I got a Gameboy Color today with Wario Land 2.  Some people don't like the GBC because t he screen is not backlit, but I think the screen is as clear as a Gameboy Pocket, so I'm OK with it.  Wario Land 2 is pretty darn fun! This is why I love platform games.

Let's take a few moments and consider Wario.  Wario is greedy, overweight, his enemies force him to drink beer to the point where he looses control of his motor functions, they force feed him until he becomes obese, sometimes even light his behind on fire.  He is not cute in any way.  Why is he so important?

For all these "negative" characteristics, it is important to note that Wario is the leading man at Nintendo right now.  He stars in the kick off title for the system which will save Nintendo's bacon in their home territory.  Nintendo has fallen to a sad third in the Next Gen wars here in Japan (oh how the mighty have fallen!).  Gameboy Color and Poket Monsters will bring up their bottom line in 99.  So why lead off with Wario? Why not Picachu?  After all, nothing sells better than cute in Japan. I think I know the answer.  In reality, Wario is the alter ego of Hiroshi Yamauchi the president of Nintendo.  In Wario Land 2, Yamauchi has his revenge for the failure of the Virtual Boy (which also had a darn good Wario game) and also gets to release all of the pent up frustration at having NCL's collective rear end kicked in a market place it practically created.

Wario & Yamauchi: Are they the same person?

October 24, 1998

Game Boy Color came and went.  It seems every store in Tokyo was sold out by lunchtime on the 21st.  Classic Nintendo marketing tricks. Clreate lots of demand, supply very little merchandise to further increase demand.  Sad to say it but I didn't get one.

Why do you collect games?  Have  you played all the games you own? Do you keep some games for "showpieces"?  What is the most money you have ever spent for a game?  Some people collect to play, some for nostalgia value, some for investment purposes.  All reasons are equally valid.  I thought about going into a long explanation of this position, but it's all been said before so I won't bother.

October 16, 1998

Economics.   Exchange rates.  Regional trade agreements. Since I moved to Japan I have become much more interested in economics.  The US Dollar's slide last week against the Yen might seem irrelevant to video games, but actually it means something.  I'm not just talking about personal relevance, but to the video game industry as a whole.

A strong Yen is bad for Japan and therefore bad for the video game industry.  A strong Yen means lower profits on sales in the US which is the largest market outside of Japan for electronic entertainment.  At the start of October, the Yen was around 140 to the Dollar, now it is hovering around 117.  If this sudden gain in strength were related to changes in economic policy or banking reform it would be understandable; however, no such events have occurred.

The sudden gain in the Yen has pushed down average prices on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.  This is partly a result of foreign investors dumping Japanese stock on the gain in the Yen and also due to the fact that analysts know that a strong Yen means lower profits and thus are calling many shares as "sell".   Lower stock prices are not generally regarded as a positive economic sign.

Japanese companies are not stupid.  Sony and CAPCOM both take advantage of the fact that goods substantially produced within NAFTA are free of tariffs when they are brought into the US.  Both Sony and CAPCOM have factories in Mexico where they can enjoy both lower labor costs and the tariff benefits mentioned above.  This helps offset "losses" which would be realized when profits are declared in Yen by the parent companies in Japan.

How does all this affect the Big 3? Even though Sony has announced lower than expected earnings on the last quarter, their overall global strategy seems sound.  

Nintendo on the other hand concentrates it's manufacturing here in Japan where production costs are relatively high and their domestic sales are in an acknowledged slump.  Perhaps not even the forthcoming release of Zelda 64 can save Nintendo's flagship system in it's home market.  Nintendo of America continues to provide much needed cash flow and the home office does have deep pockets, but it would seem that some belt tightening is in NCL's future especially considering the fact that the president of NCL has announced his forthcoming retirement.

Sega seems poised for success.  Not just on sales of the upcoming Dreamcast but also due to the fact that the Saturn continues to enjoy relatively strong sales in it's home market and the fact that Sega is diversified across several segments of the entertainment market.

On the software side, look for more mergers & consolidation in 4Q98 and throughout 1999.  Expect more deals such as the Square/EA joint venture and don't be surprised if companies like Compile (of Puyo Puyo fame) go into receivership.  

