

Yes! Hopefully, MR4 adds a lot of much-needed improvments over it's predecessor. One thing I'd like to see is a way to use a headset similar to the one found with the SOCOM game, to talk with your monsters, giving them verbal commands to do certain drills. (or to dole out needed praise/punishment)

My mistake, Nate. You are absolutely correct and i'll remember to ask you for numbers next time I buy a lotto ticket. But as Torey clarified, you still are not the winner of the poll :). We are waiting for a formal annoucement.

I for one would be very upset if it isnt on the PS2... I like the monster rancher games, but not enough to shell out $$$ for a new system and $$ for the game too. :(

Now E3 is in May right?

Mmm...MR4...BEEFY...I just hope the "scary" monsters aren't really Barney, to paraphrase GoldenBoy.

E3 is May 13-16 this year.

Sorry Daeore, no sympathy from me, MR1 was the sole reason I bought my PSX.

Heh, big price difference from X-box and PSX... and I presume it wouldnt be on the cube or we'd get stuck with tablets again -_- I bought my PSX just for MR2... but theres little chance I'd shell out 200+ for an X-box when I hate Microsoft as much as I do....

Microsoft Works - the worlds biggest oxymoron.

C'mon, synre, save the fanboy stuff. The box isn't that bad, and mr4 would be just as good on it. I just don't want to see it on the cude, no offense to cube owners, because half the fun is emtying your cd collection for the best monsters, and there aren't that many mini discs out there.

Well at least there is gonna be MR4...Even though I might become a sissy and use a gameshark on it.

If they want to keep using the cd/dvd system, then it'll be PS2. If they want tabs, then it could be any system, or if it comes to it, all.

I doubt they'll just change to tabs though...the cd/dvd slating was always fun and worthwhile.

as longs as its not x box ill be happy! (the return of me!)

I just hope that the doctors don't change their mind in giving me surgery...Because I really need it.

if you know better than your doctors what is good for you...it is time for new doctors.

Oops! Sorry I posted in the wrong topic!

Another thing I'd like to add to this topic. It would be really cool if this MR4 went multi-platform. (PS2, X-Box, PC) This way, Tecmo would be able to present the series to a broader audience of interested gamers.

They should have every monster from the 3 previous games. One things for sure, if they don't put Galis in then I...... aaaaaaaarrrrgggghhh......... HULK MAD NOW!! MUST CRUSH!!!!!!!

Multi platform probably won't happen, because Tecmo doesn't have the staff to do port games to all three major systems simultaneously. The whole company, US and Japan combined has 215 employees, and that includes the clerks in the 8 retail stores. There are only 60 people who work on programming, split between Team Ninja and the 'other' team; the one that makes the MR games. (Compare this to Capcom, who has 1,100+ employees in the Japanese programming facility alone!)

Most of these games simply don't sell enough copies to warrant hiring the additional staff needed to create the ports. (remember, all 3 systems use very different programming environments) If, say, MR3 had been ported to XBox and GameCube, the additional sales on those systems, even if they each equaled the PS2 version sales, would not justify hiring the staff to do the work. If they didn't hire additional staff, and just did it over time, then these ports would take up time that would otherwise be spent making new games. I'd rather see three new games than the same one game re-worked three times. (In other words, I think MRA and MRA2 are far greater acheivements than an X-Box port of MR3 would have been.)

The fact is, Tecmo is a small Japanese company. They make the sort of games that US gamers routinely whine about when they say "Japan gets the good games, they never get released here". They simply aren't set up to be a mega-conglomerate.

I work for a game company and have some insight into the "game porting" side of things. Games can be ported by hiring outsiders. This way you don't have to hire new staff, nor take time away from your next game. Entire companies exist that do nothing but ports for a living. Thus a port wouldn't be out of the question for Tecmo, if they really wanted it. However, a port couldn't be started till the basic game was done, so I wouldn't expect to see a Qube or X-Box version for several months after the initial (presumably PS2) release.

