You could have read it elsewhere but I just stumbled upon some bits of interesting information while trying to find out while the 360 Ketsui port still doesn't have a release date after it's planned June release was canceled. Obviously 5pb who was responsible for Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label Extra was found guilty of having made the port by illicitly using the source code of the PS2 port of the game made by Arika. In a press statement 5pb passed the guilt on to Aquasystem* who they apparently had outsourced the development of the game to. The company had previously only made some flight sims for Windows PC, PS2 (Puchicopter) and the original Xbox (Yukikaze). Arika's Mihara Ichiro commented in his blog that as far as he is concerned that's something that can't be easily forgiven but his company accepted 5pb's proposal to settle the issue with money. Gamers should know that the development of Ketsui is not affected by the case as it is done by a different team and the postponement of the release is just to assure a good quality of the final product. He also acknowledges that Dodonpachi on the X360 is a disappointing port and he'd like to take care of a remake from scratch but just doesn't have the time for such a task. Online patches are limited to 4 Megs and that wouldn't be sufficient. Leaving all the obligatory excuses aside, the question is, how long will we have to wait for Ketsui. Cave themselves did a great job on the Deathsmiles port, I just hope they will take care of their IP and make sure Ketsui won't be a disappointment no matter who is developing it. Please comment. *I assume it's this company 5pb is talking about, even though they don't link to it.
They didn't pass on anything. Aqua Systems admitted guilt when confronted by Mihara. There will most likely be an out-of-court settlement considering they fessed up immediately. How much bowing do you think went on in that meeting? From Asada's blog, it was hinted that they used a decompiler (解析ツール) but it was never stated directly. Other speculation was that they gained access from a 3rd party. I'm going w/ the decompiler... although I find that quite frightening.
It is shocking really, though when making money is involved nothing supproses me any more. Perhaps this is why they failed to sort out the bug in the game properly.
Makes you wonder what else they stole doesn't it. theres always a risk of something like this happening when you outsource to small companies like that. Kind of similar to XS games and the 'Mobile light force' 'series'
