Cave ponders crowdfunding shmups PS4 ports

There may be more Cave shmup ports on the way than we thought.

Publisher Degica recently confirmed plans to bring some of Cave’s popular shooters to Steam – the first of which, incidentally, will be Mushihimesama (or Bug Princess as it has become known in the West).

Now Cave has said that it might delve into crowdfunding not only to fund more Steam ports, but also possibly bring its titles to PS4. It could even go as far as to develop a brand new shmup. The last original shooter from the company was 2013’s Xbox 360 title DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou.

Thank you for your co-operation for my brainstorming,” a Facebook post read. Just, it’s just idea, if we set a crowd funding, will it be good? Personally it’s attractive.

For example: $0.3M to 0.5M – porting a title to Steam. $1M – porting it to Steam and PS4. $3M – new STG title to a console.”

In recent years Cave has distanced itself from the shmup genre, releasing instead a range of mobile puzzle games. Whether that strategy will change will likely depend on the success or otherwise of Bug Princess. The decision to price the Cave port at $19.99 may well have some bearing on that.

Talk on the internet has suggested that licensing complications may mean that even if successful, Cave will be unable to port its entire catalogue to PC.

Rumours suggest that its efforts are likely to focus on the titles already available on Xbox 360 including Mushihimesama Futari (Bug Princess 2), Espgaluda II, DeathSmiles, DoDonPachi Resurrection and Akai Katana.

If true, this could preclude the likes of Ketsui, Ibara and Progear from ever being ported.