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Feel free to mail me all of your extras. I'll give them a good home.Funny you should say that, I've been giving them away recently to anyone who wants them.
I smell NWR's next set of prizes...Hey you never know!
I wasn't much of a collector before I came to live in Japan, other than videogames and the occasional magazine. Figures, toys and the like never interested me at all, as all they did was clog up precious shelf space and collect dust as they have no use other than to look cool.
I started noticing that these "toy egg" vending machines were everywhere in Japan, not only in arcades and videogame stores, but even supermarkets and shopping malls.
More often than not they were tiny figures or toys from various animes, that most people outside of Japan have probably never even heard of. However' one out of every twenty or so I'd spot a rare Nintendo-related treat.
The beauty of them is that they aren't cheap-looking knock-offs; they are Nintendo approved, and therefore look exactly like they should (most of the time).
It started off innocently enough: a Super Mushroom-shaped key-ring for my house keys. A valid purchase, but one that quickly led to the desire to have another for my bike key, my spare key and anything else I could think of.
So next came the Golden Mushroom, Mega Mushroom, Bullet Bill and the banana skin, and before I knew it I'd gotten the whole set. I guess I was pretty lucky that I'd got a different one every time I dropped my money in and turned the dial to get my fresh egg of goodness.
It's not always like that however, as I quickly learned with my next obsession: magnets.
First it was an awesome-looking superstar to hold a couple of photos on my fridge, but this again soon led into wanting the whole set; however, this time I wasn't so lucky with my prizes. Now every time I go to get some milk, I'm faced with six angry-looking Bullet Bills to remind me of my failure.
But I didn't stop there. After that it was Mario Kart miniatures to celebrate the release of Mario Kart Wii. In my attempt to get a full set I ended up with two Marios and three Bowsers.
Then something hit me, like a rebounding power ball to the face. The other day I bought a mini-replica of a Nintendo DS complete with a tiny DS cart. I just paid 200 yen ($2) for a thumb-sized version of a console I already own, but actually does nothing at all...what the hell am I doing here?!
Heck, I even considered dropping however much it took to get the complete collection of miniature games to slot into my tiny handheld pretend system.
I'm a freaking gachapon addict! Now I'm not sure if I should reduce my gatchpon habit to one a month, or just go cold turkey and stop looking at gachapon machines altogether.
Then again, I did see an awesome-looking mobile phone screen wiping cloth in the shape of a Goomba the other day...
The competition is open to anyone registering their copy of Wii Sports Resort from June 25 to August 1.
This comes hot on the heels of Nintendo announcing the first http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=18761 ">colored variant of the Wii console in Japan.
Could this mean we will see more colored Wii Remotes and Wii consoles appearing in the future, as was shown when the Wii was first announced at http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=10572 ">E3 2005?
Members of Club Nintendo Japan can register their copies of Wii Sports Resort at the official page.
Contra is a run-and-gun shooting arcade game in which players control a commando fighting waves of enemies. The 1987 original was first ported to the NES and made famous by its simultaneous co-operative play. The last sequel in the main series to appear on a Nintendo console was Contra III: The Alien Wars on the SNES in 1992.
Contra: Rebirth will feature updated 2D visuals, and retain the classic co-operative gameplay that made the original famous.
Contra : Rebirth will cost 1000 Nintendo Points and will be available via the Japanese Wii Shop Channel on May 12.
Currently there is no word on release outside of Japan.
Despite this strong debut, Monster Hunter G is actually just a taste of what's to come for Wii gamers. Capcom has the latest fully-fledged entry in the series, Monster Hunter Tri, set for a summer launch.
Monster Hunter G is available in Japan as a stand-alone game or as a package with a special MH-themed classic controller. The bundling of the classic controller may well be a way to entice previous players of the franchise, who experienced the games on the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable, onto Nintendo's radical new platform.
However, the Wii title wasnt the only Monster Hunter game to reach the top 10. The consistent best-seller Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G on the PSP was in the charts again at No.5. The PSP titles are by far the biggest sellers on Sonys portable system, helping sell hardware every week - and this week was no exception.
The PSP outsold the Nintendo DSi by a few thousand units as it has done for several weeks now, but what is more surprising is that the PlayStation 3 has also been outselling the Wii for many weeks as well.
Whether the release of Monster Hunter games on the Wii will affect hardware sales the same way it has for the PSP remains to be seen. So far it doesn't seem to have had much effect, as Wii sales remained anemic at just over 18,000 units according to Media Create.
The game uses a real-time battle and exploration system. For example, players can use magic to affect the environment, solve puzzles, and kill enemies while walking around the overworld.
