akihabara
Latest
Kanji Dragon scheduled to kick Akihabara's ass
We're well aware that the gaming press couldn't care less about Hissatsu Kung Fu: Kanji Dragon; interest for a kanji-training beat 'em up is niche at best, and to be honest, this whole kung fu theatre advertising push is a bit silly. But are we going to let that stop us from inundating you with every single scrap of Kanji Dragon news that we come across? Of course not!Success Corp. will be celebrating the educational brawler's June 7th release with a special event this Sunday at Akihabara's Sofmap amusement complex. Attendees will be able to play the game and will even receive a limited edition T-shirt if they pre-order a copy. The title's fumbling mascot will also be making an appearance, handing out Kanji Dragon Director's Cut DVDs. Make sure to check past the post break for a larger version of the disc's explosive cover.To say we're disheartened by the fact that we won't be able to attend is an understatement. We wept bitter tears as we read the press release's jumbled Google translation, yelling out in grief when we learned that we'd miss out on free souvenirs. Rod Stewart poignantly sang "So Far Away" as a montage of us drowning our sorrows with too many drinks and loose women played right before fading to black.
1UP's Retronauts go to Japan for NES classics and profit
We used to import games from Japan through shady specialty shops and mailing lists; creepy retail ads from the backs of magazines pleading for your American dollars. With the rise of the internet, it became a more legitimate form of shopping. And now that we're all old and bitter we just skip all that rubbish and go directly to Japan for our ancient video games.Or at least that's what 1UP's Jeremy Parrish and Game|Life's Chris Kohler do. For a rare glimpse of a weeaboo in its natural environment, 1UP's on-going video series of Retronauts takes us to Tokyo's Akihabara district for some vintage video game shopping. The duo try to land some choice picks to feed to the eBay masses while musing over just why a copy of the original Super Mario Bros costs so much over there. Special guest appearances by Hot Slots and the Dragon Warrior III original soundtrack ... on vinyl.
Blue Dragon sets Japan ablaze
Akira Toriyama, Nobuo Uematsu, Hironobu Sakaguchi: all three are famous names in Japan. And all three are closely associated with Blue Dragon, the Mistwalker Xbox 360 RPG that was released in Japan this morning. For an Xbox 360 title here in Japan, where the format has to date been failing spectacularly, Blue Dragon is set to become the system's most successful game by some distance. Pre-orders for the Blue Dragon Xbox 360 hardware bundle sold out some weeks ago, while gamers queued for their copies in Akihabara this morning. We had no problem finding a copy of the game in Osaka today, however -- it's popular, but it's not unobtainable. Regardless, at this rate, Blue Dragon could still become a flagship series for Microsoft in Japan. No wonder Sakaguchi recently revealed plans for Blue Dragon 2... Jump for more photos from this morning's in-store launch event at Akihabara's Yodobashi Camera.
The Japanese PS3 launch: weather report
Gamers queue with umbrellas erect in Akihabara.Some important information remains missing from the avalanche of hyperbolic "PS3 LAUNCH CHAOS!" stories which hit the web on Saturday, following the PS3's (inevitable) Day One sell-out: What was the weather like? Joystiq camped out overnight in Tokyo to get its system, and at dawn all fingers were still present and correct. The frost didn't bite. In fact, at a low of 10 degrees Celsius, Friday night in Tokyo was unseasonably mild. The sun began to colour the sky just past 5.30am on Saturday morning, turning to a pink haze by 6.30am before arriving at a grey cloud conclusion as the first Tokyo game stores opened their doors to all those who wanted a PS3 for breakfast. Dramatically, as the first customer at Shinjuku's Yodobashi Camera made his way to the register, the heavens opened. And from 7.01am until the evening, there was nothing but drizzle in Tokyo. The perfect day for staying inside with a warm PS3.
Near-perfect glass CD hits stores in Akihabara, Shibuya for $831
You know how your audiophile friends insist on only the finest media on which to store their music -- forsaking MP3s and the iTunes Store in favor of vinyl or CDs? Well, if those audiophiles have deep pockets (as many of seem to), they'll probably be very interested in this new glass CD that's just come out of Japan. Suenori Fukui has recently invented a transparent glass CD that he says is guaranteed to not distort or warp. As Mainichi Interactive reports: "As glass CDs are completely transparent, information on them can be read perfectly, improving sound quality. They are not affected by heat or humidity and remain in perfect condition forever." The first glass CD recording of J.S. Bach's "Air on G String" (not to be confused with Sebastian Bach's "Show me your g-string," which we really wish existed) will be on sale at Ishimaru Denki in Akihabara and Tower Records in Shibuya for ¥98,700 ($831).[Via The Raw Feed]
Honda nav system offers weather, user-submitted POI deets
So you're a tech-minded Honda driver that enjoys tooling around the mean streets of Japan? Surely what you've been pining after for years is a way to know the barometric pressure at your exact location as you drive. Ok, Japanese meteorology enthusiast road warriors, welcome to the future: the InterNavi Premium Club will not only gather precise weather conditions outside your car and help route around road closures (say, due to snow), but also functions with an added "social networking service" so that you can leave a virtual comment about a particular GPS location. So while others are busying themselves waiting in traffic you've successfully routed around, you'll know how likely it is for the sky to close up and pour down rain as you jump out and grab a bowl at that awesome ramen joint geotagged by other salarymen InerNavi users.
Lenovo's i921 WinMo smartphone
Akihabara News has some, um, news about a new Windows Mobile-powered handset from Lenovo that is, while not the first smartphone from the PC manufacturer that we've seen, certainly the most attractive. The i921 is said to rock WM5 (no confirmation on that, apparently, but we seriously doubt that they'd go the WinMo 2003 route), a two megapixel camera, Bluetooth, QVGA touchscreen, and MiniSD slot, and work on some unknown number of GSM frequencies. Not many other deets are known, such as pricing or availability, but if we don't see WiFi or UMTS in the specs, we keep on shopping, no matter how hot the phone looks.[Via MobileMag]
