If you know where that line comes from, you're a geek. Of course, I could have gotten it wrong, and if you're a geek, you'll tell me.
OK, so, to recap for late comers... I'm talking to a guy who can print images on plates. Wanna put a picture of your girlfriend on a faceplate? He can do it. Anyway, we're talking about that part, but I want to go huge with this. I want to go bigger than just user uploaded images. I want users to have a HUGE selection of images to choose from to have put on their Xbox.
Game companies release screenshots of their games all the time, for nothing. If you own a site, they have approved screenshots that you can link to, or download and host. For instance, I can go to www.one-chanbara.com and see all kinds of screenshots of the bikini-clad sisters of blood. If I wanted to do a write-up about the game, I could write what I know, and include those screenshots, at no charge. To me. Even if I was making money from the site. It cost the company nothing for me to show off their screenshot, and from the free visibility, hopefully it will help them sell games.
Now, following that same logic, that is exactly what I hope to do with faceplates. I am HOPING to get a multitude of companies - game and otherwise - to agree to let us post images approved by the companies, and should someone have the desire, put that image onto a faceplate for them.
I don't know what kind of deals publishers have with a company like Mad Catz. I know in the case of Epic Games, the Gears of War faceplates are "non-exclusive." Meaning, if I wanted to come up with the money, I could also take an approved image and make 30,000 faceplates and sell them to Gamestop, EB, Game Crazy, Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and Amazon.com.
What I'm trying to say here, is that I have a tentative call this Friday morning with a person from Capcom. I was told that Mad Catz already has agreements with them to make faceplates for Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil V, so you heard that here first. However, I do not know if those agreements are non-exclusive. Their agreement might prohibit anyone from making faceplates EXCEPT Mad Catz, which would make that an "exclusive" agreement.
I emailed back a picture of the Phoenix Wright "Objection!" custom that I made, along with a hand-drawn "Ghouls & Ghosts" plate, lovingly crafted by my friend Christoph.
But just to give you an idea what could be in store for faceplate fans, and gaming fans in general, here are but a few of the games developed/published by Capcom:
1942
Street Fighter
Mega Man
Final Fight
Breath of Fire
Resident Evil/Biohazard
Viewtiful Joe
Okami
Dead Rising
Mobile Suit Gundam
Onimusha
Devil May Cry
Lost Planet
Captain Commando (Not a game, but a guy)
Section Z
Marvel vs. Capcom
Commando
Bionic Commando
Darkstalkers
Power Stone
Clock Tower
Phoenix Wright
Ghosts & Goblins
Ghouls & Ghosts
Strider
Battle Arena Toshinden
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs
Dynasty Warriors
Legendary Wings
Mercs
Pirate Ship Higemaru
Super Puzzle Fighter
Tech Romancer
Warriors of Fate
Dark Void
Dino Crisis
Turok (original)
Yo! Noid
Darkwing Duck (I don't see this happening, though)
Killer 7
P.N. 03
Zack & Wiki
Monster Hunter
Giga Wing
Rival Schools (Yes!)
Auto Modellista
Chaos Legion
Crimson Tears
Darkwatch
Maximo
Moto GP
Way of the Samurai
Steel Battalion (GOD yes!)
That, my friends is an enormous list. That is the kind of list only a great video game company can make.
The key here is that we're not going to make all of these plates. We're going to host an image. If someone wants a plate, they select the image, pay for their purchase, and they will be sent a plate that looks like the image they chose. Sure, 30,000 Steel Battalion faceplates would be ridiculous. The game itself only sold 25,000 or so. (I had two, lol.) Even a thousand would be ridiculous. But what about two? Or five? What if there were four images from Steel Battalion, and five people bought all four of them? That's twenty plates. What if that happened for every game on this list? What if there were twenty four Resident Evil pictures that covered key people and moments from the entire series?
Now imagine Capcom's offerings available right next to Namco's, Sega's, Konami's, Koei's, BioWare's, Ubisoft's, Bethesda (YES I want an Oblivion plate, dangit), Tecmo, Atlus, Double Fine, Oddworld Inhabitants, EA (Dead Space and Mirror's Edge, I'm comin' for YOU)...
Now add to that countless TV shows, movies, anime, rock bands, even companies like Nike or Pepsi or Abercrombe & Fitch?
What happens with Capcom on Friday will probably set the tone for this whole thing, so if you're praying people, now is the time. This isn't just about faceplates, or me, or you all, or this place, or the guy making the plates. It's about giving the gamer a chance to make a choice by actually giving him something to choose FROM.
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