Silly Rabbit, Sega Is A Japanese Company!

You know what, I'm suffering from severe writer's block right now but this I must say.

I think that many of us (myself included) occasionally forget that Sega is a Japanese company and thus Sega will cater to Japan first and foremost.

Let's face it--Sega has no respect in the West anymore outside of a few nostalgia diehards like you and I.  With the exception of Sonic, none of their games really get any leverage outside of Japan.  You heard that Binary Domain You Guys, a game that has aspects specifically meant to appeal to the West, only sold 20K copies in North America in the first month?  Compared to Mass Effect 3's 1.3 mil copies in the same region/time frame?  Blame Sega of America marketing or the poor gamer response, that's absolute crap.

That's just one reason why Sega never develops games for the West anymore.  Sega of America plays Publisher which seems to be perfectly okay as they make a buck publishing titles like Aliens or Total War--games that are "okay" by default gaming standards but don't really fit the zany Sega mold that you and I grew up with.  Well, with the decline of the Dreamcast and US arcades, no kidding that Sega of America/Europe took a massive tumble.

Then there's Sega of Japan.  Take the time to read SegaShiro every once in a while.  Oh man, do you know what things Sega Corporation are up to in Japan?  Oh man, Sega's games are so much more successful over there.  Sonic, Binary Domain, Yakuza, Virtua Fighter, ARCADES ARE STILL KICKING!  Sega also makes toys, amusement parks, pachinko machines (by Satomi-San's orders), urinal games, SUPERMODELS AND HOSTESSES!!!

Oh, Lord help us.

BUT I WANT IT!!!

And obviously, on the heels of Sega's absolute failures in the West, they pull back.  No surprise, huh.  No Dreamcast, arcades are a foregone conclusion, we're obsessed with Halo and Mass Effect, so why should Sega go all-out trying to appeal to us Westeners?  Sometimes, people get mad and decry Sega when they spend all this effort on a Rhythm Thief or Hatsune Miku game.  "What is Sega thinking???" we say.  "私はとても幸せ!! このゲームは素晴らしいです!!", they say.  So unfortunately, English-speaking brethren, we're not Sega's main target anymore.  Time we get used to it.

So I don't think Sega is going to "die" any time soon but they have lost a ton of ground in the West--consoles and arcades (such as Gameworks) included.  They're this Japanese behemoth (like Godzilla) that encompasses way more than making a few lousy racing games which is a bit overwhelming from a itty bitty little game programmer like myself.  I just wish Sega was still around here in the US cause frankly, I'm getting tired of these downward trends in US games...this move towards gritty M-rated titles, drinking the Red Bulls while screaming at little kids on Xbox Live, watching big companies like EA, Microsoft, and Activision pick-pocket us with cheap DLC and other garbage, what a joke.  Even Japanese companies like Sony and Capcom are joining in on this as well.

Compared to here, it's the Super Terrific Happy Hour all the time over there at Sega!!!  Maybe not but come on man, you can't get any lower than publisher-happy Sega of America with Mike "18-24 Dreamcast ports" Hayes.

I should mention although I'm a patriotic American, I'm going to check out Japan someday--they have a different "attitude" towards game design, it seems.  In the West, when you make a game, the immediate thought process is "How much money can I make out of this?"  In the East...their games are much more unorthodox, more "fun," the grass looks greener so I gotta see what's going on over there (EDIT: Only exceptions are now Scumbag Sony and Crapcom).  Dammit, if only ONE Western racing dev could go over there, get a test sample of what's going on, and bring it back.  Why do we have to settle either for racing sims (Forza, iRacing) or total crap (Burnout, Split/Second)???

TLDR: When I talk of "saving Sega," I suppose it's more oriented towards the West (obviously).  But we have to go East to help the West.  私は日本語を学ぶ必要がある!!!

FYI, America brings baseball to Japan and Sega gives America the best NASCAR game ever.  Fair deal.

Binary Domain Vs. Mass Effect

Well as a few of you know, a little game called Mass Effect 3 came out recently and every single person at school is talking about it.  Can't get enough of it.  Game already sold 3.5 million copies and may break 5 mil someday.  That's pretty cool, I guess.

And then there's Binary Domain.

Oh sh--it's a guy from Mass Effe--no, it's just some Binary Domain dude.

This is the part of the post where I become very cynical and bash anything popular so I'll get it out of the way now: MASS EFFECT 3 SUCKS, BINARY DOMAIN IS BETTER.  DON'T GIVE YOUR MONEY TO EA, GIVE IT TO SEGA.  As usual, I'm going to paint this as a "Sega vs. the World" scenario with the World winning 51810 to 2 (those 2 points when OutRun and Daytona USA were released, respectively).  And then I'll say even more snarky things that'll make me less popular among my peers.

EDIT: No really, Mass Effect is a good game and I don't gnash my teeth every night in seething rage against EA.  So don't plot against me behind my back.

Now, as you may have seen, Mass Effect has much greater reviews than Binary Domain--a 93% average vs. a 78% average.  I cannot debate the quality of both games.  But I'll tell you what I think of Binary Domain anyway while I make pithy remarks about Mass Effect.  Come on, Mass Effect is the bee's knees, if I can't laugh at it, then that's garbage.

I know that I got on Binary Domain's case in the past because it's not a racing game.  Well, it's Nagoshi's baby so we got to support it anyway.  We need a Sega surge and we need it now.  Love or hate Sega, we have to get their backs.  Let everyone else know about Binary Domain.  At least download the demo and try it.

So anyway, the first thing that really bugs me about this is that it's released one day from Mass Effect 3, a 3+ million seller that is awfully similar in nature--a sci-fi tactical third-person shooter with a middle-aged white protagonist.  The Golden Rule of Game Publishing: DO NOT RELEASE YOUR MINUSCULE GAME NEAR THE RELEASE OF A LARGE BLOCKBUSTER, ESPECIALLY ONE SIMILAR IN NATURE/GAMEPLAY.  WHAT WAS SEGA THINKING HERE!?!?!?  It's as if they wanted to brush the game under the rug as soon as possible.

GameFAQs boards in terms of topic pages--
Mass Effect 3: 1134 (360), 110 (PS3), 146 (PC)
vs.
Binary Domain: 9 (360), 13 (PS3)

The Sega Hype Train IS ROLLIN' ALONG!!!

Also doesn't help I saw little to no advertising for this game at all.  All I saw were a few barely viral YouTube videos and some Sega blog posts announcing "hay gaiz, go buy binary domane nao!!!"  Meanwhile the EA advertising machine was in full effect, completely drowning out any Binary Domain stuff.  It's as if Sega knew the game had no chance of cracking 100K units in the West so they focused entirely on Japan.  What a damn shame.  Sega has no clout anymore in the US.

It really is a shame because if you look at Binary Domain, there's a lot of good things going for it.  Mainly, a lot of people are really talking up the single-player campaign.  A sleeper hit, they say.  It's only about 9 hours long but it's just good fun shooting the crap out of robots.  The only glaring weakness is that Binary Domain's multiplayer isn't that good--there's co-op and deathmatch stuff which reminds of Metal Gear Solid online but it's clunky/generic, they say.  Losers.



But the thing that bugs me the most about the game is that it's clearly not an American game.  It's Japanese.  Just being an Eastern game gives it the stigma that it needs to be completely novel and/or part of some well-grounded franchise like Nintendo or Capcom.  Binary Domain tries something new even though Nagoshi/Sega knew damn well that it would look like Gears of War, Halo, Mass Effect, what have you.  And for that (plus poor advertising), the game will most likely resign to the bargain bins within a month.  On the other hand, Western games usually iterate on the same crap over and over again and are lauded for it.

Really, it's a DAMN SHAME since I admit the whole robot/human concept is kind of cool.  You don't see much of that in games.  As humanity must come to grips with a foe that looks just like them and learn to overcome their horrible mistakes.  Yeah, robots are really hokey but the story has a mature tone to it that I think older, "robo-fanatics" would get.

