It's difficult to recall the circumstance for each game and so I can't give you a definitive reply on this one - I'll have to speculate on some elements.
The problem is (was) that the cost of releasing a 'lower profile' game (ie one without an expensive licensed attached) was mainly in the marketing and distribution of that game. Bear in mind that, unlike today, games didn't cost millions of dollars to develop. However, what did make it so expensive was advertising and sales. WHSmith, for instance, would want £X,000 for having a game in their chart, and all of the major stores demanded payment for 'prime positions' in their racks. Multiply this by the hundreds of different territories we would sell in, and then add all the promotions and magazine ads to those territories and you get an idea of the scale of cost I'm talking about. Note also that if you didn't do any of this then the game wouldn't sell at all and the stock would have been returned!
Now, you are right - if we had been just a month late, then it would have been sensible to try and release and recoup. However, as memory serves, Ocean France were never just a month late. In all cases they were MANY months late and in a few cases the project was scrapped because of this.
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Well, there are many points on which i want to reply.
Ocean was not the only editor/publisher to have some games in late, it happens many times and Snow bros was not the exception.
Instead of saying "ok boys, you're gonna have this or these game(s) on your shelves, the game is delayed of 2 months" ?
The main point here is making money, and we all know that everywhere SB has been previewed, everyone said whoww such a great game ! Can't wait to buy it in stores ! You can't imagine how many people wanted to buy this game when it was to the point of being released. Snow bros would be considered as a collector,
like Toki is actually. All Ocean France games are WANTED games. just check on ebay, toki is selling for 25-30 GBP easily for example.
A last point about them being late. At the time Ocean France was still living, you didn't seem to know what kind of guys you were dealing with.
Pierre Adane is a master programmer. Can you give a name of one Ocean UK programmer able to code like he did ? Well as far as i see in my Ocean games collection, none of them. Pierre is today a multi-millionnaire, ex-ceo of PAM Development (Top Spin on XBOX).
Philippe Dessoly's case. You don't know it but this guy is a drawing god. Ever heard about GOLDORAK/GRENDIZER
japanese anime ? Well Philippe is known actually under the nickname GOLGOTH71, has a web site, and he is the
official graphic artist autorized by GO NAGAI (dad of Goldorak) himself. Same apply to CAPTAIN HARLOCK, he is licensed also by LEIJI MATSUMOTO exclusively.
These 2 licenses are pushing huge millions of dollars....
Thierry Levastre is also an excellent graphic artist. He has done flashback graphics with other peoples at Delphine Software.....
Etc....
Maybe the problem was that Ocean was doing "license to sell games, in an industrial way", while these gods were doing more than better games. Both ways are uncompatible one with each others. One need fast development in hasty, the other requires time, which they were not allowed to have.
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I must admit to thinking the latter of Snow Bros as I do remember it was very late and in fact, I don't recall it ever being finished.
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Gary, my Friend, snow bros is 100 % finished, debugged and all. that's how it was in june 1991.
Pierre Adane has mastered the game at this date.
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If it was, then there could have been additional factors why it wasn't released as well as the ones above. For example, it may have clashed with a 'bigger' release and therefore would have been buried; stores were no longer interested in stocking it ; the Sales Team had low preorders; etc.
It's easy to come onto a forum like this many years later, with the benefit of hindsight and claim that Ocean made a mistake by not releasing the greatest game ever without having all the facts. There are many factors involved, but I would make the primary one the issue that the title was so late.
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One month late was not an exception in the videogames industry. Once again it happened most of the time.
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Anyway, now you can all can be happy that it is illegally available in pirated form - at least it can be judged against the likes of Rainbow Islands in terms of quality. Personally, I don't thiink it comes anywhere close (although the conversion may indeed be perfect). But that's the beauty of entertainment products generally - everyone has a diverse opinion.
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In a pirated form ? i have dumped the only DISK still alive of snow bros ! You'd really wanted it dies in a Desk bin ?
So many months of work completed just to throw to the bin ? that's what i call throwing money thru the window.
And unacceptable for the peoples who work on it.
About comparing Snow Bros to Rainbow Islands, any good coder down here would tell you this : Uncomplete game, rubbish scrolling and playability. Well, and you say that Snow Bros can't stand in comparing ? AHAH