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On The History Of Dead Or Alive

Posted by simoniker on from the with-the-kicking-and-the-punching dept.

Thanks to IGN Xbox for its article documenting the history of Tecmo's Dead Or Alive fighting game franchise. The piece discusses the "series that brought [Ninja Gaiden developer] Tecmo from an underrated developer to one of the most popular companies in the industry", focusing on titles including Dead Or Alive 2 ("...introduced many concepts that have yet to be fully utilized in other fighting games") and the forthcoming Dead Or Alive Ultimate ("All the buzz is around the online play at this moment, and whether or not Team Ninja will be able to pull it off successfully.") TeamXbox also has an interview with Tecmo's delightfully deranged Tomonobu Itagaki, who declares: "To be thrown off of a cliff by an ugly opponent might make you feel bad even if the fight was fair, but to be thrown off by a beautiful woman... that should make you feel good about losing."

2 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. Re:WTF? by WaKall · · Score: 4, Informative

    Super Tecmo Bowl for NES. Hands down best NFL game for 8 bit systems ever, and long held the crown, until the Madden series came along. This game alone is enough to cement them a seat in video game history, in my mind. It's the only sports game I ever played more than a few times. I think I ran through 12-13 seasons of it, at least.

    But seriously, when you consider all of the complete-unknowns in the video game industry, Tecmo does stand out. They are no (Capcom/Konami/Square/Enix/Rare). But, they've been making games since the NES, and good ones here and there. I can't think of any for the PSX/N64 era, but they have good ones on NES, SNES, Genesis, PS2, and Xbox.

  2. Re:If only... by Babbster · · Score: 4, Informative
    I've never heard that Microsoft paid off Tecmo/Team Ninja/Itagaki to make DOA Xbox-exclusive. The only explanation I've ever heard (multiple times) is from Itagaki saying that he felt the Xbox was the most powerful graphically and he wanted the games to be played the way they were intended instead of making ports that just won't look as good. He's also made clear that the situation could easily change with the next console generation.

    That being said, I'm sure there are financial incentives given to publishers if they release exclusively on a particular console, probably in the form of lower licensing fees. Of course, this is obviously just as true for Sony (see Rockstar/GTA for a clear example of paying off a developer for console exclusivity). Considering the paucity of [US] third-party exclusives on the Gamecube, I don't know if Nintendo offers incentives.