On the other hand, in Mass Effect, you decide with alien race you want to sleep with.  Seriously, I'm not a homophobe but what's with all the gay romance scenes I'm hearing?  We talkin just kisses or full blown romance?  Does Bioware need to keep up with the times that badly?  And who the hell turns on these kind of games for the sake of watching these things?  Hell, I'm not even in the mood for watching the straight makeout scenes either (I'm not one of those porno guys, trust me...).  I play games to have fun, not to get my kicks, if you know what I mean.

EDIT: Never mind guys, that was uncalled for.  There's much more to the game than just romance.  The storyline was insightful across the trilogy with themes like sacrifice, free will, unity, and so forth.  I even heard the ending was super-good too.  Bioware deserves props for that ending.



Mass Effect???  More like ASS EFFECT!!!  Hell, if you want to pay EA an extra ten bucks so they can chance ONE line of code for you, then be my guest.  Also, people petitioning to change the lousy ending are basically begging for more DLC/add-ons...see what Good Guy Jeff Gerstmann said.  Hey, it ain't my game EA, so if you want to ruin it and still sell the 1 billion units, then go ahead...

For the record, I think Binary Domain actually has an ending.  If I get the chance to play the demo then I'll let you know about it.  Not as good as a racing game but...I'll give it a shot.  Emphasis on the word "eventually."

If you don't play my game, I will cry!!!

Report: History & Corporate Culture Of SEGA

Hey kids, I decided not to post on the 18th to protest SOPA...lol, not really, I just was too tired to post again.

I wrote a 7-page "case studies" for school.  Most of this you may know but here's the history of Sega for you.  Hope nothing's factually incorrect.  Just a nice read I suppose.

HISTORY & CORPORATE CULTURE OF SEGA

To this day, Sega stands out as one of the truly unique game publishers of our time. From producing some of the hallmark titles of our time to their lowest points, there is always something unique to the corporation. Unlike other “picture-perfect” companies like Nintendo and Microsoft, Sega paved the way with unprecedented hardware and quirky titles at the cost of miserable failures. With headquarters in San Francisco, Tokyo, and Brentford (UK), Sega’s culture throughout the decades still stands and is very much applicable in business today.

Sega was initially founded in 1940 as a small company in Honolulu, Hawaii. In 1951, it was moved to Tokyo and was given the name “Service Games.” The company distributed coin-operated devices such as jukeboxes and slot machines throughout Japan. Later it became involved in actual arcade development: Periscope, a 1966 submarine simulator, was the world’s first 25-cent arcade game. Eventually, in 1984, multibillion Japanese conglomerate CSK bought Sega and then the rest is history: a lavish history of arcade machines, home consoles, famous mascots, and a bad attitude.

In the mid 80’s, Sega had already released two home consoles: the SG-1000 and the Master System. While both paled in comparison to the NES in terms of popularity, it was Sega’s arcade division that truly made a splash. Back then, Sega of Japan hired a gentleman by the name of Yu Suzuki. Often dubbed as Sega’s answer to Shigeru Miyamoto, he was multitalented in terms of production and programming. After his first game Champion Boxing (1983), Sega granted him the opportunity to create his own game. Based on his experience with fast cars and bikes, Suzuki formed his own subsidiary of Sega (AM2) to produce Hang-On (1984), a motorbike arcade game which utilized parallax scrolling and a tilting bike cabinet. This game was wildly successful which led to create OutRun, After Burner, and Space Harrier, three games which used the same graphics engine and style. The uplifting music and vibrant colors set the tone for Sega from the start.

Suzuki’s endeavors would continue into the 90’s. Using his expertise in hardware design and in collaboration with General Electric Aerospace (later known as Lockheed Marin), his AM2 team crafted the “Model 1” hardware board which was primarily used in Virtua Fighter (1993) and Virtua Racing (1992), the first apparent fighting and racing games of the time. Suzuki’s serious tone to games would later continue into in the future and paved the way for Sega’s arcade dominance and design philosophy for some time.

Sega of Japan’s stroke of good fortune didn’t end with Suzuki. In 1991, programming assistant Yuji Naka was given the opportunity to program Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis. Sega’s tendency to reward programmers with their own games proved to be a huge hit as the Sonic character has become synonymous with Sega itself. The gracious Yuji Naka became the head of Sega’s Sonic Team subsidiary. Sonic the Hedgehog’s contrast to Super Mario of Nintendo fame would later reflect the two cultures of both clashing corporations.

Sega’s image was bolstered in the form of in-house competition. A great instance of this is the “war” between Toshihiro Nagoshi and Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Each recruited the assistance of Sega’s subsidiaries—Nagoshi to AM2, Mizugushi to AM3—to create their own arcade racing games. Nagoshi headed up Daytona USA (1994) while Mizugushi headed up Sega Rally (1995). At the time, Sega faced rival competition from other arcade developers such as Namco (Ridge Racer) and Midway (Cruis’n series). Neither game seemed to faze these two as they were interested in making games for the specific purpose of outdoing one another. With Suzuki as a mediator, it’s no surprise that both AM2 and AM3 arcade games from this period were some of the most critically acclaimed of all time thanks to this dichotomy.

Meanwhile, Sega of America’s campaign was in full swing, beginning with the Sega Genesis. While SoJ took a more serious approach to game design, SoA was much more laid-back and unorthodox. Developers of all types attended meetings vociferous and boorish, throwing out tons of ideas as mediators took notes. Anything was fair game for them. Needless to say, Sega became the “bad boy” of the gaming world as they tried to take out their rival, Nintendo.

Sega reached out with an edgy irreverence that captivated the 18+ year bracket. Campaign ads were launched with phrases like “Sega does what Nintendon’t” and the trademark “Sega Scream.” Even one infamous commercial boasted the Genesis’ “Blast Processing” power which was a completely made-up term for the sake of advertising. The Genesis was inundated with anticipated titles/sequels like Streets of Rage, ToeJam & Earl, and Sonic the Hedgehog which paled in comparison with Nintendo’s “clean” games like Mario or Zelda. To add to its edginess, Sega was more lenient on mature content as the Genesis version of Mortal Kombat featured more gore than the Super Nintendo version. Also, Sega recruited Michael Jackson to help design some of their games (Sonic 3, Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker). The “cool” image stuck with Sega as focus groups proved that teenagers who owned Super Nintendo consoles were generally afraid to admit it.

However, Sega’s eagerness to produce a greater quantity of content (over quality) proved to be their Achilles heel. This began with their console development on the Sega CD (1992), and the Sega 32X (1994). Originally intended to be their own stand-alone devices, hardware developers simply produced them as add-ons to the existing Genesis console. Savvy gamers are usually aware that the games for said devices were abysmal. The Sega CD was originally sold at $299 and consisted of a library of mostly movie-based games such as Night Trap. The Sega 32X costs only $159 at release but didn’t fare much better. Both consoles were difficult and not worthwhile to develop for. While Nintendo wasn’t immune from mistakes (Virtual Boy), Sega’s mindset was clearly to cover up any flaws with slick advertising. Nintendo’s steady lead over Sega continued.

Sega’s eccentric behavior carried over to other companies. Around this time, Sega was looking for companies to merge or buy out. They even set their sights as high as Electronic Arts or Disney (very unlikely). Eventually, in 1997, they nearly agreed to a merger with Bandai (Power Rangers, Digimon, etc.). Weeks before the merger, Bandai backed out of the agreement, citing cultural differences that could obfuscate their productivity. Later, Bandai would merge with Namco. It appears Sega never got along with anybody, even those they tried to become partners with.

The Sega Saturn (1994) was a huge improvement over the Sega CD and 32X as it rivaled the Sony Playstation in terms of capabilities. Fictional Judo master Segata Sanshiro served as the console’s mascot in Japanese commercials, training with a giant Saturn console, throwing people causing them to explode, and beating up people (including kids) who refused to play the console. These edgy commercials were not aired in the United States, which further proves Sega’s “in-your-face” mentality. Yu Suzuki and the AM2 team were called on to help craft the hardware which paved the way for a new series of successful Virtua Fighter games. Virtua Fighter 2, in particular, was sold at a ratio of 1:1 with the Saturn console itself.

