Interesting VF5 vs DOA4 sales numbers...

As of February 8th, 2007 the PS3 had sold 600,000 units in Japan and Virtua Fighter 5 sells 30,000 units on its first day of release.

As of December 29th, 2005 the 360 had sold 80,000 units in Japan and Dead or Alive 4 sells 60,000 copies on its first day of release.

Yes, those numbers are right, DOA4 sold twice as much as VF5 with an installed based exactly 7.5x smaller than the PS3's.

Now the question is, what exactly does that mean for the PS3? It could be said that DOA4 came out at the holidays and was originally supposed to be a launch title (and obviously most of the people bought the 360 specifically for it) so it had a bit of an advantage. February is a typically slow month for game sales.

But at the same time, VF5 is arguably the PS3's first major title in Japan. The last "major" release was the horribly rushed MotorStorm and FPS's are not a popular genre in Japan so Resistance meant little over there.

So how can it be that a AAA title sold only 30K units to an installed base of 600k who should be absolutely starved for games?

One explanation is that the starvation brought on by a drought of titles combined with delusions and hallucinations brought on by shelling out a metric ass-ton of Yen for a system with no games has rendered PS3 owners physically incapable of getting to the store to buy the game they surely crave....but since I haven't read any reports of mass PS3-induced incapacitations I'm guessing this isn't the case.

More likely is that the PS3's install base is largely made up of videophiles who purchased the system as a cheap Blu-ray movie player and have no desire to play any games on the system.

This is not unprecedented as the PS2 saw strong sales early in its life as a cheap DVD player. While budget players were available in the US for under $150, Japan's cheapest standalone units were still more expensive than the PS2. Game sales suffered as a result but obviously the system eventually overcame this and became the most successful console of all time.

What's interesting about this is that in terms of gaming, the PS3 and 360 might be in a closer race than anyone thought. MS has moved a couple hundred thousand more systems in Japan since DOA4 came out (thanks in large part to Blue Dragon) and if DOA4 and Blue Dragon are any indication, 360's were at least purchased with the intent to play games on them.

While this isn't necessarily an indication of what the future will hold for these systems (I still see the PS3 being #1 in Japan with the 360 being #1 in the US and Europe) it is definitely interesting...

Source: Virtua Fighter Controller Probs, Game Sells Less Than DOA4 - Ore Teki Game Sokuhou @ Katana via Kotaku

Play Fuzion Frenzy 2, win...Fuzion Frenzy 2?

By now, everyone has probably heard about Microsoft's Gamerscore "Rewards Program" in which you can earn prizes for boosting your Gamerscore 1500 points between Feberuary 12th and April 12th.

There are three tiers of prizes and what you're eligible for is based on how little a life you have how big your gamerscore is.

What's amusing is that the big reward in the Level 3 tier is a copy of what is undoubtedly Microsoft's biggest 360 sequel that came out this week: Fuzion Frenzy 2.

Aside from being a questionable carrot on a stick for those who want to be rewarded for playing games, it is also probably the single easiest game a person could use to boost their gamerscore a cool 1000 points. 300 of the game's achievements points alone are locked up in two simple achievements: Unlock All the Mini-Games and Play all the Mini-Games (which when you think about it, are really just one achievement) and the rest can be achieved in a matter of hours. Win an online custom game? 1oo points! Win an offline custom game? 50 points!

So basically, for anyone who already has a gamerscore of at least 10000 looking to win that free copy of Fuzion Frenzy 2...well, playing Fuzion Frenzy 2 is the easiest way to do it.

Fan-translated Policenauts coming...

In my post on Rondo of Blood the other day, I mentioned it as one of those legendary rare games that very few people have played. Policenauts is another one such game.

Created by Metal Gear mastermind, Hideo Kojima, it never saw release outside of Japan but was released there on the 3DO, Saturn, Playstation and PC98. The game was a spiritual successor to another excellent though underplayed Kojima title, Snatcher, that only saw an English language release on the SegaCD. Both titles were heavily story-based with the bulk of gameplay involving dialogue and puzzle solving, similar to the LucasArts adventure games of days past.

Kojima has allegedly repeatedly turned down offers to bring the game to the US so a group of fans has been working diligently over the last 5 years to translate the game's no doubt significant amount of text.

Thanks to their efforts, English speaking audiences will be able to play the Playstation version of the game for the first time...but not until the 2nd half of 2007. Damn, even fan translations apparently need to build up hype. Be aware however that while Junker-HQ will provide the translation patch, finding an actual copy or ISO of the game to patch is left up the end-user, due to the questionable legality of the whole endeavour.

Now all we need is someone to translate Love-de-lic's PSX game Moon: The Remix RPG Adventure, and I'll be good.

Source: Fan-translation of Kojima's Policenauts nears completion - Joystiq

Manhunt 2 Wii: Jack T. is gonna love this one...

When EA first announced The Godfather for Wii, images of beating people down with the remote immediately popped into my head and with Rockstar's announcement today that Manhunt 2 would be coming to the Wii, images of shoving shards of glass into people's eyes popped into my head. As with the Godfather I'm not really sure how I feel about that.