During battles, players must cast spells, lay traps, and avoid danger by using the Wii Remote pointer. Managing all the characters' actions at the same time seems to be very streamlined and simple to perform with a system of simple points and clicks.
There will apparently be 100 magic spells in the game; however, the only ones currently known are ones based around the fire, water, earth and wind elements. With the press of a button, an on overlay appears on the screen with the main character's arms brandishing a magic staff, which moves in real-time with the pointer.
Simple shapes are then drawn on the screen which will be recognised and instantly turned into spells for the player to use. Examples shown so far were a zigzag line, which created a wall of earth to shield from arrows shooting across a path, and a circular shape that produced wind and put out a burning house. Others include shooting fireballs with downward strikes to attack, and a water spell to heal the group.
The status of the hero characters will be shown by smiley or frowning faces above their heads, so players can easily see who is in need of healing. Up to four teammates can be selected to fight alongside you. Final details about multiplayer are not known at this point, but a Nintendo Wi-Fi logo can be clearly seen on the official website. We can all hope that this will turn out to be online cooperative play.
Takt of Magic will be released on May 21 in Japan. There is currently no word yet on a release in any other region.
The interview has been available for some time on the Nintendo of Japan website, but to commemorate the release of the game in North America it has now been fully translated.
The interview covers many of the unusual aspects of the development for this game. Iwata notes that for the first time, dance lessons were provided for all development staff as the fastest way to become aware of rhythm.
The original Rhythm Tengoku was a GameBoy Advance title that was never released outside of Japan, but was popular as an import title due to its recognisable music and rhythm game mechanics.
Rhythm Heaven is based on the Japanese Nintendo DS sequel known as Rhythm Tengoku Gold. It has undergone a massive translation process, with all the music tracks containing Japanese vocals dubbed into English.
Rhythm Heaven will be released on April 5th in North America, and Rhythm Paradise will follow on May 1st in Europe.
As per usual, Nintendo also had good sales with it's first party software with Mario and Luigi RPG 3 continuing to sell well. It sold the same amount as the newly released Picross 3D. The Play On Wii version of Pikmin 2 also made a decent entry at 6th; it will be interesting to see which title in this series reigns supreme in Japan.
As previously mentioned, the hardware sales the past few weeks have been very different to past months. This is the first time in several months since PlayStation 3 has beaten out the Wii, most likely due to the Resident Evil 5 bundle. Last week, the Xbox 360 outsold the Wii, which was when Star Ocean: The Last Hope was released. With PSP also outselling both versions of the DS combined, will Nintendo manage to climb back on top of hardware sales?
The eleven mini-games (listed below) are tied together with a tropical island getaway theme. Sudoku, Solitaire, word puzzles...all the games have been seen elsewhere before. Just replace the blocks with fruit, add a deserted island backdrop, and put some faint steel drums playing in the background, and youll have a pretty accurate idea of what this title is about.
Not all the games are available at the start. To unlock the rest (including the most fun ones), you must earn sand dollars and purchase items with which you decorate the island. The items available are broken into fun, food, and comfort categories, and are used to fill up three bars of the same name. Once you place enough items on the island to fill up the meters you unlock a new mini-game. Earn even more sand dollars and you can purchase a new island, starting the process all over again.
It sounds like a neat idea, but there are only three objects in each category, with one item usually being worth much more than the other two, so your island ends up being littered with 25 tiki torches or star fruit trees and nothing else. Is this a tropical island or a dumping ground for unwanted garden accessories?
Sand dollars are earned by playing the mini games themselves. Completing a level in a game earns you cash, but if you need to quit early, you get a little bit just for trying. This is actually one of the few redeeming features of the title: it encourages you to play each game towards the one main goal of getting more money.
However, each new island I bought was simply a change of background graphics that opened up more levels of the same games I had already unlocked. This basically means slightly more difficult or incrementally sped up versions of games youve just spent hours playing. Not the biggest of motivations to earn those sand bucks. Even so, this feature gives the title way more longevity than if it were just a simple select-play-and-quit kind of affair, and that should be commended, at least.
However, the games themselves should not. Allow me to run down the games on offer:
Solitaire its Solitaire, but this time the cards are tropical!
Jungle Jump Its kind of like climbing and swinging on the vines from Donkey Kong Country, if it were controlled with a stylus and played horribly. Put simply, the swing mechanics don't work, and you end up dying a lot because of it.
Cocobowl This bowling game's stylus controls are twitchy and unforgiving, which makes playing a frustrating experience. The variety of bowling lanes, each visually more painful than the one before it, have pin sprites of NES quality. The developers owe me an opticians appointment for this. Not fun.
Cascade This is a tile matching game. Match three fruits together by swapping two tiles at a time. As the difficulty increases, parts of the grid freeze up, making some tiles impossible to move. Stylus control works well, and the graphics are inoffensive. I had the most fun with this one.