Porting a game IS time consuming but it is not as difficult as doing a whole new game. You can generally reuse almost all the art and data, for instance. Even if you have to re-engineer the entire game core, it's much easier to do so when you have a working example in front of you. When I worked for MicroProse, which did all its ports internally, the team for a port typically had only a couple of programmers and a part-time artist. That's a lot less than a full game would entail. On the other hand

But I totally agree with Lisa's point that it's better for Tecmo to work on new games than port the old ones. I have nothing at stake in this -- I own a PS2, a Qube, AND an X-Box so it doesn't matter what platform Tecmo uses as far as I'm concerned.

MR3 sold 72,152 copies in the US. It's numbers like this that business people consider before hiring out or starting to make ports. And, while ports are relatively cheap, 72,152 isn't anything to get excited about.

Maybe they should have made more copies of the game... Considering I had to hunt down my copy... and MR2... and the only reason why I got one at ALL, is cause some body didnt like the game, so I got it used...

Remember, that 72,152 over the course of months, not like some games that sell that many on the first day. Tecmo is not a big company, they can't pay to advertise and even though their games are high quality, they are niche products.

Yes, quite a few titles each year sell over 100,000 copies on their first day. The 72,152 figure is for about a year and a half of sales (two holiday seasons worth).

-And copies have always been available at gamestop.com since day one, it has never been out of stock, just like MR2. (MR2, backed by daily advertizing in the form of a TV cartoon, and now over 4 years old, has sold 186,403 copies.)

For comparison, Gran Turismo 3 sold over 400,000+ copies on its first day of release, it was released in 2001 like MR3, and also on PS2.

Well... not everyone has a way to GET a copy from the net... (me for example...)

But now that I think of it, I dont think I'll have to worry about MR4 being on some other system... *grin* Wonder if anyone else has seen the pattern to Tecmo's loyalties? almost every game I recall them making is for the PSX/PS2.

except the Dead or Alive games. but EVERYONE likes those...

They make quite a few good Game Boy games, including those for Game Boy Advance. Fatal Frame is also on Xbox.

This question may sound stupid, but does Tecmo make any money off the MR games? (thought I'd ask, because I just now glanced over the rest of the posts in this topic after mine, and those sales figures sound scary)

I think so. They sell more copies in Japan, and companies in Japan have also made money from licensed toys (unlike the US where the toys didn't sell well). The good part is that because Tecmo is such a small company, they can get by on a slimmer profit margin than some bigger firms.

That said, they still could use any help we can give them in terms of word-of-mouth advertizing for their games. Probably the best thing you can do to help is simply tell people that you play the MR games and enjoy them.

In case anyone really wants to know, there are actually 2 games that did a horrendous job with the sales: Demons Crest (SNES) and ET (Atari). Demons Crest was a Capcom game from the Red Arremer/Ghouls nand Ghosts series. It was a good game, but it actually produced negatives sales for some unknown reason. one of the few great games that failed profit wise.

Unlike Demons Crest, ET for the Atari was so abysmal it was ranks the worst game ever made by EGM, one of the best 10 gaming magazines in the US. Atari spend over a million dollars for the license (sp?), and almost every gamer returned their copy because it was that bad (true story). Atari had no clue what to do with the copies so they decided to bury them somewhere around New Mexico.

My point? MR3 could have done worse. If you want more info on these games, check out the following:

Ghoul Realm: This covers the Ghosts and Goblins/Ghouls and Ghosts series I have been talking about in some chat room sessions. It also has info on Demon's Crest. I contributed some stuff to the site with one of the games under my real name. A very good G+G fan site with a neat forum as long as you play by the rules there.

Seanbaby.com: A very popular writer who helped EGM with the worst games list. Check out his SuperFriends section too.

I have ET. I can attest that it really, really is that awful.

ET: Fall in a pit. Get chased around. Fall in a pit. Eat a black dot. Get chased around. Fall in a pit. Put the controller down and read a book.

That's what playing ET is like.