• Namco will remain strong especially since they cover all markets from the Arcade to the PSX to the upcoming Dreamcast.
• Square may be due for some contractions.  Even though the upcoming FF8 will be a guaranteed million seller at home, their overall development costs are very high and they have split off some of their resources into their Aques subdivision.  No one is quite sure if they have recouped all of their investment in production hardware and they have recently announced layoffs for the Square LA FMV team.
• Enix has learned to survive on a reduced output and domestic only sales.  Their release of Dragon Quest Monsters will prove profitable, but no one is really sure when Dragon Quest 7 for the PSX will hit the market.  All they had at the TGS was a rolling video tape.
• Capcom will continue to produce sequels which will continue to make money. Japanese and American consumers both seem to be willing to pump change into the arcade machines and snap up anything with the Capcom name on it.
• Konami looks very good going into 1999 with a string of hit titles and various other business interests all looking strong. Cross marketing of goods for titles such as Beat Mania, Tokimeki Memorial, Metal Gear Solid and others are profitable and the KCE School seems to be doing well.

Fine Print.  Anyone making investments based on information provided by this site deserves what they get.  Superfami.com is in no way responsible for you or your actions.
 

October 15, 1998 2

Some of you may know that there is an industry effort to make the sale of used games illegal here in Japan.  The courts are currently reviewing this issue, but some of you may be interested to read up on it yourselves.  I highly suggest following the links on the pages below and reading the full explanations of the issues involved.

Developers & publishers are represented by CESA (Computer Entertainment Software Association).  Retailers are represented by ARTS (Association of Retailers of TV Game Software).  Unfortunately ARTS has not translated any of their web site to English so that link is Japanese only.

CESA representatives were kind enough to meet with me a few months ago.  The basic results of the meeting were that CESA and it's member companies do not have a position about the sale of used games for systems which are out of production (MD, PCE, etc.), nor do they have a position on systems which are still in production but "new" software availability is either extremely limited (SFC, FX, NG) or nonexistent (FC), and unfortunately they do not even have a position for systems which are still in production but the games are no longer available "new".  This one might need a little explanation.  Just imagine that you are buying your first Playstation.  Your friend told you that RayMan is a cool game and you should get it.  Unfortunately, the production run on that title ended long ago and the game is no longer available new.  This is just one example, there are many titles like this for PSX, Saturn, or even the N64.

Superfami.com does not have an official position on this issue since it deals with the Japanese legal system and copyright issues which are handled very differently than corresponding issues in the US.  All I will say is that publishers and developers deserve compensation for their work, but the customer and reseller should also be considered in order to maintain the overall health of the industry.
 

October 15, 1998

I just got my video grabber working.  Why do you care? Screen shots!  I got screen shots for you.  How about we do "games that don't exist"?  Or maybe "celebrity games" that one is for Japanese games based on Japanese celebrities.  Let me just tell you now, they stink almost as much as any movie tie in ever produced by Acclaim!

While on the subject of celebrity games, I think the time is right to tell you about an interesting phenomenon in Japanese gaming/collecting which I played an unwitting part in.  This year two books came out which took the Japanese gaming world by storm.  Both of them were on the topic of "kuso-ge" which literally translated would mean "shitty games" but really has a feeling more like "boring games".  The idea is that sometimes you buy a game, and when you take it home and play it you are bored to tears.  Since you just dropped a pile of cash on this thing, you feel like you better play it and enjoy it's badness just so you can get your money's worth out of it!

Two guys decided to make a hobby out of collecting kuso-ge and eventually decided to write a book about it.  "Chou Kuso-ge" was the result, and through a weird series of events, a conversation I had with these guys ended up as a chapter in the book.  A second book published later in 1998 came out which said that kuso-ge was not a good thing, but what makes these two books different is that they were perhaps the first books to actually openly criticize the gaming industry in Japan.  How did I get to this?  One of the screen shots from the celebrity gaming page above is a game mentioned in "Chou Kuso-ge".  Considering that about 80% of the video games ever released are not really fun, maybe there should be an American equivalent to kuso-ge books.  Anyone up for writing it?

October 12, 1998 

I just cant wash the stink from my hands! That is to say, I cant seem to forget some of the really awful games from TGS.  I gotta tell you these games stank:

Battle Bug Story, Jaleco.  I like the idea of real life nature battles, but this was dull beyond belief.

Cybernetic Empire, Telenet.  a really poor knock off of RE/Tomb Raider/MGS with unimpressive graphics and poor control.

fighting game, title unknown, Konami.  Wish I had the name, but maybe it is better that I don't.  There are enough dull 3D beat 'em ups.

Another Mind, Square.  Seems to be a "cinematic, interactive romance simulation".  Maybe a mystery as well.  I'm mystified anyway.

ALL NEO GEO POCKET GAMES, SNK.  I won't lie.  They were all dull.  It was really just a question of which one was "least dull".  

October 10, 1998 

The Tokyo Game Show is this weekend. All the big game magazines were there, but I have coverage they don't!  Follow the link from the pictures page or this link for the pics.