Later, Yu Suzuki would attempt to create his magnum opus, Shenmue (1999), a luscious open-world game following the adventures of a young man trying to solve the death of his father. It was developed the Saturn before it was ported to the Dreamcast years later. The development cost of both Shenmue 1 and 2 was in the range of $70 million dollars. While the Shenmue series was critically acclaimed for having that Sega “mystique,” it was the beginning of the end of Sega’s glory days.

In 1998, Sega thoroughly planned the release of the Sega Dreamcast in coordination with Microsoft. Heralded as Sega’s “most glorious moment,” the console boasted arcade-equivalent graphics and colorful new IP’s, such as Jet Grind Radio, Space Channel 5, NiGHTS Into Dreams, Power Stone, Phantasy Star Online, Skies of Arcadia, House of the Dead, Super Monkey Ball, Crazy Taxi, ChuChu Rocket, Ferrari F355 Challenge (Suzuki owns his own Ferraris), Seaman, and even the titular Sonic Adventure (Sonic’s first fully 3D foray). It also featured SegaNet, an online browser/gaming service powered by a 56K modem.

However, things would quickly turn for the worse for the Dreamcast. The upcoming Playstation 2 console by Sony was graphically superior and also featured a DVD player. Bernie Stolar, President of Sega of America from 1997 to 1999, collaborated with Sega to develop the Dreamcast but noted that several hardware failures and a higher price ($199 vs $249) could cause the device to fail. He also barred RPGs and 2D games from the Dreamcast since he thought they were too “nerdy.” He also bullied Namco into releasing Tekken games for the Dreamcast alone.  His predictions were correct but he was fired before the damage could be done. The Dreamcast was riddled with piracy and a poor development environment. Companies such as Electronic Arts backed out of working on the Dreamcast with the PS2 on the horizon.

The Dreamcast sold poorly in Japan and in Europe. Sega’s last-ditch effort was to provide American marketer Peter Moore with $500 million to advertise in the US. 2000 was dubbed the “Year of the Dreamcast.” Although the console became a cult classic, it wasn’t enough to bear the onslaught by the PS2. Sega permitted exclusive IPs to be published on other consoles. The Dreamcast ceased production in 2002. 10.6 million units were sold worldwide as of then.

To emphasize the Dreamcast’s failure, Sega lost from 1998 to 2002 a grand total of $1.5 billion (2002 inflation). To rub salt on the wound, Suzuki’s Shenmue series sold poorly and thus Sega “demoted” him in traditional Japanese business fashion. Sega managed to survive because of one of the greatest altruistic moves in gaming: CSK chairman Isao Okawa donated $695 million to Sega after his death in 2002. Though Sega lives, they’ve now been regulated to a mediocre third-party developer.

What led to Sega’s downfall over the previous decade? One of Sega’s ultimate strengths was in its hardware development. From Sega’s stellar arcade boards and cabinets from the 80’s-90’s to its striking home consoles, they were able to instill that unique culture through that medium. However, with the decline in arcades and the third-party transition, Sega lost a huge advantage over the competition. As a signal of change, Sega’s trademark indoor theme parks dubbed “Gameworks” began closing up across the world. The only explanation was that Sega, as a whole, was ambitious and willing to take risks and come up with completely unorthodox ideas, hence why the Dreamcast has such a stellar library despite the huge losses involved.

However, starting with their lackluster home consoles such as the Sega CD, Sega never really thought things through. This permeated through their corporate culture as they were forced to step back and re-evaluate the situation, only creating new hardware for arcade titles. Such quality, yet scarce titles such as OutRun 2 (2004), Ghost Squad (2004), After Burner Climax (2006), and Virtua Fighter 5 (2006) are attributed primarily to Suzuki’s AM2 team, widely considered to be the last true “gem” of Sega game development.

Things only became marginally better for Sega entering the 21st century. Sega was seeking mergers with various candidates, such as Nintendo, Microsoft, and Electronic Arts. In 2004, Sega agreed to a $1.45 billion deal in a merge with Sammy, a company heavily involved in manufacturing pachinko machines. Sammy’s CEO, Hajime Satomi, is rumored to be involved with the Yakuza and Sega-Sammy is used in his money laundering operations. Regardless of whether the rumors are true, Sega continued to wallow in the mire for years to come.

While Sega managed to earn meager profits throughout the mid 00’s thanks to their steady line of pachinko machines, very little good came out of it. Sega’s hallmark Sonic the Hedgehog series took a huge dive. Games like Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic 2006, and Sonic and the Black Knight are considered abysmal even by typical video game standards, despite the fact the games managed to sell well. The situation became so bad that Sega of America President Mike Hayes had to assure the public that Sonic Team would hasten the production of new Sonic titles. To make matters worse, major Sega players such as Yu Suzuki, Yuji Naka, and Tetsuya Mizuguchi left the company to open their own studios.

While Sega may be developing few hallmark titles on their own, they’re seeing modest improvements entering the 2010 year. Mike Hayes has placed a specific emphasis on downloadable content and fresh new IP’s, stating that the profits from smaller, cheaper games can eclipse that of full-production titles. Classic arcade, Genesis, and Dreamcast games have been ported to modern online downloadable services such as Xbox Live and Steam, introducing old games to nostalgic gamers and new gamers alike. Sega has managed to publish some solid titles such as Bayonetta, Total War, The Conduit, Alpha Protocol, and Renegade Ops. They’ve also enlisted on the help from other studios such as Dimps and Sumo Digital to help create more quality Sega-related titles. Also, Sega still continues to produce some quality in-house titles, such as Yakuza and better quality Sonic the Hedgehog games.

Sega has adapted to the post-Dreamcast fallout with modest success. It is only natural that the market changes over time and Sega’s stubborn ways led to their downfall. However, they’ve held dear to their quirky nature since the very beginning. The fanbase still rallies around Sega, promoting new Sonic games on their own and creating fan content such as emulators of abandoned Sega arcade games. Even the eccentric Toshihiro Nagoshi, producer for Daytona USA, Super Monkey Ball, and Yakuza, proclaims that he will work for Sega for his entire career. All the meanwhile, Yu Suzuki and Yuji Naka continue to “supervise” at Sega.

Things can only get better for Sega from here. Once you’ve reached rock bottom, the only place to go from there is up.

Sega Can't Scrub Away SOPA

Now we all know this SOPA bill has been around for a long time yet it just won't die.  Hey, I've talked about it six months ago.  Basically, every single gamer hates it (the day a gamer likes it is the day Sega makes the Dreamcast 2) while the companies themselves are lukewarm to the idea.  And the fact that we have other pressing issues in the United States like our national debt, massive spending, massive unemployment, the healthcare debacle, illegal immigration, expanding size of government & regulations, our national debt, the disastrous housing market, energy independence (or lack thereof), our dwindling military, and our national debt, you'd think SOPA is a drop in the bucket.  But whatever, let's deal with it because this can be disastrous if it passes.

Here's a funny story pertaining to the bill that's generated some controvery and I want to address it.  There's some website that's been sending mass e-mails to all game companies requesting their stance on SOPA.  Some companies replied while some have not.  Sega replied to the e-mail...with an automated message that doesn't pertain to the question in the least (perform a "hard reset").  This set up for a funny Internet joke at the time.  Sega's inbox searches for keywords in its e-mails and sometimes sends an appropriate reply in order to save the Q&A crew some time.  But apparently, the story got around the Internet so much that Sega themselves replied to it.  With a video:



"I used to be Nintendo's rival company, until I took a hard reset." - YouTube comment.

Yes, it's a hokey video and some do hate it.  This is when the Sega haters come out the woodwork to take pot-shots at them.  For one thing, they never mentioned if they support SOPA or not.  Like they know they're "busted"--they don't want to lie but they don't want to admit they support the bill so here's a "non-answer."  But are we really going to find out if they support it?  These are just some guys working on the ground level who are just responding to Internet trends.  Do you think the suits at the top will find out and give their opinions on the issue?  Probably not.  But I REALLY would like to know Sega's stance on this.

Then again, we know that Nintendo, Sony, Electronic Arts, and Capcom have been flirting with the bill but have pulled support due to peer pressure so does it really matter if Sega supports it?  Who really cares what Sega thinks anyway??  Do they have that much clout in anything anymore?  I don't know...judging from Sega's cease-and-desist demands in a couple of things (Sonic advice YTMND's, Streets of Rage remake), I think they'd be somewhat for the bill.

