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Shin-chan Explains Proper Poop Etiquette
Posted by Brian Ashcraft at 11:40 PM on May 23, 2008
To: Crecente
From: Ashcraft
RE: Is it Travels or Travails?
Yep! Here it is, truly amazing toilet paper. I found this Crayon Shin-chan toilet paper at the local supermarket. I just did a quick Google of Shin-chan, and I guess there's an English version? Here's the opening credits for the Japanese version with Akihabara girl troop AKB48. Anyway, the kid and the wife both love Shin-chan, so yeah. All the rolls of toilet paper (well, most of them) seem like they have different drawings. The one above has step-by-step instructions on how to take a dump. It starts with "Pull down you pants" and ends with "Wash your hands." Above is the pooping part. "Butt wiping" is after the jump. No, really.
What you missed last night
Nintendo says "No thank you" to GC
MGS4 box says 4.6GB installation
MGS4 has 90 minute cutscenes
Wii not setting Korea on fire
RE5 to have cover system, 2player co-op
More PS3 BioShock details
Contest time! We are giving away TK. Sooooooooooooooo... Here's the contest: Make a Dragon Ball. The best damn Dragon Ball you can! It cannot be drawn or virtual — it must be an actual three dimension Dragon Balls. Now! If you don't know what Dragon Balls look like, you can click 
Namco Bandai has released new SCIV screens that depict new characters like Death-Star-under-construction dress wearin' and a battle axe carryin' Ashlotte along with sword swingin', thong donnin' Shura. There's more! The screens also confirm Setsuka from Soul Calibur III.
Yes, it's another videogame franchise licensed out to adorn a pachislot machine. You've seen them before. 
We just got a press release from Nintendo of Europe, announcing that Nintendo will not be attending the Games Convention in Leipzig later this year. Seems that recent events like local shows and roadshows (for both the public and media) have "led to many positive experiences", so after E3 they'll be sticking to more of those, and ditching their presence at Europe's largest gaming expo. Strange move, what with Leipzig attracting around 185,000 people last year and all, but whatever. While they stress the decision isn't a criticism of Leipzig, it's important to note that at the conclusion of the presser, Nintendo Germany's Dr. Bernd Fakesch iterates that this decision applies only to GC 2008, the last year it'll be held in Leipzig. As for next year's bigger, better, badder Games Con in Köln, they say they'll "evaluate" the decision next year. Right. Poor Leipzig. What'd it ever do to you, Nintendo?
Kids aren't as interested in sports and it's hard to get them involved, says International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge. Young people like other things! Video games, for instance. Says Rogge: 
Europe, Australia, let us see what's new in the PlayStation Store for today. Two demos is a nice improvement, even if one of them is Iron Man, while the rest of the update seems content to dump on you a ton of video content from the recent PlayStation Day event held in London. There's also some PSP demos (Everybody's Golf 2) and an Indiana Jones movie trailer.
Yes, Metal Gear Solid 4 is apparently joining the pre-installation club! The game will be added to the growing list of games (like GT5 Prologue, We Love Golf, Devil May Cry 4, Haze, GTA IV, etc) that require PS3 hard drive installation. According to the display copy MGS4 boxart, the game needs a 4.6 GB installation. So all you other installation games, be sure to give MGS4 a warm welcome!
As Metal Gear Solid 4's release date draws near, more and more info about the game's expected to spill out. Some of it from people who have played through the thing already. People who sat through a lotta cutscenes. Some of them up to 90-minutes long. Nintety. Minutes. Sure, you can pause them, and skip them, but ninety minutes? Bring popcorn.
Capcom is going Hollywood crazy! The Osaka-based publisher is casting a keen eye on the movie business, hoping to get more of its IPs into moving pictures. According to Capcom president Haruhiro Tsujimoto:
I'm not really sure how they do things in the US, but down here, standard mobile phone contracts last for two years. Once that time's up, 99.8% of people go and get a new phone. Simple plan, everybody wins. OH. Except for anyone with a Nokia phone who actually buys games over their new N-Gage platform. See, the games are locked to the handset you purchase them on. If you break your handset, you'll get them reissued, but if you upgrade to a new phone, you lose your games. Nokia's explanation? 
The last few days have been good sport for anyone who enjoys watching the internet conjure rumours out of sheer fantasy. Take the one concerning Diablo 3, for example. The teaser for next month's PC Gamer contained the line "so huge we had to go to [CENSORED] to get it," and from that nondescript sliver, we somehow got a ton of people convinced Diablo 3 is coming. And hey, it might be, sometime in the future, but not now, with PC Gamer telling Shacknews "we're officially squelching the Diablo rumour. We've got two big announcements coming in our August issue, but neither is from Blizzard". Case closed. Return to your Diablo fan forums and remain there until further notice.
America? America loves the Nintendo Wii. Europe? Ditto. And Japan? Man, Japan is bonkers for the Wii. What about Korea? The country finally has an official Nintendo of Korea branch after years of going through shady third party distributors. According to Korean site GameShot.net, the Wii's first month performance there is only 35,000 units sold out of the 50,000 units released by Nintendo. For game software, Wii Sports sold 30,000 copies, while Swing Golf Pangya and Zack & Wiki each sold about 8,000 copies. FIFA sold 2,000 copies. It seems Korean gamers have better things to do than play Wii Sports — things like waiting for StarCraft II. 