Thanks to a friend of mine at UbiSoft I was able to go on business day instead of one of the general admission days.  TGS, unlike E3, is part industry and part public.  The game industry here wants usual people to come to the show to see what they will be able to buy in the coming months.  This is great for general consumers, but in a way it really stinks.  When I went this spring, I didn't get to see much because there were 2 hour lines just to get into some of the booths!

Those of you who keep up on the major sites know that there were two new portable systems announced at the TGS.  Bandai has the "Wonder Swan" (I thought Dreamcast was a dumb name, but this takes the cake!) and SNK introduced the Neo Geo Pocket.  If you liked the Game.com you will love these two.  The Wonder Swan has about 50 titles announced including Tekken (!?!) and seems to have some kind of digital video capability (see note on pic page). I found it to be too small and the screen was rather hard to see in the low light environment of the show floor.  The Neo Geo Pocket has about 12 titles planned but none of them seem very fun to me.  One of them is a slot machine type game where you don' t even really do anything except push the A button to roll the slots. It seems to connect to the Dreamcast system console by means of the comms slot in the back rather than by the VMS port as previously guessed (see pic).  No titles supporting any type of DC communication are announced yet.  Perhaps this will be like the GB/N64 link up for all those wonderful "monster breeding" games. 

Speaking of the Sega Dreamcast, it is all that and a bag of chips.  You know that already. The presidents of Sega of America (Bernie Stolar) and Sega Enterprises (Shouichi Iramajiri) seemed to be quite satisfied with the way they they stole the whole show.  They were kind enough to let me take their picture.  I even apologized to Bernie Stolar for some really stupid email I sent him once (see pic).  I also have some nice pics of the DC innards and early prototype DC casings.

The Sony booth mainly featured the new Pocket Station (is pocket the hot word in Japan now?) with some small space devoted to Xi and of course the Crash Bandicoot dancers (see pic).  Namco featured Ridge Racer 4 and not much else. Capcom had Street Fighter Zero 3 costumed folks and some playable Capcom Generations.  Square had demos of Ergheiz (I know I spelled it wrong) and FF8. Konami showed Silent Hill, Akumajyo Dracula 3D, Beat Mania and an interesting "musical twister" sort or arcade game (see pic).

The third section of the show was devoted to the various manufacturers shops where you could buy T shirts, posters, Zippo lighters, costumes or whatever related to your favorite games.  I liked the Pac Man Ramen and Mokujin Chocolates, was indifferent about the $800 Bio Hazard snow board and sickened by the Tokimeki Memorial costumes.  Overall it think Namco had the best selection of neat stuff.  I liked the Mishima family logo chopsticks with a chopstick rest shaped like Jin's glove.  Most of my pics from this part of the show came out really badly and only a few were even presentable.
 

October 4, 1998 

In the US, NES carts were all basically the same shape with few color variations in the casing (the gold Zelda for example).  Here in Japan, Famicom carts came in a variety of shapes and colors.  Gold carts or FDS discs were reserved for games which were given out as prizes in contests (Punch Out cart, US  Golf  disc).  This page (also available as a link from the pictures page), shows a small sampling of differently shaped and colored carts.  Shapes were often related to  the manufacturer, while colors just depended on the game.  I have shown examples from Konami, Namco, Jaleco and Nintendo.  I will expand this page as I  obtain new examples.

The Fall Tokyo Game Show is next weekend.  I will not provide full coverage since magazine sites can do a better job of that than I can, but I hopefully will do a page on items of interest.

October 1, 1998

I just got Beat Mania with the turntable controller.  I never played this in the 
arcade, so I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting into.  I played it for an hour or  two and I'm a little disappointed.  The controller's design is great, but the turntable part  is a little stiff and the plastic is a little too slick.  A felt pad would have been better.  It is worth mentioning that this game would be very hard to play w/o the turntable though.  The game itself is kinda fun, but in an arcade way which means that the home value is not so high.  Basic game play is "simon says" in that you press keys or turn the turntable to the instructions on the screen.
 

The music tracks are too short and the style of the music is not very exciting.  That could be because I'm from New York and I know what Hip Hop is supposed  to sound like.  Maybe because I'm not Japanese, I find this to be a little watered  down.  The bonus disc only has three more tracks (unless there are some hidden  ones) and they are a little more interesting than the arcade tracks, but don't stand well on their own and also suffer from being too short.

There is a "free play" option, but it just gives you the chance to keep continuing playing the same tracks or switch music.  I wish it had a real free play where you could experiment and freestyle with background music.  Maybe it has this but if so I have not found it yet.

I really don't understand why Famitsu gave Beat Mania such a high rating.  Personally, I give this one 3.5 out of 5 stars.  The .5 is for the cool controller. The official Superfami.com recommendation on this one is unless you are a die hard collector or want a quick thrill party game you should pass on importing this one.

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