9 Reasons RE:OUTBREAK Remake/Port is a lost cause.

We gotta talk...

The few of us here love Outbreak because we're able to see past the flaws and look through to the potential but honestly... Outbreak is NOT coming back. Neither in the form of a PORT nor a REMAKE.

1. Outbreak only sold 0.5 million copies in the USA, barely enough to warrant a sequel.
   
2. Outbreak File #2 only sold about 0.2 million copies in the USA, enough to end the Outbreak games permanently. File #2 sold so badly it dropped down to $20 bucks brand new at GameStop in just 1 month. And it's servers were taken down first.
   
3. They were terribly outdated games back when they came out 10 years ago. (The graphics are amazing for a PS2 game but the gameplay/online is horrid)
   
4. They are EVEN MORE terrible, and outdated games TODAY.
   
5. Porting the series to PC or PSNetwork would require money and effort to prep the games for their new platforms, providing support, setting up servers, maintaining servers & publishing costs ALL for nothing. The games proved they didn't sell when they came out 10 years ago, and nothings going to change. If players hated them 10 years ago they're not going to sudden start liking them now.
   
6. Outbreak fans are like Dreamcast fans, extremely dedicated but not enough in size. If it were up to wishful thinking to make business work the Dreamcast would still be around. It's not.
   
7. Taking a bad unpopular game and porting it to multiple platforms is not going to increase sales enough to warrant the cost of porting them.
   
8. REMAKING the Outbreak games to solve their original problems (have no load times, faster animations, better lobby system, voice chat, more balanced gameplay, fix the retarded AI) would require a lot more money and investment. That's just not going to happen. They're not going to invest in a game that's proven a dud.
   
9. We need to move on. I was one of the people who pre-ordered Outbreak and played it online constantly. It wasn't that good. The atmosphere was great, the digital assets were great, but the delivery was terrible.
   

STOP ASKING CAPCOM to release Outbreak (it's unrealistic and going to cost them a lot of money)
START ASKING CAPCOM to release information / packet info for the USA & Pal versions of Outbreak so the few rare fans can run their own servers.

Releasing them digitally, totally unaltered, would not be a bad move. They have done that before when they wanted to cut possible losses with a release, for example with AA5 and Darkstalkers Resurrection. They wouldn't even have to restart the servers, just release them digitally and see how they sell.

Voltius wrote:

• They were terribly outdated games back when they came out 10 years ago. (The graphics are amazing for a PS2 game but the gameplay/online is horrid)
  
• They are EVEN MORE terrible, and outdated games TODAY.
  

Really? I mean, really? And how is the original RE not outdated in any way?

Voltius wrote:

REMAKING the Outbreak games to solve their original problems (have no load times, faster animations, better lobby system, voice chat, more balanced gameplay, fix the retarded AI) would require a lot more money and investment. That's just not going to happen. They're not going to invest in a game that's proven a dud.

ORC happened.


In any case, why is it such a big deal to you if people want a game they liked to come back? How is that any different from the people who want the "classic RE" back?

Voltius wrote:

The few of us here love Outbreak because we're able to see past the flaws and look through to the potential but honestly... Outbreak is NOT coming back. Neither in the form of a PORT nor a REMAKE.

Probably true, but that doesn't stop people from begging for a RE2 remake either.

1. Capcom says that "In the home video game market, sales of more than one million units is the generally accepted standard for a major hit." It doesn't matter where the sales came from, it sold 1,450,000 overall, in a time when RE was mainly on the GameCube (making exclusives on two different consoles for one franchise was a terrible idea, it sabotaged both of their sales). RE4 only sold 1,600,000 in its original release and yet Capcom keeps releasing it over and over again. Supposedly Outbreak was also released without online support in many areas, a bad move considering it was initially marketed as "Resident Evil: Online."
   
2. I wouldn't be surprised if bad shipping estimations contributed to that. I couldn't even find the damn game in any stores, I had to go on ebay to get it. More importantly, File #2 was basically made out of leftovers from the original Outbreak so including it with the first one wouldn't be difficult. File #2 was kinda shitty anyway.
   
