And that’s about all we know at this stage, other than a title, No More Heroes: Heroes Paradise.

But we can’t say that No More Heroes making the high-definition transition from the Wii to the PS3/360 is much of a surprise. Grasshopper lead Goichi Suda has previously expressed his interest in bringing Travis Touchdown and crew to other consoles.

And, considering Suda’s interest in Project Natal — and presumably Sony’s PS3 motion controller — the No More Heroes franchise seems like a no-brainer kind of port.

Or maybe Suda and crew were motivated by No More Heroes’ Japanese publisher Marvelous Entertainment, which has expressed its disappointment with sales, hinting at the possibility of up-res ports of its moderately selling Wii games.

The latest issue of Famitsu confirms the car-wrecking bonus stages in Super Street Fighter IV. There’s also a barrel bonus stage, too.

Other details about the game include info about online play:

• Team Battle is from 2-on-2 up to 4-on-4.
• Replay Channel allows players to watch match, well, replays.
• Endless Battle allows up to eight players to compete in a knock-out tournament.

There are plans to include a “Tournament Mode” as an additional download.

BAYONETTA Witch of Vigrid features high quality pix of Bayonetta in action taken with a high quality camera. Priced at ¥2,100 ($25), the book is slated for October 22 in Japan.

Witch of Vigirid is published by Enterbrain, which also publishes Famitsu. This week, Famitsu awarded the game a perfect 40/40 score for the Xbox 360 version.

絶頂感がブッ続く「ベヨネッタ」の写真集 [アキバBlog]

See, those “perfect” Famitsu scores are generally granted very infrequently, though the rarity of that particular accolade is waning. Bayonetta was noteworthy for being the first multi-platform game to be awarded that score. It would also set a record for the number of 40 out of 40 scores awarded in one year, assuming that Final Fantasy XIII will, out of courtesy, achieve the same.

But it’s also the first time a game has been awarded a 40 and a 38, according to what appear to be shots of Famitsu’s review section.

How so? Well, that quartet of 10s awarded by the Famitsu editorial staff is only for the Xbox 360 version. The PlayStation 3 port handled by SEGA, clearly lagging behind its more perfect sibling, was granted a 38 out of 40 from Famitsu. That’s obviously still quite good, if you put any weight into Famitsu scores. And it’s sure to lead to some squabbling from the console camps people have aligned themselves with.

Don’t worry about it too much. Just call it another reason to get the Xbox 360 version, if you have the means.

Today, only eleven, well, now twelve games have been awarded the perfect score. The latest is multi-platform title Bayonetta. Multi-platform Bayonetta is the first game to appear on the Xbox 360 to receive this score.

To review, here are the previous 40/40 games:

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
2. Soulcalibur (1999)
3. Vagrant Story (2000)
4. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2003)
5. Nintendogs (2005)
6. Final Fantasy (2006)
7. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008)
8. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008)
9. 428 (2008)
10. Dragon Quest IX (2009)
11. Monster Hunter Tri (2009)

So no games in 2001, 2002, 2004 or 2007 got a 40/40, but three games in 2008 and three games in 2009 have? Either Famitsu thinks games are getting better or is giving out more perfect scores. Discuss!

And for those who care, Final Fantasy X was released in 2001, Resident Evil was released in 2002, Dragon Quest VIII and Gran Turismo 4 were released in 2004, and so on and so forth.

Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth will colourise and modernise the 20-year-old outing of Christopher Belmont in his quest to kill Dracula for Konami’s third downloadable retro “ReBirth” effort. According to NeoGAF poster Duckroll, details from Famitsu indicate “new enemies, new traps, and other improvements in each stage” will be added to Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth, along with rearranged music.

Hopefully, North American and European Wii owners will get access to the WiiWare title as soon as our Japanese counterparts. Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth is priced at 1000 Wii Points.

Hardware sales are down 15.1 percent, and game software sales are down 7.5%.

The hardware sales for the period were:

Nintendo DS (DS Lite, DSi, etc)
First Half Fiscal 2009: 1,698,818 units
Life-to-date: 27,851,784 units

PSP
First Half Fiscal 2009: 813,604 units
Life-to-date: 12,618,193 units

Wii
First Half Fiscal 2009: 594,398 units
Life-to-date: 8,547,552 units

PlayStation 3
First Half Fiscal 2009: 581,676 units
Life-to-date: 3,591,071 units

Xbox 360
First Half Fiscal 2009: 137,059 units
Life-to-date: 1,138,250 units

The top five selling games were Dragon Quest IX (3.92 million copies), Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver (2.06 million), Wii Sports Resort (1.19 million), Tomodachi Collection (1.15 million) and Monster Hunter 3 (908,693 copies).

This data is from the period beginning March 31, 2009 and ending September 28, 2009.

2009年度上半期のゲーム市場規模は前年度同期比10.5パーセント減 [ファミ通.com]

The survey polled 800 Americans on things like video games and anime and manga.

Website Umaguruma.com translated the published article—hat tip for that!

Favorite Game
10. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
7. Persona 4
7. Shadow of the Colossus
7. The Legend of Zelda
5. Final Fantasy IX
5. Final Fantasy
4. Chrono Trigger
3. Metal Gear Solid
2. Kingdom Hearts
1. Final Fantasy VII

Comments
“Chrono Trigger is an RPG that stands the test of time; I thoroughly enjoy playing it, even now!”—Nick Colucci, 27
“Disgaea is a weird and wild game that I really enjoyed playing. The replay value is so great with all the multiple endings and insane levels your characters can reach.”—Anonymous
“Xenogears was the first JRPG I ever played. I love it so much I even got a gear tatoo on my shoulder.”—Adam Dunphy, 26

Favorite Game Creator or Company
10. Goichi Suda
9. SEGA
8. Tetsuya Nomura
7. Shigeru Miyamoto
6. KONAMI
5. Hideo Kojima
4. Atlus
3. Capcom
2. Nintendo
1. Square Enix

Comments
“I got ‘SNK’ and ‘Team Ninja’ tatoos on my body.”—B.N., 24
“Tomohiro Nishikado, the man who made Space Invaders.”—Anonymous, 24
“Katamari Damacy, made Keita Takahashi, is always my first choice when I want to play something really fun.”—Zac Bentz, 32

Below are replies to the question “What would you like to see sold in the US?”

“Why… why won’t Nintendo release Mother 3 in America?!”—Ivan Yang, 16
“I want to play Ryu Ga Gotoku 3.”—Joshua Miller, 30
“Release Siren 2 in America!”—Zac Bentz, 32
“Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon for the Wii has great atmosphere and music.”—Clay Leatherwood, 24

Manga and anime data in the link below.

The Great American Otaku Survey [馬車]

Look, that’s what Enterbrain prez Hirokazu Hamamura said at today’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, according to Bloomberg Japan. And it doesn’t seem unreasonable, considering the PlayStation 3 just sold 150,000-plus units on the strength of a price drop and the release of yet another Gundam game.

Otaku USA’s otaku-in-chief Patrick Macias stated at the time, “We want all foreign otaku to rise forth and fill out our ‘Foreign Otaku’ survey below. The results will be published this summer in an issue of Weekly Famitsu, and (because we’re big-hearted and foolish) we’ll follow up on the Otaku USA website with appropriate post-game analysis.”

The idea was to help provide an insight into non-Japanese otaku.

Well…….. Said article is hitting this week’s Famitsu. If you answered the survey, that’s your raw data! Now in Japanese! In Famitsu!

Will be interesting to see if there is a difference between Japanese and non-Japanese otaku.

OTAKU USA x FAMITSU: “Otaku World Culture” explosion [An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla]