knight rider online

(I started a new thread to talk specifically about the release of the game on different platforms, rather than the general discussion of the old thread.)

I spoke briefly with the Davilex reps again on Friday to clear up some questions about game availability regarding Europe and the U.S., and PC and PS2. It's complicated.

The one guaranteed release is the European PC version. It should be available in retail stores and online at amazon.co.uk. U.S. residents should be able to purchase it through the U.K. Amazon site, but of course may have to pay extra shipping fees.

Sony has not yet approved Knight Rider 2 for release on the Playstation. Only about 1 in 4 games submitted to Sony get their approval. There are many factors involved with approving a game: it must meet certain interface standards, have good quality graphics and sound, etc. But Sony could not approve a game if they felt for example that the PS2 market was already saturated with driving games for example. I'm not sure about this, but I THINK there are different approvals for Europe and the U.S. However, Davilex is very confident (make that EXTREMELY confidnet) they will be releasing Knight Rider 2 on PS2 in Europe. It is specifically a PAL game and will NOT work on Playstations in the U.S.

Currently, there is no U.S. distributor for Knight Rider 2 on either PS2 or PC. One of the reasons Davilex came to E3 was to hopefully line up a distributor, but they were pretty candid about not being optimistic about it. Their first Knight Rider game apparently sold better in Europe by an enormous margin, and they don't see the U.S. as having a strong market for it. They are releasing a Miami Vice game in the U.S., and that is more of a priority for them.

(these are my thoughts, not Davilex:) Hope is not lost. If the Knight Rider DVD box set does well, that will be a HUGE selling point for Davilex to find a distributor. And if the movie can go into pre-production in the next 6 months, I could see distributors lining out the door to catch the swelling Knight Rider wave. We'll have to see.

To Summarize: (these are my odds)
PC version in Europe: 99.9% guaranteed.
PS2 version in Europe: 98% guaranteed. Sony just needs to give its last seal of approval.
PC version in the U.S.: 50/50 chance. There is no distributor lined up yet, but people will still be able to purchase it online.
PS2 version in the U.S.: Unlikely.

To be perfectly honest, the amount of poor PS2 games I have seen released in the last few years amazes me....so can we assume that Nintendo has a more strict system, thus less games on the shelves?? I doubt that Sonys approval system is that strict, that KR2 doesn't make it through....besides, the first KR game did and its not really a masterpeice. The over-saturation is an utter joke. There are already too many racing games on the PS2, and with many heavy hitters to come such as GT4, McRae 2005, burnout 3 and GTA. That last one maybe the closest to KR2 in terms of gameplay but you see what I mean...and those were just off the top of my head.

I understand that the PS2 like the other consoles is region encoded, but is it possible for Davelix to make the KR2 game region free? That way if someone wants the game from abroad for the PS2, then they atleast have a chance. Additionally it may cost substantially less than looking for various distributors.

Sarfraz

sarfraz wrote: I understand that the PS2 like the other consoles is region encoded, but is it possible for Davelix to make the KR2 game region free?

Videogames work differently than DVDs. A DVD simply stores MPEG files (which are independent of being NTSC or PAL) and then the player converts the signal into the proper format. With videogames, the game is designed specifically for the television format, taking into account screen resolution and refresh rate. It's not a matter of simply turning a region code on or off; they have to essentially create a different product.

Oh yeah, totally forgot that. NTSC and PAL have different number of lines per image and Hz rate.

Cheers Mike

Sarfraz

I really don't care which platform now i just want it in any way possible.