Yeah, But Japan Has All The Faceplates
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Faceplates have been pretty quiet over the last part of 2009. Only one major game has had a plate released in the US. MadCatz released the impossible-to-find "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" plate with matching skins around the time of the game's release, but to date, they have not been spotted at any retailer or online store. Some collectors are turning up with the hard-to-find item, but so far, no auctions have been spotted on eBay.
Strangely enough, Japan seems to be the Land of the Rising Faceplates lately. A promotional plate was spotted at a pre-release party for the Japanese side-scrolling shooter "Death Smiles." The plate was not released with the game.
Two plates were released for the game "Magnacarta 2". One came out in Japan and was available if you bought the game and a console. This plate had a darker background. A second plate with a white background was released, apparently in the US, although their actual mode of distribution remains a mystery.
Just recently, another faceplate was released for a Cave, Japan-only shmup 360 game. Espgaluda 2 launched with the same deal, where you got the plate if you bought the game AND an Xbox 360 console. These plates are slowly making their way to other parts of the world through online auctions. Shrewd Japanese game buyers are selling off the plates, and not only getting their game for free but making a fistfull of yen in the process. Collectors are wary of having what happened with Tales of Vesperia happen again. The ToV plate was made in very small numbers and was never reaily available on the secondary market like the Star Ocean IV plates, for instance. Rather than risk the plate becoming unavailable or so scarce that the prices skyrocket, collectors seem willing to pay whatever is the asking price for the Espgaluda 2 plates.
As long as companies like MadCatz keep making plates for the US, and then not releasing them where they are readily accessible, their demise is likely a self-fulfilling prophesy. Critics say they aren't in demand, they produce what should be a popular plate like Modern Warfare 2, they don't widely release it, and then point to poor sales as justification of their conclusions.
If there is an upside to this, it is that these Japanese game companies are making their money on the original arcade releases of the games. Anything they make from an Xbox 360 release is "free money" so to speak. For a company like Cave, maker of Death Smiles and Espgaluda II, it is definitely in their best interest to move some consoles and not just games. Cave fans who own 360's can feed the coin-ops for two years, and then buy the games, creating their own home arcade filled with Cave creations. Cave wins twice, but for that to happen, there have to be 360's in Japanese gamers' homes.
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