Off the back of 
Want to know how to transform a mundane press release about a new hire into a blazing document of fun and excitement? Just make sure the hiree has had something to do with making sweets and treats! This is exactly what Activision has done, though somehow, I don't think it was entirely intentional... if at all.
Atari's recent woes are common knowledge, and out of sympathy, don't bear repeating. Suffice to say, they're in their current pickle thanks to a trail of shitty releases over the past five years or so. So with new Infogrames man Phil Harrison looking to clean up shop, some stock has to be taken, and some changes made. One is an abandonment of big-budget, single-player games.
THQ's musical Wii title Battle of the Bands hit Australian shelves yesterday. The publisher has decided that, in order to celebrate the release, it has to give stuff away. I don't know about you, but this is completely cool by me.
Marijauana, a gateway drug? What is this, the mid-90s? No. Today, kids have far more discerning tastes, and will first experiment with a PlayStation Portable before, after a few parties with their new, "cool" friends (who their parents most definitely do not approve of), stepping up to a full-blown addiction on the heavier shit, like a PlayStation 3. Least, that's what SCEA's John Koller thinks, as speaking at the (*breath*) Wedbush Morgan Securities Management Access Conference in NYC, he says loads of people have picked up the PSP as their "first" console, which has later convinced them to upgrade to a $US 400-a-year PS3 & Blu-Ray habit. Be warned, parents: if you see your child playing around on a PSP, and do nothing, don't complain to us when you wake up one morning and your DVD player's missing, your wallet's short $US 50 and your son has passed out on the couch in front of the Blu-Ray version of Planet Earth.
A series first. According to a now pulled GamesRadar article, Resident Evil 5 will feature a cooperative player available throughout the campaign which lets players drop in and out of co-op play. The new cover system mechanics will let players "lock to a wall and fire around the corner." When not in co-op model, the other character will be AI controlled. What's more, the game will feature a dodging movement controlled by the right analogue stick, and the game will take place in more open areas than previous RE titles.
Every year, BusinessWeek put together their InfoTech 100, a ranking of the year's 100 best-performing technology companies. Seeing as 99% of you couldn't give a rat's arse about technology stocks, yes, I'm posting this for the game-related content. Three gaming companies made the cut, with Nintendo managing a very respectable fourth-spot finish, behind only Amazon, Apple and Research In Motion (the Blackberry guys). The other gaming companies were Activision, who came 42nd, and Nvidia (yes, I'm counting them as primarily games-based), who came in at #59.
Yes, yes. We've 
More, if pics from the game's official site are anything to go on. And hey, I'm going to say "yes", yes they're something to go on. They show a couple of guitars leaning on an amp, guitars that have more than just the traditional five neck buttons. To my tired old eyes it looks like another five farther down the neck, which will no doubt increase the complexity of some solos, while also increasing the number of "oh, Rock Band did that already" comments at the same time.
Could be. Then again, even the most official system specs are liable to have their goalposts moved a little this far out from release, so consider these unconfirmed ones more of a rough guide than a definite listing of all the new hardware you may or may not need later this year.
The future! According to insiders, Capcom is forecasting 2.3 million global sales for Resident Evil 5 this year. Keep in mind, Devil May Cry 4 has moved around 2.3 units — 
Could be. Speaking at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, Jeff Braun, co-founder of Maxis, announced that he's working with Oddworld Inhabitants on a new Oddworld title. Thing is, Oddworld Inhabitants cut out internal game development years ago, and CordWeekly, the university's paper reporting on his talk, didn't provide any further details on the specifics of the announcement. Are EA (or somebody else) taking over development of the series (they only published Stranger's Wrath)? Is this meant to tie-in with Oddworld's movie project, Citizen Siege? Who knows. And until we know more, Oddworld fans might want to keep their kickers untwisted.
Variety's The Cut Scene reports that Hollywood based publisher Brash Entertainment, which in its own words is "laser focused on high quality theatrical based" video games for every platform, has lost its president. Founder Nicholas Longano is said to have exited the company after just a year in business. As The Cut Scene points out, its two completed projects—Alvin & the Chipmunks and Jumper—were critically slammed, each averaging a dreadful 30 on Metacritic.
Video gaming has roots in ye olde pen and paper and tabletop games. Dungeons & Dragons. Cyberpunk. Warhammer. Bubble Bobble.
Yep, that's a screen shot from Madden NFL 09 one that goes a long way toward explaining what John Riccitiello meant when he touted the game's "
Hardware sales in Japan were down for the week of May 12 to 18, but there was no change in the ranking, one that's been fairly consistent since the 
The Entertainment Consumers Association will now support chapter organisations created by its members, it announced today. The ECA hopes to create new networks by which consumers within the same area can connect with one another, participate in ECA-sponsored LAN parties, fundraisers and other events.
Did you hear? 
Atari founder and industry forbear Nolan Bushnell discussed his "five-year ADD" during Wedbush Morgan's 6th annual management access conference, where he described his latest passions and shared thoughts on the industry's future. "Every five years, I've got to do something a little different," he said.
Capcom of Japan released the above photo today from the in-production Street Fighter movie, giving us what appears to be our first, heavily artifacted glimpse of Kristin Kreuk as Chun-Li in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. It's not the traditional blue outfit we're used to seeing Chun-Li sporting, but she has to put that thing in the wash sometime. Of course, Capcom may simply have a cache of photos of Kreuk looking dirty and dishevelled for times like this, so consider this unconfirmed until we get confirmation from Capcom.
