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Games Entertainment

The Week in Gaming in Japan 26

Posted by Zonk from the native-land-of-bits-and-pixels dept.
Next Generation has a piece up today examining recent events on the gaming scene in Japan. From the article: "Ninety-Nine Nights - April 1 Arrival. This week's short interview of Mr. Maruyama reveals -- in addition to his outright declaration that Blue Dragon will sell a million -- that 'The launch period will last through until March.' Why's that? What happens in March? I check my schedule: well, Final Fantasy XI (pre-loaded onto every [Japanese] Xbox 360 sold at launch) snaps out of its beta phase? Ninety-Nine Nights releases on April 1st, and let's hope the joke is that the little witch girl's face isn't as creepy in the actual game as it's been in every piece of press. If they're banking on Japanese guys wasting more than half their disposable income on plastic figurines of that witch girl, they've got some rethinking to do." Relatedly, Forbes is running an article positing that the 360 has its work cut out for it on the Japanese market.
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The Week in Gaming in Japan

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  • Please translate this in english:
    ...and let's hope the joke is that the little witch girl's face isn't as creepy in the actual game as it's been in every piece of press
    • Here, I'll try (contractions removed for ease of understanding)

      "And let us hope the joke is that the little witch girl's face is not as creepy in the actual game as it has been in every piece of press."
      • what little witch girl ? and why is her face a creepy joke ? is creepy because it has been in a press ? why ?
        • It's her face itself that is creepy. Come on, just look at it [teamxbox.com]!
          • This is Japan we're talking about. That kid is right up their alley.

            I'd say the fact that it creeps westerners out shows that they did their market research. If you don't think Japanese soft-core tastes are creepy, take a look at the free pencil box art that shipped with the "R.O.D the TV" DVD's sometime. Particularilly the pin-up of Hisa.

            Yeesh. I now need to somehow scrub my brain out after remembering the sight of it. Hello, beer!
            • No kidding. It looks like every single computer-animated anime face I've ever seen before in my life... sure it's creepy, but so are all the others.

              (From what I've heard, Japanese men frequently take upskirt pictures of their favorite video game women and post them on upskirt porn sites as if they were real women. Source: http://www.heroine-sheik.com/2005/11/30/kasumi-ups kirt/ [heroine-sheik.com] If they're doing that, I don't think a little creepiness is going to deter them.)
          • It's not creepy at all. I was expecting something more doom3-like.
  • Japanese buyers don't like a console not made in Japan.

    Also, what's up with this? (from TFA):
    "'Unless we achieve meaningful success here, we cannot say we are a winner in the next-generation console battle,' Maruyama told a news conference."

    Only A winner? Aiming kind of low, aren't we? Shouldn't you want to be THE winner?
    • So maybe what they are really trying is to make it so difficult to program for the consoles that many companies just won't be able to develop and will drop out of the market. The ones that remain will only be able to develop for one console. Thus it is easier for one company to grab the majority of developers. A risky move, but seemingly in line with Microsoft's previous business practices. /puts on tin foil hat

      • Re:Newsflash! (Score:3, Informative)

        by RoadDoggFL ( 876257 )
        Umm, what? I didn't RTFA but you just described Sony's console strategy, MS had tried to make game development as easy as possible.

  • X360 in stock! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ajservo ( 708572 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @01:40PM (#14204017)
    Apparently the Lawson's (like 7-11) outside my friends apt will have this for sale on Saturday. There have been no preorder takers so far.

    He lives 2 hours north of Tokyo in a city with about a half million.
    • And why would I go to a Lawson and deal with their horrible markup, when I can go to... oh... a VIDEO GAME STORE and buy it there cheaper?

      The Video Game stores (not convenience marts) where I am have a large number of pre-orders.

  • no subject (Score:4, Funny)

    by 77Punker ( 673758 ) <(spencr04) (at) (highpoint.edu)> on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @03:15PM (#14204733)
    <quote>If they're banking on Japanese guys wasting more than half their disposable income on plastic figurines of that witch girl, they've got some rethinking to do.</quote>

    With ideas like that, sounds like they've been smoking too much Maruyama!
  • As I was talking to one of my friends today about Microsoft's japanese strategy we pretty much decided the whole thing is a joke. I don't see how having FFXI and Sakaguchi making games for your system gives you a sure-fire sale in Japan. They must think the Japanese gamers are dumber than American gamers.

    Let's not forget how small the backwards compatibility list is for the system right now. I think there's no more than 20 titles on there. Oh wait, the first XBox barely sold 10k systems in Japan (i thin

  • View On The Ground (Score:3, Interesting)

    by patio11 ( 857072 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @09:21PM (#14207114)
    I live in Japan and had a business trip last week which required about 6 hours of trainrides, so I went to a local game chain to pick up a new DS game for the ride (ended up getting Naruto RPG 2 -- good game, by the way, if you're a fan of the manga/anime and like a fairly conventional console RPG its well worth your $30 if it comes out in the US). While I was there, I asked the manager when the new Microsoft console was coming out. He said, and I quote, "There is a new Microsoft console coming out?!", then one of the clerks said "Yes sir, XBox something or other." They then checked the big book of incoming inventory (its a chain store), and found out that they would get a shipment of two of them sometime in January or so, which were classified as "XBox Accessories". This is the newest, largest video game store in the second largest city in my prefecture.

    I'm not optimistic for this console rocking Japan's world.

    • I'm a foreign student with nine days left of my overseas stay in Japan, and I can tell you things aren't much different up here in Sapporo.

      Up until about a month ago, none of the major game stores had any advertisements or information about the Xbox 360. Even now, only a few days before the console's release here, the Dreamcast, Super Famicom, Famicom and even the original Gameboy each have a display bigger than what the Xbox 360 has. Single DS and PS2 games get more space and advertisments.

      Quite simply, th

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