Viewing items with Tag: "gaming"

Flicking through Kotaku I found this cool image of the Street Fighter crew and others chowing down in an Udon store run by none other than Edmund Honda. Class. I love street fighter, I love anime, and I have come to love udon, so 3 out of 3!

The image is from a soon to be published 300+ page book featuring loads of Capcom characters, by publisher Udon Entertainment. This teaser image and the name of the artists gives me the impression that they will all be eating udon, but I could be wrong... anyway, looks pretty cool to me.

Many of you, gamers and 733+ hackerz especially, will be familiar with the term "all your base are belong us", but how many of you know where it actually comes from? Turns out its a Japanese Engrish blunder that the geek hordes quickly made famous. It was originally used in a badly translated Sega Genesis (thats Master System, right? Sorry, my early console history is a little sucky. All I had was an Amstrad, then straight to a 386 PC) game called Zero Wing, check it out on the video.



Do you know any other classic geek terms and phrases that came from Japanese?

Here is a pretty interesting article on living and working in Japan. The article is specifically talking about the gaming industry, however a lot of the points made can easily be related to the Japanese working system in general.



Page 1 details some general facts about the Japanese working system, and some of the ways a Westerner might find him or herself in Japan, with page 2 detailing some of the differences between the working ethics.

I particularly like this part about working hours, and how Japanese workers are not necessarily 'working long hours', more that they are just hanging around because its not generally accepted to leave the office before your direct supervisor. I saw a LOT of this over the last 4 years, even in the school systems, and it always got to me. Foreigners are generally expected to fit in with these working hours too, but its something I decided early on not to become a part of, regardless of the consequences. The trick is to do it over time gradually, and make sure you get your work done on time. Then there 'should' be no problem. One of the authors of this article agrees with me

according to proper Japanese etiquette, nobody leaves until the boss and no individual leaves before his or her immediate supervisor. Regardless of whether a single individual has any work left to do. This is compounded by “slacking” during the day according to Tavares. “Japanese don’t ‘work’ long hours,” he said. “They just stay at work for long hours...

The article gets a bit more game focused on pages 3 and 4, but has some good general points on page 5 with a great summary of the UK, US and JAPAN working environments:

“The UK is a pub culture - people like to doss and arse about a lot, but they are very good and very skilled at their jobs - when they do them.”

“The US is a corporate culture, everyone is a cog in the machine, even in a smaller company, so there is far less responsibility towards the company and its finances and people assume that they should have the best wage, best equipment, best software, best everything, even if they don't use them. That said, they have great responsibility to the work itself and there are some extremely clever and diligent people there. Corporate politics, gossip and rivalries can get a bit too much.”

“The Japanese games development culture is still slightly "salaryman", everyone kind of avoids responsibility by remaining quiet but they persevere by themselves until they get the product done. Unfortunately, this lack of sharing is hurting the technical development of the games industry here in Japan. The Japanese never give up until all the details are in place and they try and leave nothing haphazard or rough-edged, or oozappa (in Japanese).”

Japan's biggest wireless operator, on Monday unveiled a new mobile phone equipped with a motion sensor that lets users play games like the popular Nintendo Wii console.

With DoCoMo's D904i, made by Mitsubishi Electric Corp, users can swing the handset like a tennis racket or wield it like sword to control game play, instead of punching on the keypad.

I fail to see how this will work since you have to be looking at the tiny screen in order to play these games, and 'swinging like a tennis racket' with both my head and hand is not something I want to be doing on the train...



I had a look at the Specification on the DoCoMo Japanese site, and it does look pretty cool though, although 'not quite' Wii-like just yet. But it appears to have other features, like turning the phone on its side and the display will also switch to a widescreen display automatically.

It also shows off some of the motion sensing game capabilities here. Mitsubishi are also introducing a couple of other phones which have games that take advantage of the built-in camera, I guess much like the PS2 eye-toy.

The phones were just announced, and are set to be on sale in May 2007, just a couple of weeks away. I also love this final quote from Yahoo News, absolute quality:

Earlier this year, DoCoMo, which caters to 54 percent of Japan's mobile phone users, introduced a phone that features a touch-sensitive screen and a model that gives off a relaxing scent.

Does your neck hurt from too much gaming? Are you tired of those useless things called muscles getting in the way of your time spent pressing buttons? Do you miss the contact with other human beings you used to know before this hardcore gaming lifestyle took you by the balls (and/ or/ (and) breasts)?

Well, look no further, as "Game Dutch", from Japanese company Lofty is here to help. This "chest pillow" is designed to allow you the comfort of sleep while still being plugged in to your own virtual world. And it solves the problem of human contact by giving you something to hug whenever the occasional pangs of lonliness manage to creep through the constant battling of otherworldly creatures. Now thats what I call a chest pillow. If they could only make one that gives hea.... uh... back massages.



read full article here
http://www.tokyomango.com/tokyo_mango/2007/01/game_dutch_for_.html .

Elementary school teachers in Japan are well aware of the two-fingered poke up the ass that is kancho. Korean video game makers created an arcade game for Japan where you choose an unsuspecting victim and go searching for a poke, Boon-Ga Boon-Ga.




"This is a fun game of spanking people that make your life miserable." Your choice of characters includes: ex-boyfriend/girlfriend, child molester, prostitute, mother-in-law, gangster, etc. At the end, instead of a score "a card will come out, it will explain your sexual behavior."

Today sees one of the most monumental releases in Japan (if not the world) this year... the Playstation 3. As has come to be expected of Sony, gaming product launches mean long lines at retailers all over. The PS3 launch is no different.

From the early hours of the morning, happy campers sit out in the pouring rain, in the hope of getting their hands on one of the new machines, which are fated to be of short supply. The PS3 itself comes in two models, the cheaper of which being $500! However, price is no object it seems.

Hundreds upon hundreds lined up for a console, and if Sony's launch history is anything to go by, a hell of a lot of people will have gone home empty handed. Images from Kotaku



Followup: The darker side of the launch
Kotaku reader Dirk Benedict emailed the website with a disturbing report detailing the dark side of the PS3 launch, and how the people lining up to purchase the console weren't going to be rushing home to play on their new systems, but would instead be paid for their services of "waiting in line" and pass on the goods to their respective 'boss'. Read the full email at Kotaku

Based on my observations of the first twenty PS3s sold at Bic Camera, they were all purchased by Chinese nationals, none of whom bought any software. After making their purchase, television crews asked for interviews but all were declined. These temporary owners of PS3s would then make their way down the street where their bosses waited. After several minutes, a dozen PS3s were rounded up, as their Japanese business manager paid out cash to those who waited in line for them. I witnessed a homeless-looking Chinese man, in his sixties or seventies get paid 20,000 yen for his services and was then sent away.