Saturday, August 12, 2006

Thinking of Ghosts

A rant post if you're interested in reading (+ some gaming shit). i'll have my mizugi pic/post later today. Anyways, i've been on the fence about preordering the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Solid State Society DVD. DVD details and announcement were announced a some weeks ago and is quite tempting. The movie will be shown in September on SkyPerfect TV, its usual broadcaster. So i'll get to see whether it'll be worth owning on R2 right away. I know i'll be getting the movie eventually (being a SAC Motoko whore). However, w/ the lack of subs on such a story/dialogue driven movie that contains an unsurmountable amount of 'geeky' tech lingo (which is hard to translate), it'll be hard to swallow and watch on R2 raw unlike the other R2s i own. If you haven't heard, here's what the DVD includes: it'll be an uncool 10,290 yen (or a somewhat cool 7,718 yen at AJ right now). 5.1 DD (yeah no DTS) & 16:9 ratio (duh). First Press includes 288 page data collection book. Extras (w/ every release) include a 30 min. bonus DVD that has features like a special talking about the Laughing Man & Individual 11 story as well as interviews w/ the staff and an interview about the Nissan Car Concept. There's also a new 5 min. Tachikoma Days, Tachikoma 'making of' and a 16 page booklet. Depedending on when the R1 hits and what features will be on the R1, i'm currently leaning towards it. I'm pretty sure Manga Bandai will get all the stuff from the R2 (+ DTS) except for maybe the 288 page book. But who knows, they DID do Official Log 1 and hopefully they'll take the time to make this FP collection book available & translated. So yeah, i'll see as my November order is packed (ZHiME Zwei + old orders) as it is and w/ the Wii coming out, i'll be such a poor boy. So i preorder and push it back w/ other orders unitl if i find out the full skinny on the R1.

Some game news i'd like to mention:
'PS3' size comparison w/ Xbox 360
Final Fantasy XII Regular Edition Cover (it's nice but i already got the much better CE preordered)
Yoshi's Island 2 NA cover
Japanese can't wait to kill zombies as US version of Dead Rising is being sold at shops for 8,400 yen (about 72 USD). For those who don't know, DR JPN version comes out Sept. 28. and the game is region free.
Melty Blood: Act Cadenza is doing really well as 70k copies were shipped out and almost sold out on it's first day.
Well, i'm not a big Final Fantasy III fan (as i don't care for RPGs on portables), i had to share some of the sweet wallpapers the official JPN site put up (in the 'Downloads' section). CG shots taken from the ONLY CG movie in the game (yes it was confirmed to be the only cg movie by the director himself), which is the intro/opening.

Finally i just want to rant on how another portable fails against the Invincible Nintendo, the PSP. PSP has been getting bad raps as it's too pricy (it is) and there arent' much games that are original. LocoRoco is getting bad press from the JPN themselves. Tekken isn't doing great (maybe NB will be smart and release it on PS2 to actually profit). Doubts about the PS3 connectivity. EA says it's no fun, and when the biggest 3rd party publisher in the world says that and wants to focus on the DS, you know the system will only be second best. Hence the rumoured price drop and the fact that ZERO PSP games are in the Top software sales (monthly) in States (w/ only a couple in JPN). While i don't expect the PSP to go away as it's backed up by Sony unlike the others (ie. SNK..*sniff sniff*), Sony IS losing a lot of money as it doesn't have enough 3rd parties that are interested anymore despite the power in technology. it's an Xbox vs. the PS2 where Nintendo DS has all the support despite being inferior. The only hope that the PSP might bounce back and stay close in the race is for a Final Fantasy remake to take advantage of it (but why do that when you can remake it on current consoles or next-gen) or something close to a main FF game. Crisis Core:
FFVII may be able to do that since it's riding on the ass of a popular franchise (you KNOW Dirge is gonna do well in the states too when it's released in a few days despite it being pretty mediocre). So unless Square Enix saves them w/ CC (which i doubt will, but may bring the margin a bit closer), back off, as you can't touch Nintendo in this territory...heheh.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

damn, i'm liking this new posting style, dawg! i think your blog has become my fav to read on a daily basis, so many tidbits of news and info. thx buddy!

i'm very excited about Solid State, can't wait to see it! unfortunately, my japanese is horrible so, i would never even try and watch somelike Gits SAC in Raw. if you watch it early tho, plz give a review! =)

sucks to hear about the PSP being not popular. i personally love my DS Lite but think the PSP is cool too. Tekken DR has become one of my fav portable games, i play it on the bus, at work and before going to bed! poor Sony, the DS just has too many fun games i guess. i love watching anime and listening to MP3's on my PSP tho, and showing slideshows of photo's. its a cool toy!

p.s. Man, those PS3 vs. 360 pics have me drooling! The ps3 looks so sexy!

R8 said...

thanks for the comment. my recent posts have been getting a little too 'talkative', i'm gonna try to tone it down a bit again.

Yeah, i'll prolly watch SSS RAW when it surfaces on the internet. Wakaranai will have a better review than i could ever give when it arrives.

It's quite unfortunate for the PSP as it's got good anime games which i like it but as always, it comes down to the developers support.

yeah, i can't believe that ps3 was made out of wood. you should check out the wii vs. ps3 commercial that's been floating on youtube. a great copy of the mac vs. ibm commercials.