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A quick mention on the VFlower Twitter account about some recording going on this month
Miku will have a live scene on the Shinkansen Henkei Robo Shinkalion anime (song: Change! Shinkalion).Vocal arrangement by Mitchie M. @uncreepy I guess this was Mitchie M's announcement he mentioned yesterday.
Wow, this is sort of weird news because it's a snow version of Shinkalion's Hatsune (発音) performing instead of "our" Hatsune (初音). I haven't been able to watch the show since it was around the 20 episode mark, I wonder why she would be performing plot-wise (because in Shinkalion, she is a sword-wielding girl who is also a girl of little words and is definitely in no way, shape or form having an "idol" personality--more like a tsundere).
I swear, I've been following Gatebox's Twitter and for a lot of their update posts, people have been asking when a Crypton/Vocaloid character would be available. I don't even think anyone other than Akihiko got to use the Miku Gatebox? Even though she was in commercials and that's the big reason any of us were following Gatebox to begin with.
We were talking about Gatebox on the Discord and it's new batch of characters and I had been wondering how they were supposed to keep updating characters that might not age well (for example, they got some VTubers and currently popular characters from anime like Seven Deadly Sins). Guess they just drop support for them and you have to get a new waifu.
Gatebox's article says you will not longer be able to use Miku OR Gatebox's mascot, Hikari, by April. I never thought they would get rid of Hikari!
A lot of people are confused why Gatebox is exchanging the new units for free, upset Miku is going away, and angry that Gatebox went back on its word of making "dreams".
A lot of people are confused why Gatebox is exchanging the new units for free, upset Miku is going away, and angry that Gatebox went back on its word of making "dreams".
^ I thought this comment was interesting in addition to the rest of the main tweet's comments.
Wow, I wouldn't have expected that they'd get rid of Miku. I wonder if they used Sega's models in any way (Not that any of us probably know.)? That might have contributed, since CFM has changed their relationship with Sega, per the announcement last Mirai (I think.).
Or maybe there's some kind of big tech change in how the characters are coded or something, and it makes more sense to make new ones than to redo old ones? That would account for Hikari. Though how you nix your own mascot I don't know....
Nah, Gatebox has their own model for Miku. The costume design was by LEN[A-7], and the module itself was their own making. (On the first demos they used Lat-type MMD model, since their own model wasn't ready yet).
I'm curious, what are you referring to exactly? I don't remember hearing anything suggesting a change in relations.
In any case, I think axing Miku was a mistake on Gatebox's part. The production numbers were very limited, and apparently there was a good amount of interest (I was actually expecting them to continue the production of Miku Gatebox). A decision of getting rid of Miki and Hikari like that doesn't sound good from a marketing point of view in any way.
I didn't realize that obsolete waifus were a thing until today haha.
Maybe CFM no longer felt comfortable with Miku being used in this way. Or maybe they only want her speaking voice come from CFM's own engine and not the one used in the Gatebox.
It's also possible Gatebox wanted a better deal and CFM did not want to play ball. Besides, the virtual waifu biz is starting to get quite competitive and maybe Gatebox wanted more flexibility to compete.
Maybe CFM no longer felt comfortable with Miku being used in this way. Or maybe they only want her speaking voice come from CFM's own engine and not the one used in the Gatebox.
It's also possible Gatebox wanted a better deal and CFM did not want to play ball. Besides, the virtual waifu biz is starting to get quite competitive and maybe Gatebox wanted more flexibility to compete.
I was actually curious about what Akihiko had to say about it, but he was surprisingly reasonable about it.
He basically said "it's very disappointing, but I have big Miku and my plushies".
Everyone else, though, they are broken up.
Isn't there still the Miku Amazon Echo?
He basically said "it's very disappointing, but I have big Miku and my plushies".
Everyone else, though, they are broken up.
Isn't there still the Miku Amazon Echo?
Thanks, that's interesting! Even in that case, they would have needed to license Miku's image from CFM, but still, it's interesting that they made their own.
Hm, around the time the new Piapro got announced, I thought another announcement came out that CFM wasn't going to use Sega to provide the Cryptonloid holgrams anymore. It seemed like a crazy thing for a vocal synth company to take on doing that themselves, too, but it fit if they were trying to bring more of the responsibility/ownership of producing their concerts in-house. I remember seeing a Twitter thread full of surprised/distraught reactions (One of them was like, "Miku and Sega aren't together anymore? My world is ending."), and maybe a post here, too? (I haven't been able to find that post, though.)
Or maybe that was actually related to Project Diva/Sekai somehow? Or maybe I got some bad fish?
That's interesting, too. I knew the Gatebox could be controlled remotely in some ways--for instance, Miku was switched into a cherry blossom outfit when spring started or something at one point. But this seems to indicate that the company that makes the Gatebox can actually go and remove existing users' virtual companions. So it's not just that they're not making new Gateboxes with Miku/Hikari as options; the avatars are centralized with Gatebox HQ and are actually being intentionally removed. Depending on how the tech works, I guess that may/may not indicate a greater sense of urgency to remove them on the part of the Gatebox company.
So one day, I guess Akihiko will wake up and Miku will just be gone. That has to be going to be hard for him.
(Not even to mention how upset the other Gatebox users will be. Gatebox is really being marketed as a virtual girlfriend platform. Wouldn't you think that most people who pick one up have a particular desired companion in mind? Once that avatar is gone, they're left with a...what was it again?...roughly $1400 USD paperweight.)
All I ever saw was some people drawing premature conclusions from the fact that Crypton was developing their R3 model for concert use (and using it for a handful of songs at this years Mirai). Some people thought that it means Crypton and Sega aren't in good terms with each other. To me that sounds silly since Sega and Crypton are putting out two new games next year (Mega39's and Project Sekai).
The main point of R3 in my opinion isn't trying to push Sega out of the live shows. This is just hearsay, but I'm under the impression that Sega models require a decent amount of fine tuning the motion capture data, and that R3 would need much less work, meaning it's easier to introduce new choreographies to live shows. (Again, there's no proper source to back that up, so take ot with a grain of salt). Additionally, the Sega models used in concerts are aging, so I think they want to start slowly upgrading to new models (Sega atm probably can't/doesn't even want to develop a new model since part of their Project Diva department was working on other game series, and they're not currently developing a game with new graphics (Mega39's uses the (Arcade) Future Tone models with toon shading).
But yeah, I'm quite certain there was no announcements of Sega and Crypton parting ways, just overreaction and confusion from some fans.
This is what I thought too. The way Gatebox was marketed as a virtual companion, a decision to get rid of the characters previously offered seems dumb. If their marketing strategy remains the same with their new model, who wants to buy a virtual girlfriend knowing that Gatebox might just some day pull the plug and your virtual girlfriend's gone/replaced by a new character?
Thanks hamano! I think I might have found that post I was talking about here (At least the one from VVN; the one on Twitter is lost where I'll likely never find it again.). But it really doesn't say anything other than that CFM is starting to move from the Sega hologram models to their own R3 model. Regardless, I think we're both actually saying the same thing. Even if CFM moves to the R3 model they developed, there's no reason to think that Sega and CFM aren't on good terms anymore. Like you mentioned, they do have a number of games coming out :) .
Exactly. Unless they have some pressing technological/legal reason for removing Miku/Hikari, it's hard for me to imagine how they could have greenlighted the decision to remove them as a good idea.
The whole thing with gatebox seems kinda scummy to me. It seems silly to invest in such an expensive product when they could pull the plug at any minute and render it useless, especially considering it's supposed to act as a "virtual girlfriend".