Japan Gaming Guide

Bungie won themselves a few Japanese achievement points this week as Halo 3 took the top spot in Japan’s weekly sales chart. That’s good news to Microsoft, who saw a jump in Xbox 360 sales as well.

Here’s the top 5 selling games:

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So you made it to Japan, but it’s a big place. Where to go? What to do? You could spend your time visiting tourist spots and visiting cultural sites, but hey, you’re a gamer. You want more than that. You want to see the beating heart of Japan’s game culture with your own two eyes. Here’s our guide:

Akihabara

The gamers’ Mecca has diversified in recent years, it’s no longer the exclusive preserve of Otaku, but this is still the place to come to find huge arcades, buy retro rarities and oggle cosplayers. Akihabara has more game shops than the average city – walking its streets is nothing short of a gamers paradise. You’ll also find robots, maid cafes and many other quirky wonders hidden in its streets.

Kyoto – Nintendo

The serious gaming pilgrim will want to head to the outskirts of Kyoto to find the headquarters of Nintendo. So much of gaming’s history was created inside this building that you’ll probably want to gaze in awe for several minutes before trying and failing to get let in. For the ultimate in gaming kudos you’ll want to stage a 24 hour vigil outside wearing a Mario costume and refusing to leave until you get Miyamoto san’s autograph. Please send us the pictures if you do this.

Osaka Super Potato

Den Den Town is Osaka’s equivalent of Akihabara. It’s a whole load of electronic and gaming stores all in one place. It’s not as big or as diverse as it’s Tokyo twin but if there was an award for the best individual game store in Japan, it would probably go to Osaka Super Potato. The place is chock full of retro goodies – consoles of yesteryear are piled high on the shelves; games fill the walls like books in some medieval wizard’s library. And the sound – oh the sound! Classic gaming jingles will assail your ears from every direction. Don’t forget your credit card either – you’re sure to find something to tempt you among the stores many gaming rarities.

While you’re in the area, try to check out Retro TV Game revival, which carries a lot of older retro titles, as well as lots of signed games and memorabilia.

Tokyo Game Show

This one pretty much goes without saying – that’s why you’re here, right? Despite Nintendo’s absence, this is still the place to go to see Japanese game culture in all it’s full-on glory. The latest and greatest from nearly all of Japan’s finest game creators will be on show here. There’ll be more games than you can shake a stick at, and some of the most creative cosplayers around will be strutting their stuff.

JJ Club 100

These places are all over Japan and are completely and utterly fantastic. Luckily there isn’t one to close to us here at JGG, because if there was, we’d probably be in it at least, ooh 9 hours a day. Imagine 6 floors of entertainment. Bowling alleys, pool tables, table tennis, DVDs. Sound good? Now add an entire floor of arcade machines on free play, and another floor of private booths with the latest game consoles and a library of games to choose from. $4 an hour. We’d live there if they’d let us.

Yodobashi Camera

Akihabara and Den Den Town are great for those quirky titles and rarities. Yodobashi Camera is the other end of the scale. They’re superstores with huge game sections. If you see pictures in the gaming press lots of Japanese people queuing for the latest console release, this is usually where they’re taken. If you want a one stop gaming fix then here is the place to get it. All the current releases will be here, along with a huge selection of peripherals, gaming literature and gaming odds & ends.

Japan Gaming Guide

Yes, we’re here, if you know where to find us. But seriously, stay away from our bins.

The recent global trend for restricting software sales has finally arrived in Japan. The Osaka prefectural government has decided to prevent minors from buying ‘cruel and violent’ games. The regional government have previously banned just two games, including Postal 2. It seems other titles are soon to follow. Witch-touching games will probably be unaffected, but don’t expect to see Manhunt 2 on shelves anytime soon.

At the moment the ban is only at regional level (in Osaka), the rest of Japan is still the same as ever. Whether this kind of law will spread to other areas, or even be implemented at national level remains to be seen.

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The PAX ’07 Show is in full swing in Germany at the moment. As well as the usual games and booth babes, there have also been some interesting panel discussions on various gaming topics. The Culture of Japanese Gaming Panel Discussion covered a number of things including game adverts in Japan, the arcade scene and different attitudes to gaming in industry and society. Videogamesblogger have an interesting write up of the event.

