Developing for the Dreamcast years later, interview with redspotgames

Most systems quickly fade into existence after their lifespan, but not the Dreamcast. Time after time new publishers are stepping up to release dating games and shoot ‘em ups for Sega’s final console. Before Trigger Heart was announced redspotgames said they were bringing Last Hope, a 2D horizontal shoot ‘em up to the cast. Why would they pick the Dreamcast as their choice platform? Max Scharl the executive director over at redspotgames explains.

Siliconera: Let’s ask the burning question first, why did redspotgames pick the Dreamcast for releasing Last Hope?  

Max Scharl (executive director): Actually we at redspotgames didn’t pick the Dreamcast as the platform Last Hope should have been ported to. As you know originally Last Hope is a NeoGeo AES game which has been released in Autumn 2006 and is sold for US$550. The idea about the port on the Dreamcast came from the developers themselves and started it after the NeoGeo AES release.

Still the Dreamcast got a very loyal and big fanbase – compared to other consoles of their times in the same age. Also a lot of other high quality shoot em ups were released after the so-called “commercial death” of the Dreamcast, so I think it was the right decision to choose the Dreamcast.

Is the VMU is being used for visuals? What is going to be displayed on it?

Mainly the Last Hope logo and a mascot which acts straight to the current action within the gameplay.

Since Last Hope is coming out for the Dreamcast, have you run into problems distributing the title?

We have been working on this case for 12 months now, since many stores haven’t had new Dreamcast releases in their shelves for years. One of the advantages of redspotgames as a publisher, distributor and promoter is that we are personally taking care of issues at their origin. As an example, we directly flew to Tokyo / Shibuya and Hong Kong to ensure the distribution of Last Hope in Asia and speak to wholesalers and retailers about their local circumstances. Play-Asia.com also became our premium cooperation partner and Last Hope sells through them with big success.

Until now, almost every second order came from Asia, which corroborates our strategy.

If the Dreamcast release is successful will you consider bringing Last Hope to the Xbox marketplace?

redspotgames is indeed a very open-minded company to all new products and platform – which doesn’t mean that we don’t bring a lot of passion and heart in our projects. Yet we can’t decide over the will of developers. I don’t want to speak for NG:DEV.TEAM, but I think it’s most unlikely because the target audience Last Hope is pretty much different than the Xbox 360 casual gamers. They attach a lot of importance to the packaging, presentation and the feeling of having a high quality release in their hands. There are a lot of details which come first and the mass compatibility lies far beyond them.