Bandai Namco Is Creating A "Gundam Metaverse"

Bandai..whyyyyyyyyy, there's no reason to make a Gundam metaverse...

Ew, gross.
All this metaverse stuff just makes me want to be outdoors more away from all things digital.
Before long enjoying every IP will become a 2nd job.

Sell their own content??? HERE COMES THE NFTs, that aren't called NFTs

They've been monetizing the hell out of Gundam since before most of us were born, this is just the latest buzzword. For this particular company it's just the latest way for them to say "this is how we're going to market robots to people."

Is...that what metaverse means? I was under the impression metaverse was the internet but in VR and owned by facebook.

This is a new low.

As long as there are no NFT's or crypto involved. If so, that sucks.

@Xiovanni They don't know either, but they think it will make them money, so here we are.

Not Bandai, potentially creating a risible interactive product in the Gundam franchise!

(To this day I'm still surprised that they didn't dip for the Toys to Life trend).

Second Life: Gundam Edition

I actually quite like the concept of the metaverse. Themed ones anyway. A Nintendo one could be amazing. Imagine being able to hang out in Inkopolis before catching the subway to New Donk City for a sight seeing tour. This would be spectacular in VR.

Bandai’s souls are weighed down by gravity so they pollute the planet and gaming with NFTs, Char was right.

I misread “Gundam” as a not nice word…
kinda expresses my feelings on meta verses at the moment tbh

Christ Bandai all we Gundam fans ask for is more Universal Century high budget OVAs. We don’t need no metaverse

For example, where is Gundam Sentinel? Or Crossbone? Or Portrait of a Young Comet (we need more Haman Karn) Or most importantly what is the timeline for the other two Hathaway movies?

They waste so much time with the AUs and now they are adding meta aspects? That’s not what we want. We want more Universal Century aka the real Gundam timeline.

@SalvorHardin

Zieg Zeon comrade.

@TheRedComet still waiting for that Crossbone adaptation, someday though...

But yeah we also have gunpla's/model kits that get more expensive and exclusive day by day.

@Luigivaldo

At this point I don’t we will ever see an adaptation of Crossbone. Bandai has all but said screw the late Universal Century.

Best we are going to get is that they’ll finish Hathaway. After that, if we get anymore UC at all, it’ll be another Federation vs Zeon OVA at best.

Which don’t get me wrong is great, since the strongest UC material is always framed around that conflict. But I would love to see at least Crossbone adapted to an entire series or at least an OVA. It’s by far the best of the late UC stories and it holds up to the Feddie vs Zeke material.

Yeah no I'm not buying your filthy NFTs, bandai.

Just another franchise to bury, sigh.

They make it harder and harder to support them every day it seems.

This just sounds like an MMO of sorts. I still have no idea what is supposed to separate the Metaverse from regular videogames and I'm pretty sure the companies throwing the terminology around have no clue either.

still showing that the term 'metaverse' is meaningless.

This sounds like Second Life or PS Home or a similar shared world concept. Its not new. Its in fact an old idea in gaming

I like Gundam, but it's been a messy franchise for a while. I prefer the old, straightforward stuff. The thing is, franchises don't matter so much. The people behind them do. Gundam isn't what it used to be. From the sound of this, I don't think this sounds great and I don't like the thinking behind it. So as with other franchises, I'll stick to the older stuff.

If this can bring some kind of way to remake/re-release the approximately 10 billion Gundam games that have come out over the years, I'll be happy. Otherwise, meh. It doesn't really sound THAT bad, at least compared to what other companies are doing.

Ehh, custom robo imo has cooler weapons/designs.

@moodycat is reconguista that bad? i've loved the more oddball designs but have yet to check it out

no clue what this means exactly. what do we have to compare to besides maybe something in the movies.

I am extremely gay for Mobile Suit Gundam

The feddies will do anything for a quick buck... Haven't you people learned a thing? This isn't how you unite spacenoids and earthnoids...

@Raptros

My solution to the problem is an asteroid drop.

You cannot save those whose souls are weighed down by gravity.

@Travisemo007

Uh… What?

The only mecha that compares to Universal Century Gundam’s mechanical and weapon designs (won’t include the AUs, since their designs are either pretty decent like Gundam Seed Season 1 or downright disastrous like Gundam Wing’s, although Tallgeese was sweet) is Macross. And that franchise has been getting abused almost as much as Gundam has.

@sdelfin

I will say that the AUs have been… mostly bad. The only AU series I’ve truly liked was IBO (mainly because it was a pretty inventive set-up and for first time since Zeta a “villainous” force actually won; plus the dub was surprisingly good) and I liked parts of Gundam Seed Season 1. Gundam 00 wasn’t terrible either. The less said about Gundam Seed Destiny the better. It’s at the very bottom for animated Gundam.

And while I’ll always hold a soft spot for Gundam Wing (like every other American, it was the series that got me into Gundam) it’s painful to rewatch. It’s just bad all around. The mecha designs are both overdone and boring at the same time, the characters are literally bland stereotypes (Duo is the only character I feel had good writing and good character development), and it didn’t go anywhere for half the episodes until the “Zechs takes his mask off” arc where they shoehorned what felt like another 50 episodes of story into about 8 episodes.

The UC OVAs have been solid, though. Unicorn, despite its flaws, was fantastic. The Origin was interesting, even if it completely retconned the elements around the One Year War. And Thunderbolt was amazing; it was the strongest Gundam OVA since 8th MS team. I also really enjoyed Hathaway Part 1, since it’s one of the few Gundam works that has successfully managed digital art with CG assets even if it felt a bit rushed.

@TheRedComet holy ***** someone gets it!!!

@TheRedComet um what. Lol. Custom robo for GameCube has better mech and weapon variation and designs is all I'm saying. Personal opinion having played it and tried some Gundam games b4. Custom robo may not be the same step inside (cockpit) mech concept. But the designs are much cooler imo.

@Travisemo007

Custom Robo is a good game, no doubt about it. I played the hell out of it back in the day. But it had a Super Robot Mecha style of design. UC Gundam and Macross tend to go for… well you can’t call it realism since they are designed to sell model kits but in their own universes the designs make some military sense most of the time.

Especially Universal Century designs in the OVAs. Like the GP01 or the RX-78-NT1 “Alex.” They went a bit overboard with the Zeon suits though, although I generally prefer Zeonic design aesthetics (MSN-06S Sinanju from Unicorn is my favorite Mecha design of all time, followed very closely by the Zaku II Kai from 0080)

So ultimately it’s hard to compare the two.

Also, most Gundam games are trash and aren’t worth playing. But there’s been some hella good Macross and Robotech games.

@TheRedComet that was kinda my point. They are pretty different design wise lol. But also was just pointing out that cooler designs won me over. Just felt gundams were a bit too samey for me or as you said military. Which I agree with. Robotech def had some good games for sure. My neighbor owned some I had the opportunity to exp. Now if they could just take the custom robo mechs and put them in a Gundam arena viewing angle wise, rather than top down.

@TheRedComet I enjoyed the reply. I've always heard mixed, at best, reviews of the AU stuff, so I've avoided it. I'm with you on Wing. I enjoyed it at the time, but I quickly grew to despise it. It's not really well thought out in terms of its plot, in my opinion. The thing that I always think back to, if I recall correctly, was that teenage girl character becoming queen of the world out of nowhere. I was lucky in that I had access to 0083 on tape before Wing came out, so I don't have so much of a soft spot for Wing. As for the new stuff, I've never been fond of mixing CGI and 2D animation, but I'll take a look at the things you recommended to see what I think. Thanks.