Posters are boring! If you are going to capture savvy Tokyo shoppers’ wallets, you must capture their imagination. What better way than to do that through crazy in-store displays. Later this week, Beautiful Katamari will go on sale in Japan. To whip Akihabara shoppers up into a frenzy, Sofmap has a display case with a katamari made from figurines. Besides the ubitiquitus iDOLM@STER toys, there are figurines of girls wearing sailor uniforms and swimsuits. The sign on the display reads something like:
That’s mine…!! A katamari of evil corruption!!
AKA a big ball of nerd heroin! Close up after the jump.
EA Sports is a successful brand. Like it, loathe it, it don’t matter, their games make so much money each year your thoughts are utterly inconsequential. Thing is, FIFA aside they’re a little too…American. Madden, NBA, NCAA, NASCAR…these are great for Americans, and some people outside America, but on this here planet there are 300 million Americans. But over 5 billion people who aren’t. They’re who EA need to be targeting, says Peter Moore. Presumably because by not targeting them they’re missing out on a lot of money: My biggest concern is that it’s a phenomenally powerful brand in North America, but it is very North America-centric. It’s red, white and blue. It’s “in the game” [utters in deep, American-accented baritone] . It’s an American voice. It is for better or worse seen as a United States brand that exports its products to Europe or to Asia or to South America.
Have a hard time picking out what to wear? Own a PSP? Got the PSP Camera? Proficient in Japanese? You’re in luck! Everyone else, you’re screwed! Upcoming PSP title MyStylist has users photograph their entire wardrobe and then organizes and sorts them in a virtual closet by things like type of clothes, brand, season, colour and even price. MyStylist can then make recommendations on what to wear based on that data. There’s even a Calendar function that keeps track of who you met, the occassion, the weather and what you wore. Because wearing the same thing twice in a month is like sooooo embarrassing. MyStylish [Famitsu]
I’ve got no idea exactly what this is. And I won’t check the comments section to hear you tell me (Orange Box isn’t out yet here, you see). But I do know Portal’s Companion Cube is already a big hit with the kids, so much so people tell me Valve will be releasing a plushie. Adorable. In the meantime, though, you can honour your favourite gaming character for this week by printing off this papercraft and either gluing or (if supervised) stapling it together. Portal-obsessed parents of small children may even wish to print off multiple copies, and arrange them in some form of dangly mobile. Six Sides To Every Love Story [Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shotgun]
Gaming makes players into fat, anti-social, cold-blooded killers. Right? Right?! Nope! The BBC has a nice piece called “In Defense of Computer Games,” which aims to clue in John Q. Public about what gaming actually means. Think of it as antidote for questionable dummies like wacky Florida “lawyer.” From the BBC piece:
It’s a common misconception that gaming is a solitary activity, as today an increasing number of titles are for gamers to get together and play in turn. In this respect, it’s no different to golf — a game which can be a source of marital friction but is rarely accused of incitement to murder… Games like Halo are part of such a large sub-culture that people who don’t play them are likely to be seen as oddballs and excluded from many conversations — in much the same way as people who aren’t interested in football or who don’t have a television.
The piece goes on to cite a university professor who says gamers have more friends than non-gamers and mention evidence that games improve eye-hand coordination. Maybe it’s something in the air, but I get the feeling gaming’s days as the scapegoat for society’s ills are numbered. More of this level headed reporting please! In Defense of Computer Games [BBC]
It’s not only Akihabara where the Xbox 360 Elite is selling out, but also Osaka’s Den-Den Town. The console went on sale October 11th for ¥45,524 (US $388). By October 12th, the Elite had sold out in Akihabara; however, it wasn’t until the 14th that the console sold out in Den-Den Town. There were only something like 5,000 of these consoles at launch. Even in a territory where Xbox is hardly popular, that number certainly does not look like enough. Nipponbashi Sell Out [Ota Road Blog]
This is easy. Buy a PSP. Or take your existing PSP, either or. Make sure you’re running the latest firmware update. Get yourself to the nearest T-Mobile hotspot. Flick your little WLAN button to “on”. Jump online via “Use Wireless HotSpot”. And that’s it. You’ve now got six months of free T-Mobile hotspot use. Easy. Harder part is finding somebody to then play against, and neither myself nor T-Mobile can help you with that one. Complimentary T-Mobile HotSpot Wi-Fi service for your PSP® system [PlayStation.Blog]
Looks like the guys in the US have managed to fix whatever problems were causing our feed to malfunction. So far we’ve had to combine manual and automated labour to bring content across, but we’re hoping to revert completely to auto soon.
Thanks to the folks at our HQ in Sydney for their hard work!
The visual design, I’m definitely coming around to. The little tanks are still cute, they’re just not as reliant on primary colours. I can live with that. But that music? Ill-advised! We’re hoping it’s just for the trailer, and is the work of some over-zealous marketing type at NoA, and not the work of Intelligent Systems.
Another Sweet Releases, this time for Sierra’s upcoming catalogue. Nothing massive for October (World in Conflict was pretty much the brand’s showing for this period), but November and December should be packed with FEAR and Timeshift goodness.
FYI, all prices and dates are Australian.
Hit the jump for the list!