3. The same could be said of the original RE, but they still created Deadly Silence, and that one didn't even have "amazing" graphics. One could even argue that they were ahead of their time, online console gaming is huge today, but it was in its infancy back then. A game like Outbreak would be perfect for residentevil.net
   
4. An Outbreak re-release wouldn't be any more outdated than Code Veronica HD.
   
5. Indeed, but that didn't stop them from porting DarkStalkers and adding online support (which the original games didn't even have). None of the DarkStalkers games have even sold a million over the past 20 years.
   
6. Good thing that games don't need nearly as many sales as consoles.
   
7. See argument 5.
   
8. I think calling that a remake would be an exaggeration, it's just a port with some slight modifications.
   
   -Fixing the loading times wouldn't take much effort at all thanks to vastly superior hardware today.
   -Creating new animations would take a lot of effort, sure, but simply making them "faster" would not.
   -Professional programming paradigms emphasize the ability to recycle code with little to no modification, so voice chat should be nearly effortless since Capcom already has that functionality in other games.
   -A better lobby might take some effort to make it work with Oubreak's code, but again, not as much as you would think.
   -The gameplay balance in the first one was fine.
   -Fixing the AI would be a lot of work, but they don't need to do that. They can simply make lone wolf mode available from the start. All they'd have to do is change a couple variables (Ex: isAvailableForPurchase = True, price = 0 pts ), which they could do faster than I could type this post.
   
9. -No.
   -I disagree, my only real problem with the first one was that it took 15 seconds to enter a room, which can be easily fixed.
   -No.
   -Yes.
   

Mass Distraction wrote:

Really? I mean, really? And how is the original RE not outdated in any way?

While I get the point you're making, it should be mentioned that the original RE sold a lot more units and was, you know, successful. So kind of an apples to oranges comparison.

Quote :

ORC happened.

And ORC is probably the closest thing to a third Outbreak game the fanbase is going to get.

Ghost Leader wrote:

Mass Distraction wrote:

Really? I mean, really? And how is the original RE not outdated in any way?

While I get the point you're making, it should be mentioned that the original RE sold a lot more units and was, you know, successful. So kind of an apples to oranges comparison.

Quote :

ORC happened.

And ORC is probably the closest thing to a third Outbreak game the fanbase is going to get.

Nevertheless, it's outdated now. I've met a lot of people who can't stand playing it because of how outdated it is. I do enjoy it but I'm not everyone.

While ORC is currently the closest we can get to a new Outbreak, it doesn't mean we can't hope to see a new one in the future.

Mass Distraction wrote:

Nevertheless, it's outdated now. I've met a lot of people who can't stand playing it because of how outdated it is. I do enjoy it but I'm not everyone.

Outdated or not, RE1 - CV were huge successes, hence them being viewed by Capcom as more profitable in terms of re-releases and potential remakes. Like it or not, that's going to be a major factor.

Ghost Leader wrote:

Mass Distraction wrote:

Nevertheless, it's outdated now. I've met a lot of people who can't stand playing it because of how outdated it is. I do enjoy it but I'm not everyone.

Outdated or not, RE1 - CV were huge successes, hence them being viewed by Capcom as more profitable in terms of re-releases and potential remakes. Like it or not, that's going to be a major factor.

But, as has been already mentioned in this very thread, they still went out of their way and rereleased Darkstalkers WITH added online support and an HD makeover. Both Outbreaks sold better than those.

I have a serious problem with this thread, first. Don't tell us to stop asking and move on. Second the games were not bad imo, and that IS a matter of opinion, you can't say for a fact they were bad, it's entirely subjective. Pointing at sales does nothing to prove they were bad because i can easily point at Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus and those sales DO NOT prove that they are good!

Popularity does not prove something to be true or false. There are fan servers up for both games right now AND a spiritual successor being made right now. I have covered it for several months and often post about it on this very forum, so please do not entertain the idea that we need to just go away because that's not going to happen.

EQOAnostalgia wrote:

Pointing at sales does nothing to prove they were bad because i can easily point at Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus and those sales DO NOT prove that they are good!