Water Words - A simple word search game where you have to link letters together in a grid to form words. This is probably one of the stronger games, as it rewards you for finding longer words and gives crossword-style hints to bonus words found in the puzzle. The dictionary of accepted words is a bit suspect, however.
Puffer Popper The player fires coloured balls at an oncoming procession of bubbles. This is another of the stronger games, as it feels more like a video game than the others. Despite that, though, its a Luxor clone with cell phone graphics.
Sandoku (unlockable) Its Sudoku, cleverly re-titled! It's complete crap, with no handwriting input and horrible text that hurts your eyes and soul. Next!
Parasail (unlockable) Use the stylus to move a paragliding monkey up and down to collect bananas. You can also pick up coconuts and drop them on things for bonuses, which is quite fun. This one can provide a short, fun diversion.
Shell Game (unlockable) Find the pearl under a shell. (Yes, that's all!)
The other games available that I didnt unlock were Beach Bash and Trijong.
Most of these uninspired games are broken into a traditional level format (1-1, 1-2, etc.), and some of them have boss battles at the end of each section. For example in parasailing you have to beat the boss by picking up and throwing rocks at him. This is a nice idea, but its a shame that it appears to be the same puffer fish boss character for every single mini game. This level structure, in which you play the same mini-game again and again until you quit, quickly gets boring. Nintendo had the better idea with Clubhouse Games, in which a different mini-game was played one after the other, forcing the player to experience all the game had to offer. And while switching between games manually in Tropix might seem like a good idea, its menu system is slow and badly organised, with confusing icons only making things worse.
So it all boils down to this: are any of these games fun enough to warrant a purchase? The short answer is no, not really. Only two, possibly three, of these games are fun, and even then only for very short bursts. While the money system is a good idea, its implementation is poor, requiring far too much repetitive play to unlock every game. With Clubhouse Games already covering more of the mini-games in Tropix, and cheaper (if not free) versions available for your computer or cell phone via a web search, there's no reason to play Tropix on your DS.
Pros:
Lastability: 6.0
Do I feel the least bit inclined to spend the next few weeks saving up so I can buy a slightly different background to my island and more levels of the same mini-games? No, not really, but someone else might.
Final: 4.0
Tropix consists of shallow mini-games that should be streamed from a browser and not stored on a DS card. The presentation is poor, most of the games arent fun, and it generally feels like a waste of time. Nintendo did this way better in Clubhouse Games, and that was years ago with scores more games.
There was some concern that the schools were in essence collaborating with video game manufacturers in accepting the handheld consoles into the classroom, but the Board of Education has decided that there are no conflicts of interest. The control of what software students use is clearly in the hands of each individual school.
This isn't close to being the first time the Nintendo DS has made it into the classroom for educational reasons. Last year, NWR reported on Tokyo's Joshi Gakuen all-girls junior high school involvement in a test involving using the DS to teach English. In Japan, there are scores more educational and non-game titles than in other regions. Many have been top 10 sellers, like Nintendo's own Kanji training.
In fact, using commercial products in classrooms is not actually a new idea, character themed school books have been used before. Pingu, Doraemon and Pokemon branded educational material are among some of the most popular.
There's a little secret I'd like to share with my fellow online readers here, something that many people are not aware of when posting comments online: every time you type the word "Jap" you sound like a racist.
I see it often on message boards and comment threads. I know these people don't say it to be offensive; it's just a convenient way to write three letters instead of eight, right? Well I'm here to tell you that laziness isn't an excuse for dropping the J-bomb. It's never acceptable to do so, and there are other ways to type it!
Take the recent Olympics for instance. Did you hear the announcers commenting on how fast the "Japs" were at swimming? Or about how the "Japs" were doing on the leader boards? No. That's because the abbreviation used is JPN. That is not accidental. If the tournament organisers used the other abbreviation, it might have caused an international incident!
Accidental racism is not confined to message boards either. The last time I was back in the UK I stepped into a bakery and saw a "Jap Biscuit" (a cookie to US readers). None of my friends seemed bothered by it, but when I asked "What if it was called a Chink Cookie?" they suddenly got my point. Some people don't realise that both of those terms are equal in their disgusting bigotry.
Living in Japan I am made more aware of this of course, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to stop this kind of accidental casual racism so prominent back in my own country - and on the web.
In fact, if you trace the origins of the term "Jap" it's an outdated derogatory World War II term. It's something an old bigot might use when talking about the Japanese, but hardly something appropriate for a message board comment.
There is some good news, however. Certain online gaming stores have recently changed their game labelling from JAP/USA to NTSC-J/NTSC-U, a positive step indeed.
