Yep. It’s coming. We can all stop pretending we like Kujibiki Unbalance now. According to the official television website Genshiken will recieve an entirely new second season that will air later this year in the Fall. The new character that appeared in the OAV, Chika Ogiue, will be joining the rest of the gang in the clubroom right away. This means we’ll get to enjoy more otaku antics from all sides of the spectrum in a glorious full TV series. For those of you that don’t understand the significance of this news I point you towards the first season and the OAV’s. Don’t be late to the party this Fall!
Every generation of consoles usually brings about a new idea that really wouldn’t work on the previous generation of consoles. It’s not always about texture detail, polygon counts, or even shader technology. Sometimes the idea itself is just so different it really stands out as a truly next-generational experience.This is where LittleBigPlanet comes in. A game by a newly formed company called Media Molecule under the wing of Sony Computer Entertainment developed a game that starts out blank. It’s basically a combination of tools, pallets, and props all entwined in a realistic physics environment. It starts out by allowing you to select items and start placing things in a blank level, and with a little time and dedication you can create a full level — something that could be in a “real game” in essence. As you can see in the videos, the tools are very powerful and can really provide endless amount of creativity. Imagine, you can recreate levels from older 2D games you remember or go crazy and create some really hard physics puzzles for others to challenge
The next level of awesomeness is that the game is based on cooperation so it allows for online cooperative play. This means you can have people from your PSN friendlist hop into a game with you and you can challenge the newest content out there together. In the second demo video you can see how the sharing of content resembles Youtube and allows you to put out content and monitor it by play count and even view gamer comments that have played your level. Of course, this is not the only game to ever allow simple level editing without the need of complicated tools or scripting knowledge, but it’s certainly the most fleshed out one on a console. If Starcraft could live for more than 10 years with custom maps created almost daily by fans, imagine the possibilities of a much more simple and refreshing experience with LittleBigPlanet that is all about new content every day. You probably won’t ever get bored of this game as long as people keep coming up with all kinds of new level ideas with the added benefit of being able to challenge them with your friends online.
There’s also the developer levels that can be a way to experience a pros take on LittleBigPlanet and even a way for them to advertise their games. Plus, you can change the levels as you play so nothing will ever be the same as long as people keep adding their own stickers and adding new parts to a level and calling it their own. Combine this awesome experience with music by The Go! Team, a surprisingly good band from the UK, and you’ve got a recipe for greatness.
LittleBigPlanet will be released on the PlayStation Store sometime this year and a retail Blu-ray disc with all of the best user-created content is planned in early 2008.
Home’s trailer says it all. As a virtual space for match-making and socializing, ‘Home’ seems to be the biggest improvement in matchmaking services we’ve seen on consoles.
The potential is evident in the emergent virtual socializing possibilities that ‘Home’ can offer. Imagine, you can start your PS3 and access a living breathing virtual space from a new icon named ‘Home’ on the Xross Media Bar (XMB). From your very own and private virtual apartment you can set off into the public spaces of this world and find friends to socialize with or invite them to a game. Communication is possible using predictive and predefined text messages, full keyboard chat using a USB keyboard, or a bluetooth headset allowing full voice communication. You can venture out into this world looking the way you want to look as there is something for everyone. The customization options seem vast and there’s always possibilities for more to come down the road.
The fun doesn’t stop there because there’s tons of things to do besides just looking at 3D avatars and chatting. There’s virtual arcades where you can play public games with other people. You can even play mini-games such as golf or bowling, using the excellent motion-sensitivity of the SIXAXIS controller. If that weren’t awesome enough, you can invite people over to your virtual apartment and play mini-games there or full-retail blu-ray disc games if you all have the same games. This is a great way to get all of your friends together in the future to play Gran Turismo 5, Killzone 2, SOCOM IV, or any other major online game to be released on the PlayStation 3.