While I never played the first Manhunt, mainly because I'm not a big fan of trial and error stealth gameplay (and only partly because it was supposed to be unrelentingly brutal), it should be interesting to see how the Wii-remote is utilized by the title.

This one stands to open up a whole can of worms about the effect of violence on children even though it'll carry an M-rating. The fact that it's on Nintendo's Little White Box of Happiness makes it stand out even more since the system has been flying off the shelves no doubt in large part because of it's social/family appeal.

As it is, games already receive stricter ratings than film counterparts due to the fact that the player is participating in the action. M-rated games like Halo would likely be PG-13 movies and innocuous cartoony games like Super Smash Bros. Melee are rated T for Teen simply because characters can hit each other.

In the past we interacted with games with simple button presses and mouse clicks and that was enough to get people enraged. I can only imagine what is to come in terms of criticism for games like Manhunt 2 on Wii where the level of interaction is raised substantially.

There is a difference between pushing a button to stab someone in the face or beat them and actually mimicking the action to initiate it onscreen.

The problem is that too many people see ALL games as being for kids, hence the outcry against these types of games that kids shouldn't be playing anyway. Whether it's necessary for games to feature this level of violence is a whole other argument but I think everyone would agree that kids shouldn't be playing them regardless...

Personally I'm glad the Wii right off the bat isn't being saddled with the same publisher prejudice that Nintendo has faced since the SNES days: that Nintendo systems are for kids. It has been a self-fulfilling prophecy because the lack of adult content always turned Nintendo systems into exactly that.

It's somewhat ironic that after two generations of trying to shake that image, Nintendo finally threw its corporate hands in the air, stopped trying to compete with MS and Sony on that level and created the Wii...and now they are getting the adult content. Go figure.

Source: Rockstar on the Manhunt Again - GameSpot

Killzone 2 Demo Imminent?

1up's Luke Smith mentions in his latest blog post that Sony will not be sitting back doing nothing while Microsoft's Halo 3 beta ramps up. The current #3 in the next-gen console wars will allegedly be unleashing a playable Killzone 2 demo in the Spring to take the wind out of Halo 3's sails.

If the game actually manages to even resemble the infamous E3'05 target-rendered footage I'll be impressed. Of course, if the game doesn't support 1080i it'll look like a PS2 game on my TV, just as Resistance does.

Source: Luke Smith's 1up Blog

Dracula X: Rondo of Blood coming to PSP...

Konami announced today that the long lost Castlevania title, Dracula X: Rondo of Blood, will be coming to the US for the first time as part of the only PSP title I'm likely to buy this year: Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles.

Rondo is one of those legendary rare titles most people have never played, up there with Panzer Dragoon Saga and Radiant Silvergun. Not only did it never make it out of Japan, but even there it was on the PC-Engine Duo, the Japanese equivalent of the TurboDuo, which was actually pretty successful. The game regularly fetches upwards of $150 on eBay and even if you're willing to shell out the cash for it, you likely don't have a TurboDuo to play it on (at least it plays imports without a hitch!)

Needless to say, for Castlevania fans (especially old-school fans), this is a pretty big deal...even if it is for the PSP, a system that would envy the PC-Engine's success.

My excitement however, quickly melted as I saw the first screenshot of the game on 1up.com:












Great, the old 2d to pseudo-3d trick. Thanks? The graphics are completely devoid of any soul, with razor sharp lines on everything. It looks like a souped up Flash game! I'm all about upgrading the graphics, but cel-shading would be preferable to this. 3D doesn't belong anywhere near Castlevania (as 5 failed installments including a scrapped Dreamcast game can attest to), even if the game is still a sidescroller. In all seriousness, the game looks a lot better in motion, even though Richter's walking animation is absurd.

Thankfully Konami isn't letting us down: in addition to the "Arranged" version, Chronicles will also include the original PCE version of Rondo of Blood, as well as what will surely be the selling point for many: a port of Rondo's direct sequel, Nocturne in the Moonlight, better known in the US as Symphony of the Night, one of the greatest games ever made and arguably the finest title for the original PlayStation.

SotN will not be getting the remake attention (and seeing what Rondo looks like, be grateful), but it will feature some extra stuff and be reformatted to fill the PSP's beautiful wide screen.

If I were Konami I probably would've waited to announced this until AFTER Symphony of the Night was released on XBLA in a few short weeks, as that version, with its faux-widescreen letterboxed presentation, seems a lot less interesting now.

You can check out more screens and videos at 1up...

Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles - 1up.com

EA Publishing Mercenaries 2...

Game Informer reports that the Pandemic developed "PS3 Exclusive" is being published by everyone's favorite videogame juggernaut, Electronic Arts.

I put PS3 exclusive in quotes because this game is about as exclusive as Assassin's Creed was for all those months before it wasn't anymore. Being published by the single largest multi platform publisher on the planet (alongside Assassin's Creed publisher Ubisoft) all but insures this game will be heading to the 360.

Source: EA Picks Up Mercenaries 2 - GameInformer