Yeah that one!

The 360 is the place to be for Shmups.  I think it's because it is such a niche genre nowadays, that fans will buy the games for whatever system they release on.  Cave, a huge shmup developer, chose 360 because it's cheaper and easier to develop for.  If you have an American 360, Raiden IV, Death Smiles, and Ikaruga are all available.  You can also import Espgaluda II and Mushihime-sama Futari because those games are region free.

The Playstation is not all lost though.  With a Japanese account and a yen card you can download a slew of PS1 shooters, such as Einhander and such.  And there's also the Gundemonium collection.

Unfortunately, if you're a hardcore fan, you're looking at getting a Japanese 360 or a Super Gun.

Who knows maybe Microsoft will drop some bombshells at the tokyo game show this year and you can continue your routine of being jealous every year lol.

But seriously jrpg developers seem to be shying away from the hd consoles at the moment and they are putting their high profile titles on the Wii or the portables.  So both the ps3 and 360 seem kind of dead at the moment.  The Last Story, Dragon Quest 10, Valkyria Chronicles 2, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, The 3rd Birthday are some of the examples of high profile titles that are ducking the ps3 and 360 to appear on other platforms.

I can't name a jrpg on the ps3 or 360 that is coming out this fall or winter that I would be interested in which is kind of sad.

But as far as SHMUPs go the 360 still has quite a few of them that are being released and will get released by the end of this year as well as next year.

Reason why 360 is the choice for niche Japanise titles is because Microsoft doesn't have a limit on how many minimum copies a publisher is allowed to make.

Sony on the other hand has a limit of 60000 copies minimum(if I remember correctly)...meaning that you can not make a game for PS3 unless you press 60000 copies of the game...and more importantly, send Sony a check of 60000 * 7 bucks for the licensing fee.

Smaller niche japanese games don't sell more than 20000-30000 copies lifetime no mater which console they are on so it makes more sense to make them for the 360 since they can pay MS the exact number of licenses they think they can sell...

I don't know why they don't go to the Wii but it could be the same reason.

I never knew this but it is pretty dumb. Doesn't Sony realize this can limit certain devs from making games for them?

Its something Sony did to control shovelware on the PS3. And its working, kind of... Games like Sniper, Darkest of Days, Autobahn racing, those Rapala Hunting games...never go to PS3 since they won't sell much.

Those publishers make a game for PC/360 for a million bucks tops, sell 50,000 copies on both platforms and go home with a small profit...

If they had to print 60000 PS3 versions of the game and pay sony 400000 dollars for licensing up front, their warehouse would be full of unsold PS3 discs.

However it sucks for cool niche japanese games...like SHUMPS