News: Gundam Musou 3 DLC to feature the Seravee Gundam
Posted on : 21-02-2011 | By : Cacophanus | In : News
Hardware: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
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On the 23rd of February, another mobile suit will be added to Gundam Musou 3 in the form of another DLC pack. That of the beefy GN-008 Seravee Gundam and its more lithe internal counterpart the GN-009 Seraphim Gundam, from the second season of Gundam 00. The Seravee and Seraphim were also the upgraded versions of the GN-005 Gundam Virtue and GN-004 Gundam Nadleeh respectively. 4Gamer has some good shots of each of the mecha too. In terms of pricing, the DLC will cost 600 yen (PS3) and 480 MSP (360) and will also feature an additional mission. As has been said though, the fact that each of these have been released as separate DLC packs is a bit cheeky really. Hopefully, the Western release will conglomerate the DLC a bit better.
Well, this is Namco Bandai, who sold more than $300 of DLC for their Idolmaster game, so perhaps we should have expected this?
I’m not really angry about the fact that they’re trying to nickel and dime us, nor that they’re announcing these things slowly when they should have been announced as a single pack, but more that the price seems steep for one mobile suit and one mission. I could see the equivalent of 1 US dollar being a fair amount, and I’d say it’s even money that they’d make about the same amount of profit at that price through sheer volume. Maybe I’m too much of a budget gamer at this point, but Valve’s Steam service sells entire games for the price of one Gundam during their sales, and their data backs up the idea that you can make serious money from that. Unless Microsoft is charging hideous amount of money for a few megabytes in bandwidth when Valve can transfer gigabytes cheaply, I think it’s something Bamco should consider.
(Besides, everyone knows Nadleeh, with his Gundam Beard Mane, is the version we really wanted.)
The DLC for this game is actually making me slightly less excited for it.
Man, who misses the good old days of “Unlockables” instead of Paid to get new characters or other secretes and specials…
This totally kill the replay value of any game.
AGREE?.. at least i am.
Me too brother, me too.
I don’t disagree with DLC in principle, as long as the DLC feels like something that exists outside of the original game’s vision, rather than a feature that could have been included in the initial release. If they had released a Gundam 00 Pack with all these DLC mobile suits and a mini-campaign based around them, I wouldn’t feel nearly as bad about it, because in that case it feels like they’re adding value to an already complete game, rather than making what you purchased feel like Gundam Musou 3 -Lite Version- or something.
To go with my Steam example I was using up above again, there are a few games on the service that have “micro-expansions” for about what these individual Gundams cost, and most of those “micro-expansions” try to do something that wasn’t under the original game’s umbrella, like add in a small campaign for the enemy faction, or add a new game mode type.
I think it’s important to remember, though, that Namco Bandai is a Japanese company and Japanese video gamers are used to paying much, much more for their software than Americans do (I can’t speak much for the PAL territories, but I think even they get shafted less than the Japanese). So it’s possible that 600 yen per Gundam makes sense in comparison over there, and from Namco Bandai’s point of view they could be just charging the fair market value.
Namco Bandai, if you’re listening: I’ll pay 6 bucks for a Union or GN Flag unit if Team America: World Police’s theme song “America, F*** Yeah!!!” is playing in the background when it launches.
Love the idea of the Team America Flag, though it should be a white GN Flag with Red GN particles and a blue Beam Saber, or just give it the Dragon Gundam’s Beam Flags in glorious red, white, and blue. God Gundam bless America (ironically)
To be serious for a minute, though, six bucks is absolutely rediculous for a single mission. I think Namco-Bandai actually will drop the price for the US release, possible to a dollar or so, or just release multiple DLC bits packed together. I mean, we have five new suits and seven new missions, I think (Acguy and Gedlav, right? please correct me if I’m wrong), so that’s three units and 4 missions in two packs? Kshatriya and Susano-o with the extra bonus missions, and the Celestial Being units as a second pack. For six bucks a piece, it still sounds a smidge high, but much more reasonable than one suit and one mission or just two missions.
You mean back in the days when it took actual skill to get new characters/weapons/cars/robots/moves/etc. other than the ones anybody can use right off the bat? Pshh. Those days were SOOO overrated. It’s way better now when I don’t have to actually become GOOD at a game to get the hidden characters; now I just use my checkbook to get the good stuff ^.^ (sarcasm mode)
I’m guessing Namco-Bandai is using this to gauge the popularity of each mobile suit, so that they can decide which model kits to push in the following year.