But it does prove they're successful. True, "good" and "bad" is subjective, but a product's level of success is not. The Outbreak franchise was not a success. That isn't an opinion, it's a statement of fact.

Quote :

so please do not entertain the idea that we need to just go away because that's not going to happen.

He's not suggesting anyone should "go away".

Mass Distraction wrote:

And how is the original RE not outdated in any way?

When RE1 came out it was revolutionary. When Outbreak came out it was outdated.

RE1 was so good it sold millions, RE2 continued this. Sales went up and up. Outbreak is the opposite. Sales went down.

EQOAnostalgia wrote:

Don't tell us to stop asking and move on.

Not at all. We still love Outbreak. I want to run my own Outbreak Server one day. I'm just saying we need to take a more REALISTIC approach.

- We've been begging Capcom for half a decade now to continue Outbreak and they have NOT and will NOT do it. We've been begging them to do a lot of things and they DO NOT LISTEN.
- We have seen progress only from the community. People setting up their own Outbreak servers for the Japanese version of the game.

Begging Capcom = Not going to happen.
Community Led Outbreak Ressurection = Realistic and happening.

I'm saying we should focus our efforts on getting Capcom to release some data so we can set up our own Outbreak servers and keep the game alive that way.

Think some of the main factors why Outbreak underperformed was because of:

* No headset support for online play, SOCOM had the headset for online use and yet outbreak didn't support it. All we had was that ad-lib system.
* Scenarios cut down. I remember when Capcom said there would be over 20 different scenarios for outbreak and in the end they cut it down to 10.
* Lack of online for #File 1 in the UK/Europe, that would be one of the biggest factors why it went down eventually since we only ever got #File 2 online.
* Official servers shutting down, They really should have kept them open as long as possible I remember some people actually using the JPN servers to continue playing it online.
* PS2 network. I'm only going off what I remember (never had my ps2 online) but didn't you have to pay not only for the internet but also for the network as well in order to connect to it?

By looking at the beta and unused material that is on the file 1 and 2 discs you can see capcom had plans to add more characters, which may have been for other scenarios that may have been in #file 3 examples being Nicholai, Hunk both masked and unmasked, the USS seen in the beta versions(which may have been the scenario where they escape from Birkin's lab with the G-Virus), UBCS also had a group of them for a possible other scenario these were also shown in beta footage, Birkin himself as a possible boss character in the USS campaign, A tyrant with a re1 appearance compared to the other ones in outbreak, A different dog zombie, zombie kids(yeah outbreak had those) there is a lot more than I can remember but that in itself shows how far capcom would have gone if outbreak had been successful.

Imo if it were to be ported to PC in this day and age and not another RE4 port it would do much better due to the advancements in tech, could easily add mic support which would then make the ad-lib dead. Not to mention the cult following outbreak has gained over the years but Capcom won't listen to its fans and this is why we get......an outbreak mobile game -_-

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When RE1 came out it was revolutionary. When Outbreak came out it was outdated.

Not really, Outbreak was and still is the only co-op 3 player online Resident Evil game in existence not even 5 or 6 can cater to that. It was and still is the only online survival horror based RE before Capcom went all behind the shoulder etc, it only became outdated when they didn't do much in terms of updates for #file 2 although....i'm still adamant that file 2 was meant to be included in file 1 and the most obvious evidence is the additional static tv screens you see in the background of the scenario select that go past the main 5 scenarios you have access too.

But again i'm not capcom I still play outbreak although offline, because it still is a unique idea that capcom had just a shame it wasn't executed better... D=

Voltius wrote:

Mass Distraction wrote:

And how is the original RE not outdated in any way?

When RE1 came out it was revolutionary. When Outbreak came out it was outdated.

RE1 was so good it sold millions, RE2 continued this. Sales went up and up. Outbreak is the opposite. Sales went down.

But that doesn't change the fact that the games are ridiculously outdated today. And besides, while REmake and Zer0 did sell a lot better, the sales also went down with them.