Man, screw the bill.  I'm all for stopping illegal piracy (well duh, that's why it's illegal), but this whole streaming crap is next.  What's next--they systematically strip the Internet of any gaming-related media?  Yeah, you may not be able to watch every cutscene on Heavy Rain (which could remove the incentive from buying the game), but it may go much farther than that.  What's to stop them--what's the end-game anyway when it comes to censorship?  And you can blame the "evil corporate lobbyists" all you want (never mind the fact people will mass boycott them), if these dummies in Congress can't get the q-tips out their ears and end up passing this law, then SHAME ON THEM.  Will they even read the bill?  Remember: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."

Anyway, forget about SOPA, I wonder what the corporate culture at Sega is like.  Seems like a couple of kids floating around the office with a camera as Sega continues to act impotent as usual.  If it weren't for Sega of Japan & Sumo Digital's heroics, they'd be in a much worse position than now.  I'm going to write an essay on that soon--I'll let you know about that in the future.

BTW, SOPA is a stupid name for a bill...almost reminds me of SOAP...shoes that is.  Sonic Adventure 2.

ROLLING AROUND AT THE SPEED OF SOUND...

Oh and one more thing.  Some Japanese tabloid has predicted which Japanese game companies will shut down in the next decade.  Sega, Square, and Tecmo are ranked "most likely to fail" followed by Capcom, Konami, Namco, and Sony.  Nintendo and Gree (who the f*** is that) have a massive gap over the others and thus are the only ones sitting cozy so basically Japan is screwed.  But to restate, Sega is doomed.  Go to Hell, Sega won't die on my watch.  They'll always have a niche and won't resort to producing slot machines and UFO catchers for all eternity.  Stop hating on your own country's developers and get lost.  And y'all can't stop me from talking about Sega racers--not SOPA, not Sega's misery, all that nonsense.

CoD: Black Ops Is Done, Bid Farewell...

Well, tonight on Nov. 8, Modern Warfare 3 comes out and a billion people will go run to the stores and buy it.  I'm neutral to the game right now.  I'm not buying it but I'm moreso pissed that everyone keeps whoring out this stuff for so long.

And it's the last day that Call of Duty: Black Ops is relevant.  By tonight, this game is now "null-and-void."  But I do have some good things to say about Black Ops, if you don't mind.  Here are my thoughts:

1. Probably my favorite thing is how they assigned your player models according to what your Blue Perk was.  In previous CoD's (or any other FPSes for that matter), if you picked an assault rifle, you were some regular old soldier.  If you picked a sniper rifle, you were a ghillie suit guy.  If you picked an SMG, you were the lightweight guy.  Etc.  Here, at least have some say over what your guy looked liked and that was kind of cool.  Plus not to mention it doesn't make sense for a regular Joe soldier to be able to hide from radars but the ghillie suit man can't.  Also, you can be the flak jacket guy, awesome.

Real men don't need ghillie suits to snipe anyway.  You know what they say...now you see me *POW* now you're dead.

2. They got rid of the Stopping Power perk.  Now why is this so good?  Because in previous CoD's, stopping power usually meant you could kill someone with one less bullet (3 instead of 4).  First of all, the idea that your bullets can magically do 40% more damage makes no sense.  It was pretty much the best perk in Core modes outside of maybe Juggernaut and Camouflage.  Seriously, it's a reflex game so if you can kill someone slightly faster, than you win.

On the other hand, Stopping Power was USELESS in Hardcore--all kills were one-hit anyway.  Everyone (including I) abused that perk.  It was good that they did away with it.

3. Treyarch did a good job releasing more DLC maps than any other game before it.  There's 26 multiplayer maps and 10 zombie maps (excluding Dead Ops Arcade which is not your usual zombie map).  So there's four map packs.  Each has five maps and costs $15.  So that's $3 a map.  Well, it could be worse.  Each pack could have only four maps in it instead of five.  And the maps are okay by me so I think Treyarch did a fine job there.

4. Speaking of Treyarch again, I think they did a good job trying to come up with a new Call of Duty style.  Infinity Ward/Sledgehammer is just running away with the "Modern Warfare" title.  Treyarch made CoD:3 and CoD: World at War before this one.  So at least they found a good niche in that 60's Cold War era.  I thought that was good instead of the same old "SHOOT THE TERRORISTS" plot of the supposed future.

Also, speaking about the theme, the game's story was pretty cool.  I mean, I'm not about to play through the campaign again but gee whiz, it beats MW2's airport massacre OMG NOW THE WHOLE WORLD IS AT WAR scenario, dammit.  MASON, WHAT DO THE NUMBERS MEAN!?!?!?  And another part that was interesting...**SPOILER** Reznov was dead the whole time.  Sixth Sense style!!!

5. Dual mags.

6. Being able to create your own gamer emblem.  Okay, now this is, in some ways, absolutely horrific.  The amount of sexual innuendo is staggering.  Eventually, a few months in, the obscene pictures went away so that's good.  I created the Sega emblem which I rode out for pretty much my entire career.  I also saw some other funny pics that were worthwhile.

This is a funny story that I haven't really mentioned yet.  So I was playing Call of Duty jumping from host to host.  One game, I ended up in a server from the East--people from Japan and Korea.  Konichiwa!!!  So a lot of the emblems were little chibi faces and foreign letters.  Then I went back to a Western server and what did I see?  Heh...boobs, asses, rabbits mounting rabbits, horses mounting gorillas, more boobs, guy sticking his finger up someone's ass, it's lovely.  I feel really good about America's future.

But really, this has to be my favorite gamer emblem I've seen thus far...just think it looks really slick.

7. Treyarch did a good job continuing the Nazi Zombies series.  Like how they threw JFK, Castro, and crazy actors like Sarah Michelle Gellar and Danny Trejo into the mix.  But what I like the most was the crazy plot Easter eggs they threw in there.  Like the Ascension trick which was on crazy pills, man...

8. The RC-XD.  From a realistic standpoint, this is incredibly stupid.  BUT, from a gameplay perspective, it's actually good for weeding out campers.  Plus, it's a car so it's fun to drive around.  Haha, yes.

9. They nerfed grenade launchers/noob-tubes so people will hopefully STFU about them once and for all.

10. First Call of Duty to have the Galil.  And the AWP (L96A1 Sniper Rifle).  And the variable scope zoom. How you can have a non-variable scope sniper is beyond me.

11. The tactical insertions in this one were kind of cool.  Like one of those twisty-cap deodorant things but with sweet-looking knobs...

12. The killstreaks.  Well, they're not perfect, but they're miles better than MW2's.  For one, no nukes, they were interesting at first but now they're just stupid.  Not only that, but in Black Ops killstreaks no longer contribute to other killstreaks.  So in MW2, a common method was to get 7 kills, deploy a harrier strike, get 11 kills, call in a Chopper Gunner, and hope you get 14 more kills and then you have a nuke.  Now how stupid is that.  To make things even stupider, some killstreaks like the Sentry Gun or the standard copters didn't add on to your kill-streak.  So screw this whole killstreaks giving you more killstreaks nonsense.  Black Ops did away with that and that's for the best.  Okay, I hope this point made some sense.

13. Loads more gun camos and customizable red dot sights.  Love it, it looks damn cool.

14. It has Ice Cube doing voice overs (the US Vietnam radio guy).

15. Uh...it has 15 Prestiges instead of 10!!!

16. It has the Ballistic Knife and Exploding Crossbows.

17. No more Commando perk.

18. No more deathstreaks.

19. They nerfed the FAMAS so it's fair game now.

20. No quickscoping noobs


21. Hmm...it has a lot of guns from Counter-Strike in it: M16 (sort of), AK-47, Galil, Famas, Aug, Commando, AWP.  EDIT: MP5k and Mac-11 (not the same).  UMP, P90, USP, Glock are in Modern Warfare.