Unlike Xbox Live, ‘Home’ is available free of charge and offers similar functionality and in may cases more. There are microtransactions, but they’re a lot more meaningful and entertaining than what is avialable on Xbox Live. You can buy furniture for your apartment, thus making it more appealing for your guests, especially if you host a lot of online game parties. There’s tables, chairs, frames, and all kinds of things you can add to suit your personal tastes. There’s also electronics that become useful when using yet more features of ‘Home’. For example, you can have a large virtual HDTV that you can use to show your guests videos that you have stored on your PlayStation 3’s hard drive. This means if you have a movie on your hard drive you can watch it together with your friends in your virtual apartment. You can also have your friends listen to all of your music you have on your hard drive with the appropriate device in your virtual apartment. If you have pictures from a digital camera stored on your hard drive you can put them up as posters in your room, further customizing the look and feel of your very own virtual apartment. Not only that, your apartment can be fitted with trophies and awards you get from completing tasks in games and other challenges. You can basically show off by winning and accumulating more stuff than all your friends. There’s also public exhibition of awards too, in a very cool Star Wars-style hall of fame showing everyone’s achievements — so to speak.
As the virtual space grows in the future, many commercialized venues will be opened up for public access. ‘Home’ is free, so advertising is a given, but nonetheless there will be some of the coolest ads you’ve ever seen. Coke could set up a campaign on ‘Home’ allowing you and other friends to try coke related games that promote a new product. There’s also the possibility of media premieres allowing the public to experience new media such as movies or music first with other people on the network. This goes beyond telling your friends to go to Youtube and listen to X new song or watch Y movie. With this set up you can go to a virtual cinema with your friends and watch the movie or listen to the “concert” together, while continuing to be connected and communicated the entire time with everyone. We’ll get to watch and listen to all kinds of stuff submitted by other gamers on the network — just like Youtube. So while you can visit Youtube from the PlayStation 3 browser when you’re bored, you can step it up a notch and go down to the virtual cinema on ‘Home’ with your friends and have a blast.
Although none of this is set up yet, it is already running on a closed-beta at Sony. Another semi-public beta is scheduled to be worked on the rest of spring to work out the kinks in a much broader scale than it is running now as of the first build. A full release of ‘Home’ is expected by the Fall of this year some time before the year ends. It will be a free download of around 500MB according to Sony representatives.
There’s no doubt that the combination of amazing flagship titles from talented first-party Sony developers and third-party powerhouse titles coming out this year already made the PlayStation 3 a very compelling machine to own. However, with ‘Home’, the PlayStation 3 is even more relevant now as this service provides a level of immersion that no other console can provide.
The game is going to be a PlayStation Store download of around 800MB. It’ll be a port of the arcade version with HD upscaled graphics. Unfortunately there will be no online play, but it will feature ghost battles like on the PSP version including a way to trade ghost files with other people. The game is likely to cost around $10 like most other content on the PlayStation Store at the moment, but the most Namco can sell it for is $15 (the store limit) which is still a good price. If you already have the PSP version ($40) this includes the same arcade mode found in that game but instead is ported directly from the arcade machine version. Combined with either the Hori Fighting Stick 3 or the Virtua Stick High Grade, you’ll be able to hone your Tekken skills on your HDTV. This game is likely Namco’s way to compete with Virtua Fighter 5 while they work on Tekken 6. Tekken 6 should hit the arcades first and get an eventual port to PS3 around 2008 if we’re lucky.
The game is the perfect way to practice on the finely tuned gameplay of the arcade version of Tekken 5 with an arcade stick. If Tekken 6 provides online play in the future all of that practice should get put to good use. The game has no release date, but I’ll bet on it being out before Virtua Fighter 5 next year.
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, for many the reason why they still keep their PSP’s around. This trailer was available at TGS earlier this year but Square Enix did not allow any journalists to capture it. The trailer is finally released and this is definitely one of my most anticipated games of next year.
Guys, today is a glorious day indeed. I am so glad to be able to post this incredible awesome spectacular news. Yes… finally THE FILLER IS GOING TO END. No more stupid D rank missions, no more chakra stones, no more rasengan and kage bunshin over and over and over again. Naruto Shippuuden is the name of the new season that follows Kishimoto’s original story in the manga. It loosely translates to Naruto: Hurricane Chronicles. Hurricane Chronicles is also the name of the 4th Naruto movie that is going to debut next year in the summer that has events that occur post filler, so it’ll be batshit awesome.