No doubt if none of these games had been exclusives to a specific console the franchise would have done a lot better back then.

DXP wrote:

By looking at the beta and unused material that is on the file 1 and 2 discs you can see capcom had plans to add more characters, which may have been for other scenarios that may have been in #file 3 examples being Nicholai, Hunk both masked and unmasked, the USS seen in the beta versions(which may have been the scenario where they escape from Birkin's lab with the G-Virus), UBCS also had a group of them for a possible other scenario these were also shown in beta footage, Birkin himself as a possible boss character in the USS campaign, A tyrant with a re1 appearance compared to the other ones in outbreak, A different dog zombie, zombie kids(yeah outbreak had those) there is a lot more than I can remember but that in itself shows how far capcom would have gone if outbreak had been successful.

Well Nikolai was in some cut-scenes in the "Decisions, Decisions" scenario, so that's probably why he's on the disc.

DXP wrote:

i'm still adamant that file 2 was meant to be included in file 1 and the most obvious evidence is the additional static tv screens you see in the background of the scenario select that go past the main 5 scenarios you have access too.

There's also the fact the Flashback and Underbelly were used in a trailer for the first game.

37 Narwhals wrote:

DXP wrote:

By looking at the beta and unused material that is on the file 1 and 2 discs you can see capcom had plans to add more characters, which may have been for other scenarios that may have been in #file 3 examples being Nicholai, Hunk both masked and unmasked, the USS seen in the beta versions(which may have been the scenario where they escape from Birkin's lab with the G-Virus), UBCS also had a group of them for a possible other scenario these were also shown in beta footage, Birkin himself as a possible boss character in the USS campaign, A tyrant with a re1 appearance compared to the other ones in outbreak, A different dog zombie, zombie kids(yeah outbreak had those) there is a lot more than I can remember but that in itself shows how far capcom would have gone if outbreak had been successful.

Well Nikolai was in some cut-scenes in the "Decisions, Decisions" scenario, so that's probably why he's on the disc.

Didn't he actually play a pretty prominent role in that one?

Mass Distraction wrote:

37 Narwhals wrote:

DXP wrote:

By looking at the beta and unused material that is on the file 1 and 2 discs you can see capcom had plans to add more characters, which may have been for other scenarios that may have been in #file 3 examples being Nicholai, Hunk both masked and unmasked, the USS seen in the beta versions(which may have been the scenario where they escape from Birkin's lab with the G-Virus), UBCS also had a group of them for a possible other scenario these were also shown in beta footage, Birkin himself as a possible boss character in the USS campaign, A tyrant with a re1 appearance compared to the other ones in outbreak, A different dog zombie, zombie kids(yeah outbreak had those) there is a lot more than I can remember but that in itself shows how far capcom would have gone if outbreak had been successful.

Well Nikolai was in some cut-scenes in the "Decisions, Decisions" scenario, so that's probably why he's on the disc.

Didn't he actually play a pretty prominent role in that one?

IIRC he only appeared in two scenes, but things would've gone very differently without him. Surprisingly, he inadvertently helped us both times. His voice is also in a post-credits scene, although that one's just to tell us that he survived.

37 Narwhals wrote:

Well Nikolai was in some cut-scenes in the "Decisions, Decisions" scenario, so that's probably why he's on the disc.

Outbreak has two versions of each character model one is the cut-scene model that is higher poly than the in game one, has a much higher texture resolution(uses 512x512.) The in game ones are lower poly and use only a 256x256 texture. Nicholai has both   so at one point he was to be featured in game, since you never ever see his in game model in REO1 (you only ever see his high poly cut-scene model) chances are he was supposed to be an npc you could unlock or he was just seen in game running away kind of like linda/carter or any other NPC that is controlled by the game itself in game.

Instead of de-railing the thread further I'll probably make another thread going over the unused on disc Outbreak material, because i've just realized just how much stuff is unused on those games its madness.

DXP wrote:

Instead of de-railing the thread further I'll probably make another thread going over the unused on disc Outbreak material, because i've just realized just how much stuff is unused on those games its madness.

You do that, it'd be interesting.