Xbox 360 buying help...

[Brad]

Trying not to sound like a fanboy (I do have a 360 now) but does Japan not have such a huge stockpile of 360s that it's take forever for new ones to arrive there? Or have sales really picked up recently?

[egparadigm]

They really have in the last couple of months. I was astonished to see the "rising sun" article in EDGE this month. It's so cheap now and there are so many J-RPGs available that people are picking one up to play, apparently.

[SuperDanX]

Surley that new r-type will see a wider release? Fecking downloads i hate them, gimme discs, wait! Gimme carts

[belmondo]

I detect a hint of sarcasm...

I was referring to Japan only retail releases. They'd need some incentive to make a game for such a small market surely? PS3 dev kits are about $8k in Japan. I dunno if that's considered high or not though.

I think it's more about target audience than any incentive. The 360 is seen as an otaku console in Japan (much like the DC and Saturn before it) so is a good fit for niche arcade conversions. I don't see 2d shoot-em-ups having much affect on the success of the 360 in Japan, the last Cave PS2 game (Ibara) apparently only sold 4000 copies.

[C']

Trying not to sound like a fanboy (I do have a 360 now) but does Japan not have such a huge stockpile of 360s that it's take forever for new ones to arrive there? Or have sales really picked up recently?

A month or so back it had a decent run (not great levels but it outsold the the PS3 quite easily). This was attributed in large part to the launch of Tales of Vesperia.

I think it's averaging around 9000 units a week so not great but I don't think there are stockpiles of the machine. In fact, I believe they had to send over an extra shipment for the ToV release.

[Brad]

That's quite impressive actually. Perhaps the PS3 failing to deliver what the Japanese want also caused a bunch of them to try it out. Getting back on topic sort of...

I spotted Ikaruga on XBLA last night so downlaoded the demo, span my TV round (it's on a fairly nice wall mount) and had an absolute blast on it. It seemed a bit easier than I remember but that might be my imagination. Anyway, TATE mode FTW and all that.

EDIT: Is it safe to have an LCD roated 90 degrees?

[fuse]

I was anti-360 too, but since caving (ho ho ho) a couple of months back I've come around quite a lot. Getting a good deal on one second hand (cheers again tokyochojin) and not having another 'current gen' machine really sealed the deal for me too, what with there being a wealth of not-so-hardcore games that I was interested in playing too. Plus SSF2THDR / SFIV were on the way and I needed something to play them on.

Currently available you've got the XBLA stuff (Triggerheart, Ikaruga) and Senko that you can get regardless of region, and with a NTSC-J machine you've then got Otomedius, Raiden Fighters Aces, Raiden IV, and all of the Cave goodies to come.

Submit J0e, you know you can't resist those HD Death Smiles screens!

[Super Monkey Balls]

The new Deathsmiles screens aren't quite as promising. I hope it looks good in motion. Good on em for trying to make it work on panels though. I really hope the 5pb ports have a scanline option.

Cave aren't on PS3 because Sony don't want them. Strictly now low res 2D on PS3 say Mr Sony.

I got a Japanese Arcade unit just before the pound went south and they were just over £100. You want one of those, (might as well try here now) an Elite power brick and cheap HDD off ebay and you're set.

JPN exclusive games are locked, most Pal worldwide releases aren't and the ones that are have Asian versions in English anyway. UK registered Live accounts work fine, no issues with updates or online play.