New Column: So That's Why...

Going by the history of this site, you'd probably expect (with good reason to) this column to be recurring for a week or so and then die off and never be heard from again. I will be doing my best to keep that from happening to this one.

Now, as for what the whole point of this. The point of "So That's Why..." is to explain some of the purpose of some of the more confusing things that this site covers. This week, I'll be explaining the reasoning behind Region Locking (with a little bit about Japanese Bonus Tracks).

Region locking - the annoying thing that keeps us from importing games (among other things), becoming an Otaku's major enemy, but also keeps us from playing games we buy somewhere else. Say I travel out to Germany, and while I'm out there, I see a great deal on Batman: Arkham Asylum and decide to buy it. When I try and play it back at home, it won't work.

In the old days, most TVs could only read the PAL or NTSC encoding systems, so companies would have to make separate versions for the different encoding systems.

Today, most TVs can read both. So that leaves many wondering why we still have Region Locking if there's no technical rational behind it. The cause for Region Locking is to keep people from buying cheaper games somewhere else. If there were no Region Locking, there would have to be one universal price for a certain game, which would not work.

One scenario is: The Halo franchise is infamous for selling pretty lukewarm in Japan. So, if there were no Region Locking, a few clever people would simply import Halo 3 from Japan where it would have a bargain bin price.

Because it kinda fits in with Region Locking, I'll explain the reason for Japanese Bonus Tracks.

Some of us may notice on "special addition" albums of our favorite musical artists we occasionally see a "Japanese Bonus Track". See, CDs have no real Region Locking on them and CDs in Japan tend to be a bit more expensive then other places. The bonus track is there as incentive to keep Japanese people from simply importing cheaper CDs from elsewhere.

Yeah, We're Doing These Too....

It appears that one of the members of the Gentlemen and Hand Grenades team (Vic) has made one of those TF2 Dubs.

The TF2 dub is of the Japanese film, Battle Royal, where a bunch of high school students are put on an island and forced to fight until only one remains. So think of it as like a cross between Manhunt and Lord of the Flies.

I might make one too, come to think of it.

Enjoy.

Ok Fine, One More For The Road

I know I said that I would be going today (and I still am), but I'm having some problems sleeping right now. See, I fell asleep around midnight. When I awoke, I begin having thoughts of "Well, time to finish packing" and "Time to make myself some breakfast". About that moment, I decide to see what time it was and looked at my clock (which is about 20 min slow because of a power outage) and see something I did not expect: 2:00 am.

"%@#$%!", I exclaim. It appears that I was only asleep for no more than two hours. I tried going back to sleep, but I eventually gave up as the thing that keeps me awake more than anything is sleep itself.

Out of boredom I begin browsing the internet, checking my email, facebook and the such. During my browsing, I come upon and article from Kotaku (and yes, one of my goals is to diversify my gaming news sites) about something I wrote of not too long ago.

It appears that the IRL Gundam built in Japan has also taken a step into the virtual world as well. To celebrate the 30th anneversery of the Gundam franchise, a virtual replica of the Gundam statue will be added to PS3 Home from today until July 23rd.

Hey I'll get to play Left 4 Dead 2 at Comic Con...

(Story originaly from Inside-Games.Jp, Via Kotaku)

Nintendo releases Movie Service

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, that's right: Nintendo has released a Movie On-Demand service kinda like what the PS3 and Xbox 360 have... only in Japan though.

Is it me, or do the Japanese sometimes just do this to torment us? Not only do they get Japan-exclusive games, but now only they get cool stuff like this too. I can just imagine Satoru Iwata rolling around in his big pile of money, laughing at all of us.

Or, they could just be using Japan as a test market for all of this.

If it does come to America, it could mean the beginning of Nintendo trying to catch up to Microsoft and Sony. And if doesn't, it could just be the Japanese keeping all the good stuff for themselves again.

(IGN.com)

So that's what Japan's been doing

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Gundam franchise, a life-size Mobile Suit in Japan's Shiokaze Park. Oddly enough, it'll only be up for two months. One would think that with all that effort to build it, it'd be up for longer than that. Must be a Japanese thing.

Sadly, the only parts of the Mobile Suit that moves is the head, along with little mists that come out from various parts. I for one, would have loved to see a real, fully-functional giant robot. It'd sure show North Korea who's boss, that's for sure.

(From DannyChoo.com)