In closing, the next time you want to big up a new Japanese game or comment on how crazy the Japanese are, try these accepted abbreviations:
Japan - Jpn, Jp
Japanese - Jpse, Jpnse
Japanese RPG - J-RPG, Jpse RPG
Let's show our love of Jpse games without hating on the people of Jpn!
During the interview Sakurai dropped several hints about what games the new studio is working on. Although no titles, genres, or even systems were mentioned, one thing is clear from Sakurai: they are not interested in making any Brain Training games or other casual products. It appears that Project Sora will be focused on the traditional gaming market.
Another detail that emerged from the interview: Smash Bros. fans hoping for a portable DS version should give up on that dream immediately. Sakurai himself said the studio's project will not be a SSB game but something entirely new and original.
The official website states that the game will be a two-year project, suggesting that Project Sora's project won't land until 2011. The team is currently advertising job openings for 3D modelers, game designers, and programmers.
Be sure to check Nintendo World Report for updates concerning Mr Sakurai and Project Sora.
Elsewhere, the second Play It On Wii title, Mario Tennis GC, is clearly still the favourite GameCube remake so far, breaking 100,000 in sales. Taiko Drum Master for the Wii, which comes with the huge drum peripheral for about $80 US, got a surge in sales this week and sold more than Wii Fit.
01. [PSP] Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 (Namco Bandai) 213,000 / New Entry
02. [PSP] Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 (Konami) 109,000 / New Entry
03. [PS2] Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 (Konami) 108,000 / New Entry
04. [NDS] Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (Square Enix) 102,000 / New
05. [PSP] Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (PSP the Best) (Capcom) 23,000 / 380,000
06. [WII] Taiko Drum Master Wii (Namco Bandai) 22,000 / 339,000
07. [WII] Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (Square Enix) 22,000 / New
08. [WII] Play It On Wii: Mario Tennis (Nintendo) 20,000 / 108,000
09. [NDS] Rhythm Heaven Gold (Nintendo) 20,000 / 1,634,000
10. [WII] Wii Fit (Nintendo) 19,000 / 3,215,000
On the hardware front, the DSi still is out front, while the DS Lite sales are lessening with each passing week. It is doubtful this means Nintendo will halt DS Lite production anytime soon, but it is definitely something to keep watch of.
This week also saw Wii sales fall a bit, putting the PlayStation 3 only a few thousand units behind. The Xbox 360 also overtook the PlayStation 2 in weekly sales, possibly due to the release of Ninja Blade which sits at No.19 in the charts.
01. DSi - 55,613
02. PSP - 44,135
03. Wii - 23,278
04. PS3 - 17,405
05. DS Lite - 15,147
06. Xbox 360 - 8,107
07. PS2 - 5,334
Sales of first party software was a major part of the Q&A; one reporter queried Iwata about whether he considered Wii Music a failure since it had only sold 400,000 units in Japan (the game has moved an additional 2 million units in overseas markets). This was substantially less than the sales of earlier hits like Wii Sports and Wii Fit.
In response, Iwata pointed out that Brain Age did not sell well in its first few weeks on sale either, reaching around only 45,000 units during its launch week. However, Brain Age went on to become one of the biggest sellers for Nintendo. However, Iwata admitted that he felt Nintendo has failed somewhat in conveying the charm of Wii Music and that currently people's responses to the title were either immensely positive or extremely negative. He expressed hoped to change the perception of the title and said that he hoped it would become another evergreen seller.
Iwata also expressed disappointment that Nintendo failed to deliver a product or service last year that could get the Japanese market really excited. He divulged that both Animal Crossing and Wii Music were below expectations in that department despite strong momentum overseas. Iwata said that Nintendo was working hard to ensure that they rectify this situation and that they already have more ideas to prevent this happening in 2009.
Concerning the DSi launching elsewhere in the world, Iwata said that the newer model would ship alongside the existing DSLite model. This is how Nintendo has handled the DSi in Japan, and Iwata said that overseas markets would see similar price differences between their two DS models. For comparison, the camera-enabled DSi currently sells for about $180 in Japan, while the DS Lite goes for about $150.
When asked about a promotional campaign Iwata had mentioned at the DSi launch, wherein which 500 Nintendo Points would be given to anyone who connects their Wii to the Internet, he restated that it would indeed be happening this spring in Japan.
Then, just to quash any fears Wii owners may have concerning storage problems, Iwata also reconfirmed that around the same period there would also be a system update to address space issues. No final details are known, except that it will involve SD cards in some fashion. Whether or not this means allowing booting games from the SD cards, or simply a fast way of swapping games from the Wii menu to the cards and back, remains to be seen.
Iwata covered many other questions during the Q&A, so be sure to read the english transcript of the session here.
