This is interesting stuff. Much better reading English summaries on Kotaku, rather than trying to read through documents like that or Japanese articles. Keep up the good work!

I'm thinking about picking Raiden Fighters Aces or this up later this year. Any recommendations?

(Or Psikyo could release a full Strikers collection for the Xbox 360, which would automatically trump both.)

I've lost my will to play. I can't even watch some of that stuff without getting a headache.

(Real conversation between my Japanese wife and I:

Her "Are you sure it's not a computer? What kind of person can do that?"
Me "Japanese people.")

逆転裁判は裁判じゃない。弁護人の役目のゲーム。

なんで？

オカシイな。

I am slow today.

[flickr.com]

Whoo! My collection is complete! I have all three Rei Ayanami cans! (hangs head in shame)

(Although, these days PCs are still the place to be if you want Japanese dating sims or Sexy Beach 3.)

"Paramount Denies Report It Will Drop Toshiba's HD DVD"

I would think the Scene It controllers and guitar controller would be great to show families or couples playing casual games...but this is a good start.

"From $279" as DMeisterJ suggested, would also be a good idea.

Maybe I just like the CM because Japan's support center was nice yesterday on the phone, had Pelican Super Delivery here to get my Xbox less than 8 hours later, and should hopefully have a working Xbox 360 back to me within two weeks.

I will probably play Halo 3 and the half dozen year-old-games I still haven't beaten between now and Christmas, and once I open up what will likely be Beautiful Katamari and Orange Box, I'll probably keep playing Halo 3 and the other games I haven't finished until the people I play Halo 3 with stop playing regularly...and since most of them were playing Halo 2 last month, that and XBLA games will probably keep me happy for most of 2008.

Seriously though...if I have to choose between 3D and no game, I'll take Street Fighter IV any way I can get it...

I haven't seen this many Japanese gamers online since DOA4 first came out here...

Jumping on turtles seems like a real possibility for someone who's eaten one of these...but what, exactly, is the real life equivalent of a goomba?

Also, wouldn't want to live in Osaka...everyone stands on the wrong side on the escalators.

Wii:
Nintendo's console,
motion sensing controllers,
inexpensive fun.

Xbox 360:
First next-gen console,
strong, growing games library,
Best online system.

PS3:
Blu-ray costs money,
And slowed down console's release,
But it plays movies.

Nothing too serious...and I'd be happy to see better haikus put these to shame.

I like that idea.

My reply was clearly marked as a reply to his question, and at no point in any of my posts did I suggest that the number of SKUs was good/bad or too high/low. I'm not sure what you're reading into my earlier posts.

I understand there are people for whom this will not be important, and by no means it is meant to compare Xbox 360 and PS3. But yeah, for a system where you can change the HD yourself, the PS2 hardware would count as a meaningful difference. The 20 GB model also had no Wi-Fi. Since HDs are easily replaced, there are only 3 real hardware SKUs for the PS3 in my mind. (with/without Wi-Fi and with/without PS2 emulation hardware)

I have/had several gay friends, and "gay" and "homosexual" are the only words I use to denote their sexual orientation. One of them has specifically made joking advances on me, to which I've replied, "No thanks, I'm a heterosexual."

I would imagine a word like queer can be interpreted to have far more negative or positive based on the lack of clear etymology. Homo is Greek for "same" and "sexual" needs no translation. I don't see where the negative connotation fits in that word. (Maybe you have a strong dislike for words that have Latin and/or Greek roots?)

As you mentioned, queer has more meanings, and can include groups some homosexuals may not want their sexual orientation associated with. Everyone has their own take on what connotations a specific word has, but as someone who has no problem with homosexuality or heterosexuality, I'd suggest not reading too much into other people using the word "homosexual" or "heterosexual".

Just my $.02.

Saying the Scrabble video game is homophobic is like saying the game promotes hate crimes because you can use the tiles to spell H-A-T-E and C-R-I-M-E. I do agree that the official dictionary and future versions of the game might want to mark "lesbo" as offensive or remove it, but until then it's within the rules. (Although, with all the different opinions people have, it's possible some lesbians might take offense at having the word "lesbo" labeled as offensive.)