Kotaku East

Square Enix announced that Nintendo Wii service for Dragon Quest X will be ending, but will offer a way for players to easily, ahem, switch to the Switch version. Square Enix said the decision was due to the Wii’s ceased production and that version’s unique particularities. 2/22 – 6:00am Update: An earlier version of this…

Graveyard at Mount Koya. Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. By Shane Kruse. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!

The Nier: Automata Commercial That Square Enix Censored For Japan

There are two versions of a new Nier: Automata ad. One can be played on TV in Japan, while the other probably cannot. Here is the commercial that can be shown on Japanese TV. The narrator says, “We were born to be destroyed. Action RPG Nier: Automata. Even though we’re inanimate, we kill each other.”…

Bringing Video Game And Anime Hair To Life 

Tokyo-based hair stylistShotac has an interesting forte: turning game and anime hair into reality. Shotac specializes in doing wig hairdos for cosplayers, but he’s also able to style those game and anime locks on real heads of hair. Have a look at his work: This one, of course, is probably the hardest. Of course. Kotaku…

Square Enix Announces New RPG Called Project Prelude Rune

It’s the debut project of Square Enix’s newly established Studio Istolia, which is headed up by former Tales producer Hideo Baba. Via an official release, Square Enix explains that the name “Istolia” is based on the Greek word for story. “The aim of the studio is to provide unforgettable stories that will inspire players in…

Dragon Ball Is Excellent At Anime Openings 

Over the years, we’ve gotten loads of excellent opening credit sequences from the various Dragon Ball anime. The latest from Dragon Ball Super is no exception, but how does it stack up to the others? Let’s find out! In case you missed it, here’s the new Dragon Ball Super opening, which debuted last week. Damn,…

Street Fighter II‘s M. Bison Loses To… A Toyota 

I beat he could kick some Prius ass. In Toyota’s latest C-HR ad, the crossover makes its way through Street Fighter II and faces off with M. Bison. Guess this is payback for the beating Toyota inspired cars have taken in Street Fighter bonus stages over the years. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian…

Are You Making Nintendo Switch Games? Japanese Developers Answer That And More

In the latest issue of Weekly Famitsu, twenty four Japanese game companies were polled about the Nintendo Switch. Their answers may or may not surprise you. Here are eight interesting questions (and answers) of Famitsu’s poll. 1. Are you developing any games for the Nintendo Switch? Currently developing: 54 percent Thinking about it now: 25…

When People Get Angry And Destroy Arcade Machines 

No matter how upset you get, don’t punch arcade game machines. Please. In Japanese, punching arcade cabinets is called “dai-pan” (台パン). Note that the term “gamen panchi” (画面パンチ), meaning “monitor punch” is sometimes also used, but also can refer to punching home TVs. Dai-pan happens when folks get angry or frustrated while playing and physically…

In Japan, The Pokémon Company Announces New Game For iOS And Android

Today, The Pokémon Company announced a new smartphone game would be out this spring in Japan. It appears to star the weakest Pokémon around. The Japanese title is Hanero! Koiking (Splash! Magikarp), and all The Pokémon Company has revealed so far about the smartphone title is a teaser site, with a newspaper article that mentions…

The Entrance at Kiyomizu-dera. Kyoto, Japan. By Eric Nguyen JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line! 

A new Japanese Switch commercial has footage of Dragon Quest Heroes 1 and 2 as well as a glimpse of FIFA on Switch. Have a look. 

Why Arcades Haven’t Died In Japan

In many places, arcades seem to have nearly, if not completely, vanished. Yet, in Japan, they continue to hang on. As The Financial Times reports in a recent piece on Japanese arcades, there were 44,000 of them during their mid-1980s heyday. Today, the Japan Amusement Industry Association says there are 4,856 registered arcades across the…

How Blizzard Is Combating Korea’s Overwatch Hacking Problem

As previously reported, cheating has been plaguing Overwatch’s South Korean servers. Today, Blizzard Korea announced a new policy designed to combat that. To recap: Because of the way the net cafe business works in South Korea, Overwatch players there could walk into any PC bang and create a free Battle.net account to play. It wasn’t…

Konami’s Profits Increase By Almost 230 Percent

During the nine-month period ending on December 2016, Konami reports a 229.8 percent increase in profit to the tune of US$183 million. Total revenue, however, did not increase, and as Focus Gaming reports, fell 8.5 percent year-on-year. Konami has combined its arcade business with its pachinko business to form a new streamlined “Amusement Business” division,…

Osaka Castle. Osaka, Japan. By Joey Crowdell. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line! 

Former Japanese Game Developer Arrested Over Embezzlement Allegations

Back in 2013, a developer at Tokyo-based Matrix Software allegedly artificially inflated the budget of an online pachinko game just to pocket some of the difference. According to Fuji New Network (via Tokyo Reporter), Yuji Anamizu was a section chief at Matrix Software, which most recently developed PS Vita title ωLabyrinth. Anamizu allegedly inflated the…

Anime With Characters That Look The Same 

Recently, there was an online poll in Japan that asked folks which anime featured characters that all looked too similar. According to Goo Research (via Excite News), over five thousand votes were cast. Here are the top ten choices of anime with a spitting-image cast: 10. Sword Art Online – 119 votes 9. Clannad – 124…

Japanese manga artist Jiro Taniguchi passed away this weekend. Notable works include A Distant Neighborhood, The Walking Man and Kodoku no Gourmet, among many others. He was 69. 

The Four Ways Of Sitting At Japanese Arcades, Explained

There are four common ways players sit at arcade cabinets in Japan. Here they are. Sitting? That’s right, because while North American arcade cabinets have players stand up to play, Japanese ones are seated affairs. Japanese Twitter user Ringo Tart created these explanations. Bending Forward Style Getting one’s face as close as possible to the…