22. Still love the friggin sweet reload animations & sound effects.

23. Game introduced that Clip Creation feature which makes for some damn good YouTube montages!!  Hooah!



24. At least Treyarch, as a studio, is still intact.  Infinity Ward is toast.  So round of applause for Treyarch for not falling into Activision's Russian Roulette???

25. All the little kids are finally moving on to MW3 so have fun playing Black Ops in peace!!!  Go play MW3 or even Battlefield 3, GTFO off Black Ops now.  And don't send me comments like "call of duty sucks lolololol" cause I ain't taking it today, tomorrow, or ever so you STFU noob...

See the Call of Duty Wikia page for loads of information.

Daytona Port's Japanese Team At Work Here!!!

Now we know who is doing the Daytona USA port for XBL/PSN.  It is the "AM Port Team" who is also responsible for ports of After Burner Climax, Virtua Fighter 5, and both Virtual-Ons.  They started a blog and they posted their first entry today.   The studio is run by some guy name Toru Murayama.  I don't know who he is but he looks like a friend of Sega to me!!

But first, you want to see more sweet screenshots of the Daytona USA port in action?  You got it.

This page translate to English must, very funny it is!!!!

------------

Hello, very much.
My name Sega transplant team and Murayama AM.




"The team transplanted AM" I claim to be freely Toka, there is no formal organization.
The stray. Sonic Team! Studio Gotoku! Official is not cool Hey I do not like.
I always feel funny is drifting even when dissolved,
Doing this "team" Deariyasu soon I hope to even think that somehow survived and got ready to Karaniha blog. 有安.
Thank you!


At first it is
VF5, Oratan, ABC, ported the arcade title came the Virtual Force
Porting Team AM (stray), the latest title announced at last! Maki! Is.


DAYTONA USA edition XBLA / PSn
Proudly announced!


I do!


· · · It?
Oh, Did you mean Did you know anymore?


Oh Speaking
I Temashita rating agencies and information leak or Australia.
I rely on the title of the quiz was sponsored Barebare Sega of America.
Or rather, I was abroad I originally chat is officially announced.


Yeah, well, I do that is not irrelevant.
It is a matter of feeling.


DAYTONA USA edition XBLA / PSn
Congratulations to the official announcement in Japan!


Will be delivered on October 26, 2011 Both models!
※ Sorry time is undetermined.
Notification via Twitter as soon as we confirm delivery.


I did it!


So, what will the introduction of light.


· DAYTONA USA is a first!
Temasen to be superfluous. The original atmosphere, I feel like operations focused on reproducibility.
But this time remains 4:3 to HD is compatible with that first Karou.
3D model while retaining an HD display various imposed by hand.
I just stretch and blur from Chaimasu only.
I is not actually a fairly clean,
"Mamajan the time!" "Nostalgic" What I hope it feels Moraetara.


You can play online • Up to 8 people!
As a precaution I should say, and I Both models are implemented as well!
It is hot indeed. What is not quite so at eight shops,
I play eight more experience think small.
Because change comes the fun by choosing courses,
Invite your friends want us to play us.


• Other modes are!
Sing the karaoke mode and sing that song famous Dr. Kokichi large,
Challenge mode to learn the basics of operation with a clear
Survival mode, or compete, such as how much distance 走Reru within the stipulated time,
We got the variety will be available. Even after the time attack.
Tenth of a second player and compete in the world rankings in support ... is hot.


/ Trophy Results · The Comp anyone can!
Karaniha make the team out, this is absolutely 譲Remasen.
I write this blog this more at a later date.


Not that the first ends like this.


So over again!







Usaa!

------------

翻訳された日本語は私達のアメリカ人に面白いです。私は彼らが我々の翻訳英語考えるのだろうかと思う！日本、ハッハッハに私のブログを翻訳してください！

うわー、そのバニーはとても愛らしいです...!!!私はいつか私のブログの背景にそれを含めることができます！

But no, I'm still here in English.

Check out some more of these user comments from that page translated to English.  They are very interesting and you must read them!!  Underlined the good parts.

------------

Sorry topics intertwined in Daytona USA2.
But now a demand in the short-tempered 頂Kitaku also realized Daytona was realized by two full time transplant.

Option can be switched to Battle on the Edge & Power Edition.

HD images directly on graphic model3

16 people can play online

Sega sports channels with live footage was professional

Long instrument can be switched on the CD version was released earlier board sound

If you add sound and portability impossible transplant Scud Race Course

Mix, including additional courses such as Scud Race Course

Please consider the sections of the transplant.

------------

Hello Toru Murayama, greetings from Italy.
Please convert other arcades for us, Am Port Team is our last chance.
We hope for more ports but please in retail edition.

The House of the Dead 4, Border Break ...

Please consider with Sega also the possibility to create a collection of old arcade games that we have never seen on console. Every years we see Mega Drive collection etc, but we know it very well, we prefer collection about System 16, X / Y Board , Model 2 etc.

Please think about that,
We are here to support you
We'll love arcade games forever

Italia Sega Front

------------

Congratulations, Mr. Murayama Daytona revival! We now really looking forward to! 'd Like to be so by all means, I would like to be able to add content to do as a switch between the Saturn version of the song. I waited 16 years from the Saturn version was the dream of doing a song full of the arcade version of the Saturn in transplantation.(Roh △ T) and thank you also do not come just 3.6 million!
m (_ _) m

------------

Congratulations transplant Daytona USA!
Temashita long wait.
Handle the controller options, "the strength of force feedback," "the weight of the handle," "play type" I am fine can be set.
And super-heavy arcade like Daytona,
Yes you can meet the needs of you and your lighter to set it to play a long time.

Then, thank you for porting Daytona USA2!
Such high speed and flashy action Oratan impact is over there.


------------

It sounds good site
Let also ask 1995 SEGA RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP!

※ rice field error "SH-2" more, and if I can remove it

------------

Gates has been replenished!
Please come to the following Harley-Davidson.

------------

HORNET IS BACK!!!

Ported very happy!
"You can enjoy the four perspectives with VR button"
The tears have involuntarily ....

However, a port of Daytona USA is happy and said,
2 is a transplant and still do ....
BGM at least full-course caution and, alone, such as a car collision course ... and enemy

------------

Thank portable! !

School is a work of memory and time record competed endlessly with friends.

Buy Haste The Day 26! ! !

------------

I have not played in real time honest and DAYTONA USA
Ported to XBLA and thoughts will be heard "Wow" was about Innovation say.
We heard high expectations of the team responsible for porting this AM and it!
Oratan, ABC, and the Virtual Force (VF5 is good at fighting so sorry)
Buying a 遊Bimashita felt the love all of them.
SEGA of yesteryear feel the momentum (in a good way) because I feel that most teams feel the evil of the head.
I think the game industry has swept the adverse times, not just a new transplant
We hope to have fun Rashiku SEGA!
Please transplant team luck AM (tentative)! !

------------

Thank Daytona delivery!
Poured into a 100-yen coin Daytona Dearimasu much of my youth, that the Yarra played the Sega Saturn version of just how incomplete graft
Wktk 26

Then, Daytona 2, Scud Race is still a consumer machine output Temasen title definitely want to rent HD.

Daytona 2 If possible, optionally,
I want you to be able to switch or switching Kokichi Dennis ver-edge battle with Power Edition

------------

Why ... Why not comment.
And thoughts of what is now in its third.

The official announcement will not stop wktk Daytona USA (laughs).
While the delivery date or should I buy one problem (but wearing clothes) I waiting for.
Oratan, and force, I look forward to future work as a team that had inherited the spirit of the old Sega.

Personally, I am glad to respond later because Kuretara clutch play Poku and NASCAR ...

------------

It is interesting that a lot of gamers out there feel the same way about Daytona USA.  They want that Daytona 2 port with (I guess) Scud Race courses???  Wouldn't that be tops???  Sega Racing Megamix, Baby!!!

I also love the frequent use of the word "transplant."  We're not talking about organ transplants here, okay??

Again, here is the link to the article with the comments.  I see that model3 left a comment as well!  I will probably leave a comment too in the future.

Good night.  Rolf, I'm tired so most of my comments were disjointed anyway (Engrish-style)!!!