If you don’t remember what happened at the end of 135 here you go, it contains important details that help set the stage for the new season:
RECAP OF VIDEO ABOVE (SPOILERS?): As you can see Naruto was in bed recuperating from his injuries after the fight he had against Sasuke. He talks to Shikamaru and learns everyone on the mission made it back safely. He also makes sure he tells Sakura that he will fulfill his promise to her no matter what. Jiraiya visits Naruto at the hospital and lets him know of really important details such as the fact that Akatsuki is after him for the Nine-tails, and Orochimaru is not able to take Sasuke’s body yet since his jutsu requires a refresh time of 3 years. He transferred before Sasuke could make it in time, so Orochimaru is forced to stick with his current container until he can get Sasuke’s body. Jiraiya offers to train Naruto for the 3 years that Akatsuki and Orochimaru are going to be inactive so that he can be prepared.
This is what sets the stage for what fans have called “Naruto 2,” which now has the official name of Naruto: Hurricane Chronicles. According to followers of the manga there is an intermediary story arc called “Kakashi Gaiden” that occurs before the time skip. Basically the Kakashi story begins, then Naruto leaves the village with Jiraiya, and then he comes back 3 years older and Naruto Shippuuden begins. The anime has been very faithful to the manga in the past, so its likely that everything will be included.
Kishimoto finally got the word out, and it seems it was planned to be like it is. Any hint of the real story coming at any date would hinder the ratings so they left us guessing every week. Now that we know, the ratings won’t be affected because there’s barely any filler content left. Episode 214 and 215 will be a Christmas special, and after that there will be no more Naruto for 2 weeks since they’ll be on a break. That means December 28th and January 4th won’t have any new episodes. Naruto Shippuuden begins in February, but Kakashi Gaiden needs to be shown before that, so it’s possible that between Janaury 11th and 25th (3 weeks, 3 episodes) we could potentially get the arc. 3 episodes might be enough to tell that story. If they need more episodes they have the 1st, 8th, and the 15th to finish because at most by the 22nd of February 2007 we should be watching Naruto Shippuuden.
New AIKa! Yay! On the official AIKa homepage there’s a new site for an entirely new AIKa OAV series called AIKa R-16: Virgin Mission. It’ll be 3 episodes and feature an entirely new cast of characters not related to the previous series. If you’re not familiar with the AIKa series you might want to check this out since its all new. AIKa is the epitome of ecchi, and even though the plot may be even more retarded this time I’m sure they’ll make up for it with quality ecchi. ^^
Release schedule:
第1巻：2007年3月23日（金） Episode 1: March 23rd, 2007
第2巻：2007年6月22日（金） Episode 2: June 22nd, 2007
第3巻：2007年9月25日（火） Episode 3: August 25th, 2007
This commercial really tells the experience of the PSP better than Sony has yet to do. The text is a little silly, and the commercial is a bit long, but it’s still cool. I recommend you check it out. Credits go to the guy who posted it on Youtube.
“Kutaragi Ken helping the guy with the first PS3 sold. Yeah, it’s that heavy guys.”
“Hi there. I didn’t buy any games lol. I’m going to play PS2 games on this. ^.^”
“Please do not Ebay these. Thank you for your cooperation.”
“Ebay here I come! I’ll even throw in this useless FROM SOFTWARE demo disc!”
