GAME Australia Lays Off 281 Employees, Closes 60 Stores 
How Diablo III's Always-On Internet Requirement Makes It A Better Game GAME: No Buyers Yet, Crisis To Drag On For Another Month 
Have Your Say On Video Game Pricing 
35,000 Telstra Passwords Reset After Games Services Hacked 
Dragon's Dogma: The Kotaku Review Don’t let the silly head gear and the goofy whip fool you. Koji “IGA” Igarashi is a serious man. He’s dedicated his life to Castlevania. Just take a look at his business card! Kotakuite Torokun was in attendance and brings word that folks started lining up at around 2:00PM for a signing last night. The cover for upcoming PSP title Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles was passed at as well for IGA to sign. That after the jump.
Unlike our colonial forebears, Australian gamers have resisted the urge to drop BioShock from the #1 spot and have instead…kept it there. That’s the 360 version, the PC one’s long gone. Also busting into the top 10 is, surprisingly, Two Worlds, making this the first time two 360 games have been in the top 10 since, oh, a very long time ago.
1. BioShock (360) 2. The Sims 2: Bon Voyage 3. SingStar ’90s 4. Mario Party 8 5. Pokémon Diamond 6. New Super Mario Bros 7. Two Worlds 8. Pokémon Pearl 9. Ratatouille (PS2) 10. Boogie
[charts courtesy of GfK]
Testing of a 3D version of Ridge Racer 7 at Namco’s Wonderpark HeroesBase in Kawasaki City. The 3D used in the PS3 racing title was developed by NHK and supposedly does not make one’s eyes tired. Called “Xpol,” two images are processed for each eye by blending the scanning lines on LCD TVs. Since images are made from polygons, they are relatively easy to convert to 3D, since the only changes need to be so that base image displays for each eye. According to Game Watch Impress, frame rates have slipped slightly. Free location test runs until the 14th of this month. Hey, that’s tomorrow!
Videogame companies have plenty of mascots. Plenty of nice logos, too, but there’s one thing they’re short on. Theme songs. And no, “Say…gah..” so does not count. In fact only one company was smart enough, no, brave enough to pay for their own corporate ditty. Infogrames. And it is fantastic. Hit the link below to hear a woman make a release schedule sound a million times more entertaining than it has any right to be. Infogrames Company Anthem < Paris Hilton's Singing [GayGamer]
Former Akihabara idol Shoko Nakagawa has fully transformed into a mainstream celeb. While just a year ago, Shoko-tan was doing Akihabara Ninety-Nine Nights cosplay events for Microsoft, now she’s selling shampoo and appearing in fashion mags. Sure, she still has nerd cred with the otaku horde. Hence, this: an adult video with a costume-playing Shoko Nakagawa look-alike. There’s a screenshot of the film after the jump, which involves a PSP, canned ramen and a 12 inch Powerbook. So kinky!
Look at that calendar there on your (awfully untidy) desk. Know what today is? It’s September 13. Yes, Australia, that means the PSP Slim is now in the retail channel, ready for you to purchase for the recommended retail price of $279.95. Or not. It’s up to you, really. It’s slim, it’s lite, it still runs out of charge too quickly and it’s still a devil to keep clean. On the bright side it plays all the old PSP games, is thinner, lighter and…newer.
Yes, yes. Michael Jackson made his own SEGA game Moonwalker. Yes, yes, we all know. Though Japanese celebs like variety host Tamori and former Morning Musume idol Mari Yaguchi sure seem surprised. Here’s an episode from Hey! Spring of Trivia detailing the Jackson SEGA Genesis game. For those who haven’t seen the show, here’s what’s going on: Five celebs have a buzzer that they hit when an amazing piece of trivia is revealed. The buzzer makes a “hey” noise, which is the sound in Japanese people make when they are surprised to hear something. The max number of buzzer hits (or heys) per person is 20. These are then combined for a total score that can max out at 100. This bit of info got 78 “heys”.
The interesting part isn’t that Japanese celebs didn’t know this (even if the game was released in Japan!), but when the host (Norito Yashima) says the show connected The Gloved One’s people about using the clip to which they asked how much would be paid for TV usage. Hey! Spring of Trivia replied it would pay up to $US5,000 for usage. Two weeks passed with no reply. A staffer sent Jacko’s camp an email saying they weren’t paying and wouldn’t use the game footage. A reply from The King of Pop’s team was sent soon after giving them the ok! Jackson Game [Japan Probe]
See that? It says “Welcome to the world of Xbox 360″ and asks me to select my language. About thirty minutes ago, I plugged in my “fixed” Xbox 360. Back in August, my Japan launch 360 Red Ringed. Twenty-two days passed, and I received my “fixed” Xbox 360 via airmail. That was on September 11th. As I had to go to Tokyo yesterday, I took it out the box and put it under my TV. Today was the first time I could plug in the machine, and when I did, my new black wireless controller didn’t sync with the console. Neither did my old controller.
Back at Leipzig, SCEE announced that to coincide with the PSP Slim’s launch in Europe it’d be releasing two limited edition variants of the handheld. One, a Simpsons PSP, would be yellow and come bundled with the new Simpsons PSP game. The other, a Spider-Man bundle, would include Spider-Man 2 (the PSP game) and Spider-Man 3 (on Blu-Ray). Anyways, at launch there were no pictures of either model. Here, then, are the first pictures of both.
Another week of Japanese software sales, Another Century’s Episode 3 takes the top spot. Only a handful of new entries this week as the Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Kidou Gekidan Haro Ichiza Gundam Mahjong + Z— proving Gundam + Nintendo DS + mahjong = profit—debut in the top ten.
Expect next week to be rather huge, however, as a pair Pokemon Fushigi no Dungeon titles for the DS and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII for PSP should have strong showings. Here are the top ten for the week of September 3rd to the 9th. The rest, after the break.
01. Another Century’s Episode 3 THE FINAL (PS2) – 186,000 / NEW 02. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (DS) – 36,000 / 292,000 03. Mario Party 8 (Wii) – 28,000 / 732,000 04. Sengoku Musou 2: Moushouden (PS2) – 25,000 / 260,000 05. Bladestorm: The Hundred Years’ War (PS3) – 17,000 / 76,000 06. Kidou Gekidan Haro Ichiza Gundam Mahjong + Z: Sara ni Deki Ruyouni Nattana! (DS) – 17,000 / NEW 07. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PS2) – 16,000 / NEW 08. My Housekeeping Diary (DS) – 15,000 / 181,000 09. Wii Play (Wii) – 14,000 / 1,689,000 10. Wii Sports (Wii) – 13,000 / 2,083,000