Tokyo Game Show, Oh-Ho It Sucked

This weekend I had no work whatsoever which is strange because I thought game school was going to knock me out.  Remember, "no one leaves before 8 pm?"  Well I left before 8 every single day so far.  Really, come ask me how my first game went.  I was quite comfortable!  No late-night grinding/knashing of the teeth!  :D

"Don't push your luck little man...we'll drop the hammer on you soon enough."

Anyway, they just had this Toyko Game Show (taking place at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan) and there's not a lot that I really cared about.  First, Sega & Electronic Arts had to share the same booth--I'm not s***ting you (read third paragraph).  And as I'm looking at the official Sega blog posts (one and two)--OH GOD it's everyone's favorite delinquent at it again!!  Pimping out Yakuza and Binary Domain.  Like he has Tourette's...."YAKUZAYAKUZABINARYDOMAINBINARYDOMAINYAKUZAYAKUZA" etc.

Way to go, Nagoshi-san!  You got all these girls in the same room, but you can't even make a new Daytona game.  What a shallow man.

Hey babe, where's the Daytona games???

SegaShiro also took a few more pics...here's the EA part of the Sega booth.  So Sega's basically promoting Battlefield 3.  That's great.

And then the pictures gets weird..

For some reason, the Sega official blog can't stop taking pictures of food.  Well, you know what I had for dinner?  Dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.  I'm not making this up.

Look, it's the Sega Headquarters!!!  If Solid Snake and Sam Fisher could break in, we can too!!!  We're gamers, just put your minds to it.  Gamers always think they're macho like that--that's why we play intense action/adventure/RPG games...so we can be "cool."

Oh, and as usual, Sega is upstaged again by Capcom.  Crapcom had the best booth.  And then here's Keiji Inafune crying that he had wished he saved Megaman Legends 3 from cancellation.  Capcom flat out refused to let Inafune help them.  Even though Inafune "quit" (the trendy thing for ailing game designers to do, see Yuji Naka & Yu Suzuki), he was still able to do so under contract (I think).  EDIT: FYI, Inafune was THAT GUY who created Mega Man, just like Miyamoto created Mario & Zelda and Yuji Naka created Sonic.  So they killed Inafune's dreams...of a great Megaman game!  The bastards!!!

NOOOO!!!  THEY KILLED MY BABY!!!!!

So game developers, hang on closely to your old IP's, like Nagoshi with Daytona USA--aw hell, he doesn't even care anymore.

BTW, Nintendo doesn't even go to the Tokyo Game Show.  Instead, they sit back with their dopey 3DS joystick add-on and act all big and bad as usual.

Don't want to go to TGS?  What's the matter, Nintendo? CHICKEN???

NINTENDO!!!  I saw what you did there...  Because the 3DS sucks so bad and the Vita's gonna kick your ass, YOU ARE TERMINATED!!!

I know it doesn't make sense for Nintendo to be "fired" but this is just another lame attempt at a joke.

No one wins at TGS.  Just wait for the Daytona port to surface, ha.

NASCAR, WoW, Nagoshi, Rise of Nightmares, MW vs. Battlefield, Cheap Trick

Here's a random collection of thoughts that I want to get out NOW but am too lazy to sort it out.  Here goeeesssssssssssss (woah this post is BIG)

------------

Oh man, it really stinks that this NASCAR race at Atlanta got postponed from Sunday to Tuesday because of the rain.  I was at school when it came on (3:00 PM) so I missed it.  Man, I hate that crap--friggin keep sporting events on the weekends or in the evening  But this race was good cause Jeff Gordon won (and not Kyle Busch) and they were slippin and slidin all the way to the end. 



Yay, 85 wins!!!  I'm pretty sure there's people out there who want at least ONE win, rofl.  Like that Mike Skinner guy who keeps DNF'ing and coming in last every race.  I really gotta feel bad for that guy.

WIN, JEFF, WIN!!! STEAL THE CHAMPIONSHIP AWAY FROM JIMMIE!!!  GO FOR YOUR FIFTH AND EVEN THE SCORE ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!

------------

These World of Warcraft ads that keep popping up on GameFAQs.  With the dancing orcs and humans...I swear, if I see that thing one more time, I'm going to punch someone in the face.  Yes I know WoW is losing subscribers because, gee whiz, don't you think perpetually paying money to walking around a vacant landscape clicking on animals for XP gets old after a while?  And no--I flat out refuse to post a pic of that ad since it's just that bad.

------------

Some Kotaku Speak-Up thing.  What are some instances in which you love a game but not its creator?  Well I can name one--Daytona USA and Toshihiro Nagoshi.  Sorry, Nagoshi, you have to earn my love back...

Anyway, speaking of Nagoshi, he says he wants his new Yakuza Team to be a great Sega studio like AM2.  Not bloody likely.  But I must give Nagoshi a bit of credit since he's still ambitiously working for Sega while I have no idea what the hell else everyone's up to.

------------

Anyway, here's a funny story on SEGAbits.  So Rise of Nightmares is off to good reviews!  7.0...8.0...not bad right.  Heh, GameSpot review--5.5.  Man, now that's turrible...who cares what GamesPOT has to say.

I almost give up with review scores anymore.  Yes, they're fun to write, but they're getting awfully subjective.  I say screw 'em.  And as a game developer, you should make that your mindset or else your feelings will get hurt an awful lot through your career...

In the end though, I feel that this Dead Island game will get a lot more attention that Rise of Nightmares so that's awfully sad.  Well, Dead Island doesn't require the Kinect so they already have one-leg up on the competition.

------------

Oh yeah, did you know that DragonCon just happened recently?  Another convention comes and goes!  DragonCon is some fantasy/sci-fi/comic thing, nothing new here.  Also, there was that Call of Duty convention too.  Yeah, apparently with fun games to play like Juggernaut Sumo Wrestling and Paintball in an arena that's supposed to look like the MW2 Scrapyard level but doesn't even come close.  A furry convention is more interesting than this.

Also one more thing--this Call of Duty vs. Battlefield stuff is mega crap I keep reading about.  Neither is the "good guy" here.  Call of Duty is part of evil Activision and Battlefield is part of evil Electronic Arts. They're both over-rated and shouldn't have so many megalomaniacs following them. And this is coming from someone who played the crap out of CoD:Black Ops and Battlefield 1942 back in the day.

Damn I love Call of Duty campaigns.

Now about Battlefield.  Only good thing about BF:1942 was the vehicles, especially the jeeps (which would self-destruct if you left them idle for 15 seconds). The shooting sucked tho, the maps were WAY too big, and my old computer could hardly run it...

YOU BOTH LOSE, good day sir!

------------

Oh yeah, Cheap Trick is in Rock Band now.  Live at Budokan.  What's up with Japan's obsession with Deep Purple and Cheap Trick anyway???



DA DREAM POLEESE, DA DREAM POLEESE...

------------

Hehe, time to go to sleep.

Video Game Meltdown Continues: It's Nintendo's Turn!

EDIT: Screwed up my Sega analysis

At first, it was Capcom with their laundry list of idiotic decisions, but at least they aren't losing tons of cash (to my knowledge).  But Nintendo, well...things aren't looking so good for them.  Found this stuff out from Kotaku and the Nonstop Gaming Board on GFAQs.

Remember back in March there was this "Wii/3DS: It Prints Money!" meme?  Well, congrats guys, the exact opposite has happened.

In the past three months (worldwide), Wii and DS sales have dropped about 50%.  Also in that time, the 3DS only sold 710,0000 units.

Nintendo's stock has dropped 20% (that's TWENTY PERCENT) in ONE DAY.  They also posted a $324 million quarterly LOSS.

Former Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi’s wealth may have plunged more than $300 million today after the flop of the 3DS player forced the company to slash its profit forecast.  

Satoru Iwata (Nintendo CEO) has taken a 50% pay cut and other execs have taken a 30% cut.

The 3DS price has dropped from $250 to $170, a 32% decrease.  Anyone who bought the 3DS before this price drop is entitled to 20 (that's TWENTY) free downloadable games for the device.  At this point in time, Nintendo is simply abandoning the 3D gimmick and going for DLC (games from NES, GBA, etc.).