I like MR4 being on PS2. PS2 needs some unique titles. Stuff like that sells systems. For instance, GTA3 being exclusive to the PS2 really helped sales. I know a few people who bought PS2s just to play GTA. MR4 probably won't have the same effect, but it is definitely a factor. If I had to choose a new system, that would push me towards the PS2.

I just really hope they decide to include online play. An Online hall of fame, Online tourneys at specific times, rare items for monsters over the internet... I think it would be a great idea, and give the game more life.

Um...I doubt that there will be any online play

I doubt it too but it still sounds good, especially the online hall of fame.

Actually I've been addicted to Animal Crossing lately (Lisa too) and it has a lot of interesting "asynchronous multiplayer" features that an MR game could take advantage of. Passwords, visiting other save games (ranches) lots of cool things.

If true online play is impossible (but I don't see why it would be), what GoldenBoy is talking about sounds good. Might even be able to do a universal hall of fame like that. Have the top 10 monsters of each type, have some difficult criteria for getting into the hall, maybe give a bonus to hall of fame ranchers.

Passwords could be interesting. A cool password would be one allowing you to do palette switches to certain monsters, ways to individualize well raised monsters, or unique techs only unlocked by certain events.

I'm going to have to try Animal Crossing sometime. Everyone I know who's played it loves it...

The problem with online play is, if MR4 is on PS2, is that Sony's online setup is difficult and expensive to program for. This is the 'unofficial word' from certain development houses. (Someone who doesn't want Sony to get upset with them, but wants MR fans to know, said this.)

Well, there will be legendcup and the coliseum still :) *sigh* i just wish it could be made more accessible to everyone.

Well, I am now officially allowed to announce that the system it's on is PS2.

awesome! Is there any more information on this so far?

Well, that settles it for me, I am so buying it as soon as it comes out.

I don't know if I will buy it or not Im gettin kinda bored with the MR games Ive been playing Armored Core alot so thats why I have not been around :( but Im here again so yay!

PS2? Really? *bangs a tiny gong and opens a champane bottle* Yay!

This time, I'm prepaired. I have a job, and can pre-order it from the local Microplay. ^_^

To all the people pushing online play, need I remind you that tecmo must provide their own server. Although the AC password system would be interesting. Also, even Best Buy will arrange for the order of a game for you, so availability isn't a problem. Nonetheless, it will be a relatively good game game. Cell shading or not.

Well I almost missed out on MR3 And this time MR4 will be first on my list of games to get.I might preorder it from Electronic Boutique.Oh yeah one more thing.PS2 IS COMING BACK TO THE TOP OF THE RANKS THE SECOND THIS GAME COMES OUT!
(Fireguardian Rips the bottle away from Daeore and takes 2 swigs)
WHOOOO!!! Monster Rancher is BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whoops wrong user name!

Sounds great, might have to get back in the habit of playing MR2 a bit before 4 comes out...

As far as the on-line aspect goes, people have been pushing for it for years. When Tecmo asked us about things they could put on MR3, every second person said that. Of course, the problem remains, Tecmo is a smaller company and, though by far I am no technology guru, it would be a huge undertaking financially and programming wise for such a small company.

Indeed, they probably could pull it off, but seriously look at the risk. How many MMORPGs and on-line games are out right now? The competition would be really steep, and Tecmo would have to make this the best game of the series (including advertisment). And it very well might be, but then, they have to maintain it. Over time, people may lose insterest, and then they'd just shut it down.

MR4 is going to be grand, I'm sure. I do hope they get away from Cell Shading though. Anyway, just my thoughts, not much, but there they are...

I don't know. Monster Rancher has been going down in quality in my eyes since MR2, so I just hope that Tecmo really gives this more thought and makes MR4 a great game. Possibly better than MR2 and MR1.

i'm just hoping they bring back all the old monsters and more. I miss my old favorates like ghost and zilla and worm. I would love to see them make a return

Gali! I liked that one. Heck... I'd be happy if they brought back monster mixing, not this 'adaptation' thing they have in MR3. I DO like the art though. Looks softer... less... jaggy.

I agree....I would also like to see the return of the Gali...