Budokai 3 on the Gamecube?

[Hellspawn28]

How come they never released Budokai 3 on the Gamecube? They released the first Budokai games on the Gamecube and I would imagine that Bandai would have done the same with Budokai 3. Was it that Budokai 2 sold poorly on the Gamecube or Bandai feel like enough people had a PS2 by 2005?

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

I think it was publishers continuing to give up on the international Gamecube, more than anything, even if though Cube did actually have a decent 2005- I mean heck, it got a port of GUN. GUN. Not that anyone would really be opposed to an updated Budokai 3.

[Hellspawn28]

I would imagine that the Gamecube version of Budokai 3 would have the same extras that the Japanese version of Budokai 3 had. I always did feel bad for the Gamecube owners that they got left out on the best game in the Budokai series and didn't get a main DBZ game on a Nintendo console until two years later when the second Sparking game was released on the Wii.

[SparkyPantsMcGee]

Hard to say without the numbers to back it up, but if I had to take a shot in the dark it would be that maybe the Gamecube games weren't selling as well as the PS2. The cost to make both games wouldn't be worth it if the payback wasn't as strong. Another guess would be that they didn't get the chance. The Gamecube games usually came out a year after the PS2 debut; Budokai 3 was Dimps last game before Spike took over for Tenkaichi. That same year also saw Super DBZ so maybe Bandai felt there wasn't enough room for four console Dragonball games so close together.

[dprez]

I thought the exact same thing with Tenkaichi Budokai 3 not being on the game cube. Back a few years ago I bought a Gamecube so I could play Metroid Prime 1 and 2, and noticed that only Tenkaichi Budokai 2 was on the Gamecube. Super lame I thought.

O well, good old PS2 is all I'll ever need anyway.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

The actual act of porting to the Gamecube apparently isn't that hard, it would explain why the Cube was getting ports of games one wouldn't expect (Timesplitters Future Perfect and Freedom Fighters come to mind from 2005 as well, on top of GUN). I actually wouldn't put it past Bandai's just calling it too much work on top of Tenkaichi and Super when the Cube buyers were never the primary source of the game's returns. It just really is sad, because if they cared enough to get Dimps to add extras and graphically tweak to the first two Cube ports to begin with, why stop?

And then Tenkaichi 2 came along and became one of the reasons I bought a Wii, because if you could do that much with a launch port, the best is yet to come, right?

[Super Sayian Prime]

It's more than likely Atari funded the GameCube ports of Budokai and Budokai 2. They weren't done at Dimps, but rather Pyramid, the same studio who did some of the Data Carddass games, as well as being the makers of the Patapon franchise with Sony.

For us to understand why there wasn't a Budokai 3 port, you have to remember that the GameCube was a last place console. The port would've been released in 2005 or 2006. By then the Wii would be looming, and Nintendo had seemed to want to put the GC away as quick as possible.

[Hellspawn28]

From what I remember that Budokai 1 on the Gamecube was also released in Japan and the UK as well? I remember that Bandai is the one who hires Dimps on what to do with the Budokai games and most likely port the first Budokai game for the people who don't have a PS2 at the time. I guess Budokai 2 did poorly on the Gamecube which is why Budokai 3 on the GC in 2005 never happen.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

It's more than likely Atari funded the GameCube ports of Budokai and Budokai 2.

And I pretend to know something about video games. Forgetting Atari had the power to do that as the publisher- they did it with Infinite World.

But then is does come down to the Cube's dismal state in 2005 no matter what, as we all agree. What's funny is that it apparently made Player's Choice in Europe, which I remember to be the least Gamecube friendly of three major regions, but not in the States. And yeah, there's Pyramid in GameFaqs' developer slot. Funny how FAQs only lists them as having developed 2 Amiga games, ported the Budokai games, and a 2009 PSP game- incomplete list, clearly. Are they that under the radar or just another TOSE sort of developer?

[Super Sayian Prime]

It's more than likely Atari funded the GameCube ports of Budokai and Budokai 2.

And I pretend to know something about video games. Forgetting Atari had the power to do that as the publisher- they did it with Infinite World.

But then is does come down to the Cube's dismal state in 2005 no matter what, as we all agree. What's funny is that it apparently made Player's Choice in Europe, which I remember to be the least Gamecube friendly of three major regions, but not in the States. And yeah, there's Pyramid in GameFaqs' developer slot. Funny how FAQs only lists them as having developed 2 Amiga games, ported the Budokai games, and a 2009 PSP game- incomplete list, clearly. Are they that under the radar or just another TOSE sort of developer?

No, unlike TOSE Pyramid's website has a list of all their works. The only thin it's missing AFAIK is their port of the Zero No Kiseki game to Vita. Given that isn't out yet they may just be waiting until they update it.

Based on their website it does look like Atari did pay for the Budokai 2 port (Not a shock given Bandai never released a Budokai 2 GC version). It seems Bandai did the Budokai one though.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

That's nice to have. Interesting that it brings up Budokai 1's graphical tweaks by name. Aside from some texture smoothing that usually happened in PS2 to Cube ports I rarely saw the difference.

[PharaohAtem]

I thought it had something to do with a licensing agreement, which is why Sparking! wasn't released on GCN either.

[Super Sayian Prime]

I thought it had something to do with a licensing agreement, which is why Sparking! wasn't released on GCN either.

Sparking series started in 2005. No way was it coming out on GC.

[MCDaveG]

I always thought that this was because of Wii changing place with GC.

[PharaohAtem]

I thought it had something to do with a licensing agreement, which is why Sparking! wasn't released on GCN either.

Sparking series started in 2005. No way was it coming out on GC.

Still, there was a year between Sparking! and the Wii. We saw it on PS2 and the PS3 came a few days before the Wii, so I wouldn't see why Gamecube would be out of the question.

[funrush]

I thought it was because of disc space. GCN discs only held 1.4 GB. Did Budokai 3 contain more than 1.4 GB?

[Super Sayian Prime]

I thought it had something to do with a licensing agreement, which is why Sparking! wasn't released on GCN either.

Sparking series started in 2005. No way was it coming out on GC.

Still, there was a year between Sparking! and the Wii. We saw it on PS2 and the PS3 came a few days before the Wii, so I wouldn't see why Gamecube would be out of the question.

GameCube total software shipments (as of December 31, 2009) : 208.57 million
PS2 total software shipments (as of December 31, 2009) : 1.51 billion

PS2 was still a viable platform for games after PS3 was released. Gamecube wasn't a viable platform even before Wii was released.

[American Pelican]

Anyone have an idea of what the demographic for the PS2 Dragon Ball games was in Japan? Children or nostalgic young adults?

I ask that because I noticed Naruto, a more modern franchise, had pretty consistent releases on the Gamecube in Japan until about 2006.

Basically if the Gamecube's userbase in Japan was more child-oriented and the Dragon Ball demographic older that may have contributed.

[Super Sayian Prime]

Anyone have an idea of what the demographic for the PS2 Dragon Ball games was in Japan? Children or nostalgic young adults?

I ask that because I noticed Naruto, a more modern franchise, had pretty consistent releases on the Gamecube in Japan until about 2006.

Basically if the Gamecube's userbase in Japan was more child-oriented and the Dragon Ball demographic older that may have contributed.

Bandai Namco did not have the license to release Naruto games on Gamecube. Takara Tomy holds the Naruto license for Nintendo platforms. It was either release games on Gamecube or don't release console games at all.

[American Pelican]

Ugh, how did I manage to overlook that? I even examined the boxes.