Next-gen finally started, at least in Japan it did. I lurked the all of the interweb and found a lot of the buzz on the PS3 looked extremely promising. There were long ass lines at Yodobashi Akihabara, the largest electronics store in Tokyo. Here are some videos of what went on at Yodobashi-Akiba:
Japanese news outlets covered the event too:
Quite a lot happened and reading the impressions of from japanese gamers on GAF or other forums (or gaijin living in japan ^^) first hand was very exciting. It was also very nice to know Resistance: Fall of Man sold out at many stores. Imagine that, an FPS game sold out in Japan! Holy shit!! The few that have played it have been very receptive of what it has to offer and say that the online 40-man multiplayer is silky smooth like butter. On the other hand, a lot of the JGAFers are downing on Ridge Racer 7, immediately calling out that it has a lot of the same tracks and effects found in Xbox 360’s Ridge Racer 6. The few things that have been added don’t seem to improve the experience enough to warrant the “7″ moniker it seems. They have dubbed it Ridge Racer 6 Director’s Cut and Special Edition pretty much. However, what they do make a clear statement of is that if you haven’t played Ridge Racer 6, you should definately check out Ridge Racer 7. This is probably the majority of Japan, and even a lot of American gamers, since not that many people bought Ridge Racer 6 on Xbox 360. Another one of the disappointments with Ridge Racer 7 is the lack of voice-chat in online games (damn you Bandai Namco). It only provides text-chat, which in my opinion, is retarded. Resistance: Fall of Man provides voice-chat (bluetooth or USB headsets work) so there’s no reason why Ridge Racer 7 shouldn’t as well. This is going to affect my decision to buy Ridge Racer 7 in the near future. By the way there were 3000+ people on the Ridge Racer 7 leaderboards on day one, not bad.
The few that have checked out the PlayStation Store have noticed a few things. First thing is, if you have a japanese PS3, you need a japanese credit card in order to add funds to your virtual PlayStation Store wallet. The store lets you select a country, but right now only Japan is available to choose. They (and me) are hoping that with the release of the console in other territories that they will be able to select any country where the PS3 has been released and thus use any credit card. This made it difficult for a lot of the gaijin living in Japan who don’t want or need a japanese line of credit. Basically, if you’re importing and you don’t have a japanese credit card that matches with a japanese address you won’t be able to use the PlayStation Store right now. In the future we’ll be able to order PlayStation Store pre-paid cards that will be available at retail in several denominations, so even if you don’t have a credit card at some point you’ll be able to buy stuff in the store. The few that do have access to such a card mentioned the store is slick and easy to navigate. There were movie and game trailers up in 1080p for download, as well as demo for Ridge Racer 7. One person said he was getting slow download speeds, but attributed it to Sony’s servers being hammered which is to be expected. Should be fine as the service grows and progresses.
If you haven’t been keeping up on the PlayStation Network you should know that once you register a name on there, you stick with it. It can’t be changed, similar to gamertags on Xbox Live. You can, however, make several accounts (they’re free). A lot of Japanese are getting first pick at many names (for example a JGAFer already took “SIXAXIS” as his secondary name). When the PS3 launches in America, not only will Americans get a chance to play and register their unique online usernames, but so will anyone else in the world. As a service to the world (cough, Europe), Sony will allow preemptive username registration on the official PlayStation 3 website. This means we all get a fair chance at getting whatever name we want to play as online. Very cool. If you have a username in mind you should register one, even if you won’t get a PS3 this year. I’ll be updating my blog with the necessary link as soon as I’m informed of where to register for mine. ^^
I also read some impressions of the web browser. It’s your standard web browser, and very similar to what’s currently available on PSP. It can render flash just fine, and just like Phil Harrison showed at Gamer’s Day, the JGAFers are able to pull up flash websites such as Youtube and GoogleVideo without any problems. It’s what we all expected and may provide itself as a useful tool when you’re gaming and need to check out forums, news, guides, etc. It might be a useful tool to have around when checking out TGS, E3(or whatever it’s called now), and other gaming events while not keeping you away from your console. The only downside to the browser is that whenever you want to input text, you get an annoying input box. If you’re used to using the text input that’s on PSP you should easily recognize what I mean. To me this will make the browser very clunky to use when you’re typing something very long and elaborate, but it should work for quick things like a short email.
A few people tried backwards compatible games and there were a few notable issues:
-Final Fantasy XI(PS2): This game does not work currently with backwards compatibility. However, there is a firmware upgrade coming afterwards that will enable all HDD games to work on PS3. In the case of FFXI it should allow you to install the PS2 version of the game to the PS3’s internal HDD.
-Devil May Cry(PS2): The title screen sometimes freezes.
