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Anyone else wonder why Namco took the "Museum" out of Namco Museum?


Leeroy ST

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This has been bothering for some time. The original 5 Namco Museum games contained cool "Exhibit rooms" often with remixed music and bonuses with an arcade machine in the middle to activate and play the classic title the Exhibit represents (sometimes there was another arcade machine for an alternate version, sometimes hidden) and it would have tons of posters from newspapers and magazines for the time, promotional material, comics, and all kinds of coll shit.

 

You could move around the museum and really delve into the history and it was just a fun idea all around.

 

However as far as I'm aware the "museum" aspect of Namco Museum ended after vol.4 on the PSX. As far as I am aware the Museums never came back even on the N64 a system that was competing with the PSX.

 

I can understand this for handhelds like the GBA were a list of games would make more sense, but then the PSP doesn't have the museum either.

 

Allow me to show you why this is crap and why we need the museums to come back, and why we are at it we should bring that back for other classic companies like Atari etc.:

 

Longplay of the museum itself looking at 3 exhibits (Dig zdug, Druaga, Phozon)

 

 

Ms.Pac-Man dance

 

 

Galaxian (you also get a cool launch sequence.)

 

 

 

Also in Vol.3 there's a comic you can read for Tower of Druaga I think it was translated for the game and wasn't released in the US, but I could be wrong.

 

Regardless I was around when Druaga was new but didn't know there was a comic until Namco Museum, and if the old games used the new games format I never would have known outside of luck.

 

 

 

Edited by Leeroy ST
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5 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

It was fun for the first couple times you played them, but afterwards people just want to jump straight in the games...

Yeah, but the whole point was to create an immersive experience first, so when you do jump into playing the games you have more knowledge of said games. The titles after the PSX and sideways of the PSX (N64) just skipped that all together, and I feel like it added to the sales figures because they never became more popular after they dropped the museum aspect than the original games, even the later releases added a ton more games and bonuses per disc. 

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You care to back that up?  I find it hard to believe they never were as popular just because Namco stopped wasting time on making a digital museum to browse through about the games.  I'd have to say I'm fairly certain playing the listed games was the big draw, not just history even when those originals were new, that could be found online since.  It seems like the art of wasting money on diminishing returns wasting it on manpower and money tied to that.

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My guess is that it was more time consuming and expensive vs just tossing roms on with a UI, and whoever at Namco who was arguing for it no longer was on those projects. But they’re for sure the predecessors of the museum modes on the recent Digital Eclipse collections, and I would love to see Namco dig into their internal materials like that again.

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11 hours ago, Tanooki said:

You care to back that up?  I find it hard to believe they never were as popular just because Namco stopped wasting time on making a digital museum to browse through about the games.  I'd have to say I'm fairly certain playing the listed games was the big draw, not just history even when those originals were new, that could be found online since.  It seems like the art of wasting money on diminishing returns wasting it on manpower and money tied to that.

Back what up? We have enough sales numbers to come to this conclusion.

 

the first game sold 1.65 million in NA alone, all 5 of the original vols, sold over 700k in Japan, around 800k if we include the Japan exclusive Encore. That's already over 3 million units. and we are still missing 4 vols in NA sales for the original 5.

 

In Japan the DS version didn't even sell 40k. 

 

Actually we do have Vol.3 numbers of 2~ million http://www.the-magicbox.com/Chart-USPlatinum.shtml

 

The last Namco museum game that did well in NA was the PS2 version which was the first to drop the formula but wasn't among the old top 3.

 

In Japan that last well selling game was the PSP version and that didn't even sell 80k.

 

 

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3 minutes ago, ubersaurus said:

I think only Volumes 1 and 3 sold well in the west, which is why they not only got Greatest Hits reprints but are also much, much easier to find compared to 2, 4 and 5. Probably entirely because of Ms Pac-Man, Galaga and Pac-Man being on those ones.

I believe 2 did ok but nothing like what Vol 1 and 3 did. Most complaints came from 4 and it seems people sometimes forget there was a 5.

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Not good enough.  You're only addressing the total sales, not what drove it.  You're just assuming because they had these added actual museums with art and facts that somehow a lot more people bought that release to sit through a slow moving digital museum on their TV and cared that much more about that, than the games.

 

Stuff like these are simple nostalgia trip cheaply done cash ins, and it makes complete sense a first run of something when the concept was fresh would sell far better than successive releases for a whole bunch of reasons why.

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3 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Not good enough.  You're only addressing the total sales, not what drove it. 

No, you're making an assumption the museum aspect didn't contribute at all, even though reviews of the time and Youtube have shown that people were indeed interested in it.

 

I never said it was THE reason to buy the game (that seems to be something you came up with), just that it was one of those contributions that made the earlier titles sell much more than the others, which was the entire point.

Edited by Leeroy ST
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I'd argue you're making the larger assumption unless you forgot to link some quote from Namco stating that it sold well, better than expected, because people wanted it for the museum part of the disc.  I'm not saying people weren't interested, but I would argue it wouldn't have largely enhanced the sales so many times over to make it the driving point of the consumers choice to buy it which would have caused later sales to fail compared lacking that.

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Partly because most people don't give a crap about the game room, museum, etc. Also partly so they can trim the number of games down and sell more versions, seriously, last gen you could get one disc/cart with nearly everything on it, and now their routinely chopping it down to the half dozen range.

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9 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I'm not saying people weren't interested, but I would argue it wouldn't have largely enhanced the sales

Which was never said.

 

8 hours ago, Video said:

seriously, last gen you could get one disc/cart with nearly everything on it, and now their routinely chopping it down to the half dozen range.

They sold you 6 NES Mega Man games on a blu-ray in some areas for $40 and then made another one with less games, this shouldn't be surprising to see from other developers.

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I liked the museum features on the original PSX versions but I'm not surprised they were dropped in future editions.  Indeed, they seemed like mostly an afterthought even on those English language originals seeing that most if not all of the promo materials included were Japanese.  I get the fact that the games were distributed by companies other than Namco outside Japan, which could be one reason for this, but still...

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21 hours ago, Psionic said:

I liked the museum features on the original PSX versions but I'm not surprised they were dropped in future editions.  Indeed, they seemed like mostly an afterthought even on those English language originals seeing that most if not all of the promo materials included were Japanese.  I get the fact that the games were distributed by companies other than Namco outside Japan, which could be one reason for this, but still...

Vol.3 did pretty well with English though so I guess something was different with that one, a lot more translations including the Druaga comic/manga. Might be why it's the one everyone seems to remember the most too.

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