There's a litany of problems with the 3DS.  The 3D aspect has worn thin (and made some people sick as well).  Not enough unique games.  Expensive.  Low battery life.  In direct competition with the regular DS and other handheld/mobile games.  Also, you can't play some games without a patch (see Ridge Racer).  EDIT: And check out this dude's link about Nintendo tracking your information among other things...pretty shady stuff, thanks Mr. Anonymous.

Also, throw in there that the Wii hasn't received many good titles recently, both first, second, third party.  Nintendo has abandoned that too in favor of the Wii U.  So basically, Nintendo better pray that the Wii U doesn't suck too or else they're in serious trouble.

I know I'm reporting facts instead of ideas again, but you should never forget about this.  This is history in the making.

-------------

You know this is going to shake up Nintendo big-time.  It's probably their biggest down-time since 2000 when they were hurrying to release the Gamecube.  There's a tradition is Japan that if a company man makes a poor decision, he's not outright fired but forced to step down for a period of time.  Like putting someone in the dog house.  Hey, it happened to Gunpei Yokoi (Virtual Boy, the biggest bomb ever) and possibly Yu Suzuki (Shenmue didn't sell so Sega basically stopped him from making any more games).  Now someone at Nintendo's gonna get punished for this.  Who, I don't know.  Nintendo just shot themselves in the foot.



Hey Nintendo, sell the Seattle Mariners to make some money.  Besides, the Mariners are sucking right now (they recently snapped a 17-losing streak) so who cares, lol.

But really, this proves the point I've been saying for years.  You know what we want first and foremost?  GOOD GAMES!!!  Gimmicks won't cut it for me.  You can say, "Oh look, we made a 3D game!" but if the game sucks, no one cares.  Nintendo, learn this.

The Sega fan inside of me can't help but be a little bit jovial that Nintendo is getting jacked up over this.  I mean, Sega got roasted when it come to the Dreamcast--great console but Sega's soul was lost in the process.  Now Nintendo got a little arrogant here and thought "Hell, anything we produce is gold," and now they're paying the price for it.  Of course, the Japanese quake in March may have helped contribute to their hit, perhaps.  It just sucks ass that Microsoft is pushing this gimmicky Kinect crap and they have yet to take a major hit for it.  Oh their day of reckoning will come soon...

But otherwise, this sucks for Japanese gaming.  It's almost like Keiji Inafune put a curse on Japan in order to look like some sort of Nostradamus of gaming.  Now think about this--all Japanese game publishers as of late have done some stupid things recently (Nintendo, Capcom) or were already mediocre (Namco, Square, maybe Konami).  But I wouldn't be too worried about these companies--they'll hopefully learn from their mistakes.  The PS3 had a slow start, maybe the 3DS will follow suit.  EDIT: Or it could go the way of the N-Gage and PSP UMD's!!

But I'll tell you who's staying above the fray.  SEGA.  Yes, that's right.  They are doing okay.  Not producing any stellar games, but at least they're not "sucking" as usual.  For instance, they posted the highest revenue in Japan for the month of June, beating out Nintendo by 33%.  They also made an assload of money last fiscal year ($513 mil profit).

EDIT: Dammit, this came out a day after I posted this, Sega-Sammy posts a quarterly loss of up to $50 million.  Well, this is embarassing.  I only hope that in the long run, Sega has lost the least of all the other devs.  I apologize, I was wrong.  Well, that's why we have to step up and save Sega...

But anyway, if Sega suddenly does good....:

THE PIECES HAVE FALLEN INTO PLACE.  NOW IS THE TIME FOR SEGA TO DROP THE HAMMER* AND OVERTAKE THESE OVERRATED GAME DEVS!!!  BRING HOME THE GOLD MEDAL FROM THESE LOUSY AMERICAN DEVS LIKE ACTIVISION, ELECTRONIC ARTS, MICROSOFT, AND ROCKSTAR!!!  IT CAN BE DONE!!!



* - When I say "Drop the hammer," I mean the racing term to slingshot ahead of the competition (change gears), don't know if people picked up on that right away...

Sega E3 Booth: IT'S AWESOME, BABY!!! (And More)

And as E3 rolls around the corner once again, this is the time where I complain about the talking heads from Kotaku, GameSpot, G4TV, 1-Up as well as the fat slobs who try to look important by entering a loud room full of electronic devices and "swag" consisting of t-shirts, keychains, and cheap plastic crap.  Wait, I thought E3 was supposed to be blocked to the public...apparently, they reversed on their decision when the angry masses battered open the doors to get inside so there was nothing they could do about it.


RUN RUN RUN TO E3 AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!!

So this is supposed to be the 13 games in Sega's booth this year .  This list is from some guy on Kotaku and it doesn't have any sources or anything, but it sounds believeable to me.  EDIT: Never mind, this list is on all the official Sega blogs.  These are the games:

Aliens: Colonial Marines
Anarchy Reigns
Binary Domain
Captain America: Super Soldier
Crush3D
Guardian Heroes
House of the Dead Overkill: Extended
Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games
Renegade Ops
Rise of Nightmares
Sega Rally Online Arcade
Shinobi
Sonic Generations

And...that list is completely underwhelming.  Sonic Generations is the only thing really worth mentioning.  They will probably reveal some new levels (maybe City Escape and a casino stage).  Old-school Sega diehards will love HotD, Guardian Heroes, and Shinobi, so I like seeing Sega give a few old franchises a nod.  We already have Sega Rally Online Arcade so if they rehash that, it would be stupid.  The rest are just expendable to me.  It's great to see more movie-based games (Captain America & Aliens) as well as Nagoshi's sparking gem of a masterpiece, Binary Domain.  If Nagoshi is there, then someone please kick his ass for me.

This is terrible.  I mean, really, who are the ones begging for a new Captain America??  Seriously?  People want Captain America THAT badly???  Well I guess after Superman renounced his US citizenship, America needs a new hero.  Superman, what a putz.

Yeah, this list may not be 100% correct, but do you really expect Sega to just pop out with a new Daytona or Shenmue game?  Remember how we first discovered OutRun & Sega Rally Online Arcades?  We found this name patents on these Korean websites.  We've seen nothing about a new Daytona, Shenmue, Jet Set Radio, anything.  I think Sega is banking all their chips on Sonic Generations, a game that they came out with a month before E3 so if Sega has another game up their sleeve, they'd probably have revealed it already.  The ONLY surprise I can think of is Yu Suzuki popping up to announce Shenmue 3, but that old man is already over his head so don't count on it.

But if something BIG happens, then I'll admit my error.  But I doubt it.

------------

As for the rest of E3, we can already tell what's going to happen.  Microsoft is going to release more Kinect crap in another vain attempt to get the diehards to give it a shot.  Sony will release the new PSP and apologize profusely for the server downage thanks to a mumbling Kaz Hirai (while everyone else makes fun of him for everything).  Nintendo will cause gamers to faint with their new Cafe demo (which will probably be on par with the Xbox 360 but who cares, it's Nintendo, they are WINNERS regardless) and some 3DS games.  Then something on Duke Nukem, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Soul Calibur, and Rage.  Another E3, another waste of time, thank you, please come again.

BTW, this new Internet Explorer sucks horribly.  It lags, my tabs mysteriously vanish for no reason, I'm constantly being logged out of Blogspot, and I can't even find out where the history is on this thing.  Oh well, back to Firefox.

Disney World Trip Day 2 Pics (Thursday)

I greatly apologize for not posting this sooner.  Just getting all the pics sorted out was a pain as it is.  Let's recap the trip before I forget.  BTW, these are pics from my March '11 family vacation.


Day 1 (Wednesday)


WEDNESDAY (NIGHT):

I forgot to mention this part from the previous entry.  When we left Magic Kingdom, we tried to get into Epcot just to check it out.  We rode the monorail over and unfortunately, the Disney pass will only allow you in one park a day.  So we left Epcot and went to Disney Downtown when it started to rain and ducked into this restaurant called Wolfgang Puck's (not making this up).  Then we ate there and went back to our cabin in Fort Wilderness.

THURSDAY, MARCH 10:

We're all going to Epcot which I was stoked for.

