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October 29, 2011
Club Nintendo's Japanese Platinum Members Can Get the Most Awesome Throw Pillow Ever
Japan gets all the cool stuff, they have businessmen dressed as Mario and Luigi riding fast Japanese-made go-karts, vending machines that vend fully cooked curry, and now they have Mario Throw Pillows (as seen here on Joystiq). Yes, you heard me. If you're a platinum
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October 17, 2011
Japanese Car SiteCliccar Roams the Streets of Tokyo in a Real Life Game of Mario Kart
Two writers from the Japanese car siteCliccar decided to get out of their usual business attire for a while and have some fun. How did they do that? Well how about getting two street legalX-Karts and roam the streets of Tokyo as both Mario and Luigi in a real life game of Super Mario Kart (minus the banana throwing and shell tossing).
These karts are priced at ¥ 379,800 (US$4,900) and are designed as "mini sports
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September 29, 2011
The Gears of War Series is Doing Great in Japan
So as you know, I like to report how western games are doing in Japan. Usually, when Japan's gaming community are exposed to games made in the west, they usually have a wide range of excitement (from "meh" to "omg that was awesome"). Lately, it's been "meh" with the decline of the Xbox 360 in the region. However there was a surprise at this year's Tokyo
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September 29, 2011
Cultural Differences Prevented Rock Band from Being Huge in Japan
A while back, Rock Band came out of nowhere and exploded in popularity all over the United States, Europe, Australia, nearly everywhere....except for Japan. There must be a reason for why the Harmonix's biggest introduction to music-themed video games didn't make its way to the land of the rising sun.
According to this article on Kotaku, there are several reasons
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September 20, 2011
Signs of Microsoft Moving Away from Japanese Market are Showing.
After years and years of promoting the Xbox 360 in Japan, Microsoft still only sells around 2,000 a week in the land of the rising sun. Last week, sales statistics showed that the XBox 360 was being outsold by Playstation 2 consoles. Mind boggling isn't it?
And with the Tokyo Game Show coming up later this year, Microsoft of Japan is showing that they are making a slow withdraw from the region. Proof is shown as its booth at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show is smaller than Capcom's, Namco Bandai's,
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August 26, 2011
Japanese video game retailers like Geo are no longer supporting the Xbox 360.
Japan has been somewhat of a taboo place for the Xbox 360 when it comes to sales. Despite the fact that around the world the Xbox 360 is just as common in a house as a toaster, the console never really found a standing in Japan. While there were top selling 360-only titles like the Dead Rising and Dead or Alive series, both Sony and Nintendo are crushing the gaijin (foreign) console. Statistically, in Japan, the Wii has sold
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April 12, 2011
Nintendo's 3DS units in Japan, only about half have been sold.
According to this article (if you can read Japanese), when the 3DS was released, Nintendo claimed that 1.5 million of the 4 million handhelds were heading to Japan by the end of March. According to Japanese sales trackers like Media Create, there are a ton of unsold units in Japan. The sales trackerreports that only 836,000 3DS units have been sold, meaning Nintendo hasn't hit the one million mark in Japan. About 664,000 units from
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April 07, 2011
Microsoft's XBOX 360 Controllers helping the Fukushima Nuclear Plant recovery effort.
Japan's getting help from all over the world, especially in the relief effort of the troubling Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. They're even getting help from Microsoft in a nearly a way aside from the donated technology from all over the world. With the Japanese government working around the clock to cool the nuclear cores and contain the problem, outside sources are lending a hand, like QinetiQ, a company from here in the United States that build robotics
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April 05, 2011
Fighting Game Developers lend Moral Support to Japan
As you know, last week we reported that video game companies are lending their support in the relief effort in Japan. Well just recently, Capcom is lending more of their support (morally) by providing some wallpapers to remind people to lend a hand.
Seen and read here (if you can read Japanese), the developers of Capcom issued this statement:
On March 11th, we felt great sympathy for those effected by the Earthquake here in Japan.
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March 26, 2011
Japans Time of Need, ganbatte (persevere)
Hironobu Skaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy posted a song on this tumblr page entitled Pray For You. The song is not intended to raise and collect donations but rather it is a contribution for Japans disaster relief and for the struggles that they are working towards overcoming. So far the song has over 13,000 plays and it continues to touch hearts around the word during Japans time of need.
On the site you can hear the song and read a note from Hironobu which reads: I composed a piece for the