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Japanese mothers, in their infinite wisdom like to make sure their little terrors are well fed. That doesn’t mean well fed in the extra large super wopper cheeseburger sense, but in the wholesome goodness, nutrients and vitamins sense.

But recently, they’ve been faced with a problem. Children are so engrossed in their gaming systems that they don’t  have time to eat anything that has to be chewed more than twice, so those ingenious mothers needed a new hook. This is what they came up with:

With a seaweed exterior and filled with delicious rice, this PS controller will stop rumbling faster than a sixaxis lawsuit. Like the Sony marketing department, the controller is surrounded by vegetables. Available for a mere $499, or $599 with fried prawns.

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Want to work in the Japanese game development industry? So do lots of people. A game development job in Japan is something lots of people might want, but not many people know how to achieve. GamaSutra recently posted the first of two articles on Game Development in Japan. The article is a great start for anyone thinking of making the leap.  JC Barnet talks about the practicalities of moving to a new country, and gives a few cultural pointers that could make the difference between getting your dream job or not. Check it out.

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Hudson are going on a tour of Japan, and they’re taking their caravan with them. The caravan will be stopping at major Japanese cities from July until September. If you’re lucky enough to catch one of their stops you can buy limited edition goodies, and get your hands on Otodamaster, a game for DS and cellphones.

[Read, via Kotaku]

We found this great coin catcher in Osaka’s Namco City arcade. Donkey Kong Banana Beat features a coin dropper with swinging bananas sweeping the coins left and right, making it a bit more challenging than usual. There’s also the usual Pachinko style screen in the background, where you can win bonus coins and special play modes.

Japanese arcades are really family-friendly, you get a complete mix of people in there. There’s a much broader spread of ages and genders than you find in American and European arcades. Kids, couples, shoppers taking a break.

As well as these kind of machines you also get full on multi-player areas – sometimes you’ll see a soccer game with 12 different seats. Each seat has its own screen, and there’s a giant screen in the centre which everyone can see.

For now though, we’re content to plough our money into Donkey Kong, in the hope of one day getting out more than we put in.

Anything on tonight? If you own a game console you probably don’t care. It’s not as if you’ll be bored with all those games to play is it? What would you be doing with the time you spend gaming if you didn’t have a console? Writing that novel? Finishing your homework? If you’re honest, the chances are you’d be watching TV.

Now imagine you’re a TV executive. Your ratings are your lifeblood. As gaming expands your ratings drop and drop until.. ..you get cancelled.

Not a good scenario. So Japanese TV execs are pretty livid about the success of the Wii. Last week not one Japanese TV company was able to get a decent bite of market share – and they are laying the blame at Nintendo’s feet. The time people spend playing together as a family, is time they aren’t spending staring at a box, being spoon-fed trivia and advertisements for questionable products.

This got us thinking. We’ve been seeing a lot of anti-game coverage in the media recently. Is this simply regular journalism, or are these people feeling a little bit threatened by gaming’s rise as a medium?

TV viewing figures are dropping, magazine sales are falling, and nobody is going to church any more. Maybe they’re all just a bit jealous of the games industry. Time to activate smug mode; at least until 3D-Virtua TV arrives and renders the industry obsolete.

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Xbox 360 users went head to head with PC gamers at a recent event held by Microsoft in Japan. The event, held at Microsoft head office, gave 200 people the chance to try out the latest games for 360 and Windows Vista.

The highlight of the event was the 16 player Shadowrun game, pitting 360 players against their PC counterparts. Famitsu is curiously quiet on who won the event – we think that gamers using keyboards and mice would have a natural advantage, but they’re not telling us either way.

GT driver Takeshi Tsuchiya was there to give advice on Forza Motorsport 2, and the Japanese Pac Man CE champion turned up as well.

Other games on show at the event included Test Drive Unlimited, Flight Simulator X and Viva Pinata.

It’s nice to see that Microsoft is still making an effort in Japan, there seems to have been a minor burst of interest in the 360 recently. Who knows, it might even start selling.

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