It's the Epcot Center!  It's called Spaceship Earth.  It's supposed to be a ride but screw it--we didn't ride it cause it sucks.

 Here is another pic of Spaceship Earth with big plaques with tiny names of people.

Lucky for us it was HGTV's Floral Month or something so there's grass statues of everything.  Here's Lotso the Bear from Toy Story 3.  SPOILER: Lotso is an a**hole, go to Hell Lotso, no one loves you.

Oooo look, it's Mickey Mouse!!!

It's Lightning McQueen!!!

We are in the Land of Tomorrow, not to be confused with Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland.  This future land makes Tomorrowland look like The Jetsons.  WHY AREN'T ALL THE BUILDING HERE MADE OF CHROME, DAMMIT!!??

Here is the monorail zipping above us!  At 40 mph (64 kph), not very futuristic if you ask me.

This is a nice flower bed you could see while riding the monorail.  Freakin sweet.

It's the water-spitting things I remember a long time ago!  They are not as impressive as before--they spray randomly with not much accuracy--they don't hit the same exact spot always and it wasn't windy.

Nice friggin fountain.

We're now entering this mall called The Land.  This has to be the best name ever conceived.  Really, we're on land, it makes perfect sense.

Actually, I don't think there was much to do in here except stop at a few restaurants or go on a few rides.  But it looks big and impressive, I admit.

Inside The Land, we went on this one ride called Soarin'.  You walk down these long-ass hallways until David Puddy tells you to fasten your seat-a-belt and you watch a 5-minute IMAX aerial video while this machine lifts you slightly into the air.  Sounds great.

Ok, we get it, Land of Tomorrow is great, but what else is there?  Well, there's the World Showcase.  I had no idea how interesting this place was because there's a couple of acres room displaying the intricacies of a bunch of countries.  This includes buildings, restaurants, stores, and even employees from said country working there.  So it's like you're actually in another country, I guess.  Let's check it out.

Okay, let's start with Canada, eh.

Martin Short?  But I thought he wanted to go to Dinosaur World!!!

A little concert stage in Canada.  I presume they play Rush concerts every hour on the hour.  Otherwise, what else could there be...Dudley Do-Right routines?

This is the United Kingdom.  My mom is so fascinated with anything UK-related that it's ridonkulous.

A flower garden.  We would revisit this place later since we're were haulin' ass through the whole place.

It's the crocodile from Peter Pan with two birds walking by.  Perfect picture!!!

Now here's France.  Boooooooring cause you can't walk by the fake Eiffel Tower.  And it's nothing but expensive restaurants and perfume stores.  No thanks.

A closer picture of France.

Now we're in Morocco.  This is the token Arabic country.  Unfortunately, not much to do here either.

YES, we made it to Japan!!  LOL, I just turned into a weaboo.  I'm just joking.

Another pic of Japan; I would come back here later.

 Another cool Japanese picture.

Now we're in America.  Somehow, the Philadelphia State Hall comes to mind.  This is where foreigners come to learn about the Founding Fathers, the Constitution of the United States, GOD, GUNS, GUTS, AND WIDE OPEN SPACES!!!

 As we're walking, we pass by a miniature train village.  I love stuff like this.

GET ALONG LITTLE DOGGIE!!

We're walking somewhere.  I think this is Germany.

Yes, we're in Germany.  This must be where the fat bratwurst-eating kids go.  This is where I go to honor my white German heritage...as does 50% of all Americans belong, I'm so special.

If you go in the gift shop and pull a secret lever behind in the beer mug shelf, you'll discover a secret rave club gettin down to the house music.  We're all living in America, Coca-Cola, Wonderbra...

This is Italy.  Italy sucks cause it looks like Spain.  Italy also sucks cause there's no Ferrari museum.  And I don't want to eat pizza and spaghetti so screw it.

Look, it's Lady and the Tramp, lol!!!

And we're in China which I always thought was neat.  It doesn't have the video games that Japan does, but we still love it anyway!!!  Fortunately, no Tienanmen Square/Communist tank replicas.

This is Norway.  I'm not terribly interested in Scandinavia & vikings in general so there wasn't much to do here.

And this is the last country on the list, Mexico.  Finally, we stop and eat some overpriced tacos.  If you go inside this pyramid, you enter some Maxican villa/marketplace

At this point, I think our family decided to split up into pieces and just walk which way.  All I know is that I went back to Japan to check out the store.

Wow, holy s***, I gotta tell ya I was a bit stoked to come here.  OMG, Pokemon toys, Naruto t-shirts, Hello Kitty stuff, WWWEEEEEE!!!!

Up until this point, I hadn't by anything with my money.  So I saw all those Pokemon plushies and started grabbing some of them.  Okay, so I kind of do like Pokemon, but not THAT much (I haven't played any Pokemon games besides Red/Blue).  So I get a couple of Pokemon--Snivy, Palkia, Ho-oh, and some other guys.   Then I looked for Sega-related stuff.  There was just a few Sonic-related items so I grabbed a hat.  As I take this to the cash register, the young man behind me made an interesting comment:

GUY: You've got good taste there, my friend.

ME: Ehh, not enough Sega stuff here.

GUY: I hear you.  You like Pokemon?

ME: Not that much.  I figured I'm not going have the chance to buy these Pokemon toys in a long time.

GUY: Yes, I got the new Pokemon Black/White, etc. blahblahblah I forgot....

I think I could've talked more, but I don't know...I was just buying a bunch of Pokemon toys, I felt like a bit of a loser.  The nice Japanese lady at the register said thank you and bowed for me so I bowed back...yeah, better get used to hanging out with actual Japanese people if I want to chill with Yu Suzuki and make the new Daytona game.

But this store didn't carry just anime stuff, it also had samurai swords!  I have no interest in swords, just gimme a gun or a ballistic knife or something.

I scoured the rest of the store looking for anything else Sega-related but there was nothing...you can buy more t-shirts, kimonos, mats...uh, and some pocky.  Hey, I'll just stick with the Milky Way bars.

So I'm hopping from country to country with my dad and we stop by the Chinese museum...wow, the Terracotta army...this place is both FUN and EDUCATIONAL!!

Then we go back to Germany and look at the shot glasses they had there.  Wow, they had a lot of shot glasses (no pictures, sorry).

We go into the Mexican pyramid and here's an entire village of Mexican stuff.  Arriba, arriba, andalay!!  Jump da border!!  Via con Dios.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S EVEN MORE!!  There's another cool ride in Epcot called the Test Track.  Okay, now you know anything car-related makes me giddy.  Let's go check it out.

This is the entrance to the Test Track, brought to you by Government Motors (GM)!

You get inside and it's like a crash test facility.  Only instead of test dummies, they use real people, I think.

After we're taken into a room and forced to watch a video of some clipboard guy who'll subject your car to grueling test, you get in the six-seater car.  What a lame-ass car.  No steering wheels to hold on to.  Hardass plastic seats.  If this is the car of the future, I'm gonna be pissed.

We're in the car and we're ready to roll!

This is the last picture I got with my camera before I flew out and beaned an unsuspecting ride attendant in the face.  JK.  This is the ride on YouTube (not my video):

You go at 70 mph (113 kph) for about ten seconds at the end, making it the fastest ride in Disney World, apparently.  Lame, I wanted to ride in a stock car at 180+ mph.  I mean, I drive 70 mph on the highway, the only difference here is that I'm on rails and there's no car roof.  Didn't change the fact that it was fun.

After the ride, you're deposited into this Shameless GM Self-Promotion Room with fuel cell cars!  Yes!

A Camaro, NICE.

I don't know what car this is but it looks hella cool.

Damn, look at all these cars, just like freakin Gran Turismo...

Before you leave, you have to check out the 9 pm fireworks show.  There's a big lake that all the countries border.  All this crap blows up in this island out there.  Terrorist attack in Disney World!!!

And then out comes this illuminated globe.  Apparently in praise of the United Nations which hasn't done anything to change the fact that more than half of the world's countries are totalitarian hellholes.  WTG, Disney.

And then there's an assload of fireworks.

Then we go back to our little Fort Wilderness cabin.  The end, will post Friday/Saturday real soon.