-Valkyrie Profile(PS1): Some background music and sound effects don’t play correctly during gameplay.
-Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria(PS2): Sometimes audio plays strangely during certain movies.
-Xenosaga Episode II(PS2): Sometimes the opening movie freezes and audio doesn’t play right.
These are being observed and will be worked on to ensure as much compatibility as possible. So far we’re talking about 3% of 1000 games tested with minor errors, but there is no game that does not actually run on the PS3 through backwards compatibility (Xbox 360 am cry? Just kiddin’ ^^). A day one update to v1.10 mentioned that there are fixes to backwards compatibility issues, and Sony is aware and is going to make sure that not only do all games work, but that they work as perfectly as possible. Another important thing to note is that region lock for PS1 and PS2 games is in full effect, so japanese PS3’s cannot play US PS1/PS2 games. PS3 games are region-free, just like PSP games, so you can play US or JPN PS3 games on any PS3 in the world.
The launch unit PS3’s all come equipped with CELL processors and RSX graphic rendering engines, where as they also come equipped with PS2’s EE (Emotion Engine) CPU and GS (Graphics Synthesizer) fused into a single chip. This allows backwards compatibility to be nearly perfect since it contains PS2 hardware to do the processing, instead of using emulation software. Sony plans to work on software emulation of PS2 for a while until it works better. The plan is to perfect their PS2 emulation software and then remove the EE+GS chip from future PS3’s, lowering the cost of manufacturing the current models. There is a high possibility that when emulation is in full effect we will be able to upscale PS1/PS2 games, among other visual improvements.
The PS2/PS1 memory card adapter was not available at launch due to shortages it seems. Hopefully they’ll be stocked so that JGAFers can let us know how it works out transfering their old saves. Also, as was previously stated by Sony the PS3 comes with a single sixaxis controller, a USB cable, an ethernet cable, and composite video cables. You’re going to need either and HDMI or component cables to get HD quality graphics, and neither one comes in the box. If you have component cables for your PS2 you can use them on your PS3 since it has the same Multi AV port on the back. Another thing to remember is that even though the PS3 comes with a USB cable so that you can charge your controller or use it wired to the console, additional controllers do not come with another USB cable. If you are buying another sixaxis for multiplayer, you should invest in another USB cable so that you can charge both controllers at the same time, or use them both wired. It makes life easier, and a USB cable is only like $5 on the interweb. Many PS2 accessories are confirmed to work on the PS3 such as the original PS2 Eyetoy for webcam use, PS2 USB headsets, and even the Logitech Driving Force Pro for Gran Turimso 4 is compatible for use in Gran Turismo HD and other racing games on PS3.
It was fun following the PS3 launch in Japan, and I can’t wait to see what goes on in America.
Sony just posted the manual for the PS3 on their website. It shows a lot of new cool information that I was really hoping for (WE CAN VIEW VIDEOS OFF EXTERNAL HDDs, HELL YES!!!!!). Other cool tidbits include how the friendlist works, what the PlayStation Store looks like and what it has to offer, and all of the hardware tweaks you could ever want.
Here’s a few of the important things to note:
Users:
-You can have multiple users on any given PS3. Each user will have its own private save game data, profile, messages, etc.
-If you have multiple users you can designate who you want the PS3 to log into automatically when it first boots up. You can only have one user logged in at any given time.
-You can customize each user with a specific icon to identify that person on the system.
Settings:
-The PS3, similar to the PSP, will offer system updates in the form of firmware updates. These updates can include security patches, new features, and all kinds of new stuff we’re not even aware of yet. You can update online directly from the PS3, or you can update using an update file stored on a mass storage device such as an external HDD. Just like the PSP, flashing your firmware is dangerous and requires precautions on your part so you don’t brick your PS3. You can’t turn off the PS3 (heck it even disables the touch-sensitive power button during a flash) during a system update, making accidents practically impossible… that is… unless you trip over your power cord while it’s updating .
