Posts Tagged ‘games’

Japanese media coverage of the Tokyo Game Show

The first part is a general look at the show from NTV. They visited the show on a media-only day and were impressed by how many foreign reporters had come to experience Japan’s newest video games. They pointed to the evolution of home gaming systems as the highlight of this year’s show. Project Natal for the XBox 360 is given special attention, with the reporter joining the game’s creator for some wacky dance moves. Later, we are given a look at the presentation of the PS3′s new motion controller and the PSP GO. Towards the end of the clip, the reporter plays around with the gravity grabber, a projector game called Twinkle, and a object grabbing game that is supposed to help with medical rehabilitation.

Six and a half minutes into the video there is a FTV segment about the Tokyo Game Show. FTV places its emphasis on portable games for the PSP GO and mobile phones. Game companies are noticing that many people are now iPhone and iPod Touch owners, so they are trying to break into that market. The number of mobile phone games featured at the show has grown from 110 in 2008 to 168 this year.

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NES Theremin

A Japanese YouTuber has uploaded this video of a Theremin (an electronic musical instrument) that he created from an old original NES (Famicon):

Details on the project can be found on this site (Japanese).

Make A Shiny Mud Ball

The picture below shows a shiny ball created with some dry soil and a few simple tools:

Professor Fumio Kayo of the Kyoto University of Education has created a guide on to make one, and it can be viewed here.

[via Reddit]

Japan Boom in East Asia

Here’s a pretty interesting FTV news report on the current popularity of Japanese language and culture in East Asia:

A quick summary of the Shanghai portion of the video:

• -The couple interviewed at the beginning of the segment says they are buying anime stuff because they’ve watched and enjoyed anime since they were children.
• -We are shown a Japanese anime/game store in Shanghai, which is usually crowded with young people on the weekends.
• -A 22-year-old Chinese guy allows the reporters to come to his apartment, which he shows them his love of Japanese culture by playing Wii and singing along with some popular Japanese songs. He also likes Samurai-era Japanese history, talking about Tokugawa Ieyasu in Japanese.
• In addition to the anime/gamer scene, events where Chinese people studying the Japanese language and Japanese residents of Shanghai gather in parks to practice what they have learned and socialize.
• A Japanese language school in Shanghai is shown, with individual classrooms named after areas of Tokyo [Odaiba, Roppongi, Ikebukuro, etc.]. Sometimes classes involve one-on-one conversation with Japanese teachers, but the school also has its students watch anime for listening practice. Many of the students interviewed mention anime and games as their motivation behind studying the Japanese language.

And a summary of the second half of the video, which takes place in Taiwan:

• A narrator mentions that about 55,000 Taiwanese people took the Japanese Language Proficiency test last year.
• Apparently there is a Japanese language study boom going on in Taiwan, and many mothers are signing their children up for private language schools like the one shown in the video. We are shown some of the typical lessons held there, which include playing karuta (a game in which players attempt to slap and capture cards representing certain words or phrases), singing, and dancing. As part of the total immersion environment, the kids all pick Japanese names for themselves. The school claims it can teach kids to read and write Japanese within a 2-3 year period.
• The mother of a little girl studying Japanese says that it is not uncommon for Taiwanese children to study both Japanese and English these days.
• Interest in Japanese culture and work/business are given as the two major reasons for the current Japanese language boom going on in East Asia.