-Under BD/DVD settings, there are a wide array of different settings including audio language, subtitle language, menu language, etc. You are able to really customize your BD/DVD viewing experience. It’s also a good time to note that the US and Japan are both in the same region, so you might be seeing a lot of Japanese BD-ROM’s with english subtitles on them.
-Under music settings you can change two things. If you have a few music CDs you want to rip to your PS3’s HDD you can use the audio CD import functionality. It allows you to rip songs to your HDD in AAC, MP3, or ATRAC. It even lets you choose the bitrate you prefer. I’d say you go for the highest you can to get better sound quality, although it will make the files a few MB’s bigger. During playback you can change whether or not you want songs to crossfade. The cross fade lasts between 1-10 seconds, or you can turn it off and not have the cross fade effect.
-Under chat settings you can select to show others an image taken from your PS2 Eyetoy camera, or your standard avatar/icon you chose during your user creation.
System settings:
-You can choose a system name, which should come in handy during LAN setup. You can change the system language to various options. You can even change the dictionary it uses when you input text using the predictive text input using the sixaxis controller. If you use the predictive text enough, you can add terms so that you can quickly send custom messages.
-System Notifications: here you can decide if you want system notifications to be on or off. System notifications are small little rectangular pop ups on the right upper-hand corner of the screen that show up when a friend is online.
-Default system: this works sort of like a bootloader and lets you choose your default boot operating system. In other words, you can choose to boot to Linux or boot to the XMB. Quite cool.
Accessory settings:
-Register Bluetooth device: This lets you, obviously, pair bluetooth headsets to your PS3. For now you can only pair bluetooth headsets with the PS3, no keyboard or mice. This may change in the future with a firmware update.
-Test Camera: This lets you check to make sure your PS2 Eyetoy is working fine and displaying the correct image of you.
-Audio device settings is a particularly interesting portion. It lets you test your mic levels so you check how you’ll sound to others. You can also select your audio input and output. I assume this means we can select to have the VoIP be heard through speakers or through the headset. If this is the case, I’ll be incredibly happy because this lets me wear headphones for 5.1 sound, and use my PS2 USB Headset at the same time!
There’s quite a lot more at the site, so go check it out for yourself here.
PSM3 magazine issued an apology for their previous magazine cover that mentioned they had exclusive information on Konami’s Zone of the Enders 3.
“A few people have been asking where our ZOE3 coverage went – it got bumped at the very last minute due to extreme Konami secrecy. Rest assured, as soon as we’re able to tell you anything about it, it’ll appear in the mag and on this very blog. Stay tuned.”
Not only this, but Konami also reprinted copies of Zone of the Enders 2 and they sold out very quickly as expected thanks to the demand on internet forums for this game. It seems Konami is working on this much anticipated sequel on PS3. I hope that Shuyo Murata and Hideo Kojima-sama can translate some of what they learn with Metal Gear Solid 4 into Zone of the Enders 3, that is, if they’re willing and able to work on the project simultaneously with MGS4. A next-gen Zone of the Enders with Kojima Production’s dedication and effort would be fucking awesome. Believe guys, believe!
The second Keroro Gunso movie was announced at the Official Keroro Gunso movie website. The movie is set to debut early next year in March. There’s also a trailer available. I absolutely enjoy Keroro Gunso’s TV series and the first movie was awesome fun. You might want to keep tabs on this one.
Ted Price shows off the “Breach Mode” of Resistance. The mode involves 2 teams of 20 players on each side fighting and trying to destroy the opposing team’s reactor. In order to achieve that your team needs to take nodes, giving your team more advantages. The more nodes you have, the more spawn points you have, therefore you can massively spawn closer and closer to the opposing team’s main base and ultimately take out their reactor. Ted also talks a bit about the PlayStation Network and shows a few things you can do online.
Phil and his gang showed the PlayStation Store. Here’s a shaky cam video of the whole thing live. Demos are free, and you can see the huge amount of yellow “FREE” items in the store. I’m not too happy about their microtransactions, but everything else is great.
Phil goes on stage at shows us what the XMB has to offer on PS3. It goes over some of the basic features, including the PlayStation Network stuff. If you watch the end you’ll laugh your ass off.
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