Patent Application Points to New PS Vita with HDMI and USB [Update]

A patent application filed last year describes a new PlayStation Vita configuration which includes HDMI and USB support. The application was published on Feb. 7. That image above was included in the filing, dated July 27. Sony, of course, has an event scheduled for Feb. 20 at which the next PlayStation console is expected to…

Rayman Legends Lead Designer Poses With People Protesting the Game’s Six-Month Delay

Rayman Legends—hotly anticipated as one of the best third-party games coming to the Wii U—was supposed to hit the Nintendo console in two weeks. But, Ubisoft announced a six-month delay for the game last week so that work can be done on porting it to the Xbox 360 and PS3—and Wii U owners have been…

Max Payne 3 is $17.99 (with free shipping) today at Best Buy (360, PS3).

How To Build A Great Gaming PC For Under $700

“Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?” It’s a question I’ve heard with increasing frequency the past few years, uttered by friends who’ve finally dipped their toes into PC gaming, discovering what it has to offer them. Before taking the plunge, they had been wary, citing the prohibitive cost and overly complex nature of…

This Week’s iPhone Charts: Attack of the Clones

On the right side you’ve got RedSpell’s What’s the Word?, a picture-based word game that’s been tearing up the free iPhone charts for several weeks. On the left, LOTUM GmbH’s What’s the Word?, a picture-based word game that arrived on iTunes on February 4. Guess which one is at the top of this week’s charts?…

The Next Game in Batman’s Arkham Series is Coming This Year, Says Time Warner Exec

Slipped within Time Warner’s call to investors last week was this mention, from the company’s chief financial officer, that the next entry in the acclaimed Arkham series of Batman video games will be arriving in 2013. Said John K. Martin, Time Warner’s chief financial officer: And we also have a strong games release this year,…

Gamestop and Best Buy (per The Sixth Axis) say The Last of Us will release on June 18, not May 7th.

Aliens: Colonial Marines: The Kotaku Review

A game based on existing media has three options. It can strive to be faithful to the original work, privileging authenticity above all else. It can try to do its own thing, using the original work as merely a jumping off point for something else. Or, it can try to find a balance between authenticity…

Nintendo’s Awkward 1990s, Remembered On Resurrected VHS

NeoGAF user jjgames has done the history of video games—or at least our ability to easily access some awkwardly amusing parts of it—a great favour. He’s bought six old VHS tapes from the 90s, each containing a Nintendo marketing or training video. They remind us of a time Nintendo was a lot warmer, a lot…

The New Ghost in the Shell Series Gets Its First Trailer

Earlier tonight here in Tokyo, Bandai Visual held a launch event for Ghost in the Shell: Arise, the new Ghost in the Shell anime series announced earlier this year. The event was full of interviews with the various creators of the new series and had several interesting announcements—like the fact that it is a prequel…

How to Play Games From the Japanese PSN on Your Non-Japanese Vita [Update]

Do you have a PlayStation Vita and a love of Japanese games, but feel the games you want to play take too long to get localized or—worse yet—will never leave Japan? Well, there is good news for you: The Vita is region free and can play any game from any region. However, there is also…

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is getting an online FPS next year, Famitsu reports

Yes, This Is Bruce Willis Made Out of Chocolate

As part of a promotion for A Good Day to Die Hard, a life-sized chocolate statue of John McClane (née Bruce Willis) was wheeled out for a press conference this evening in Japan. The flick opens on February 14, which is Valentine’s Day—hence the chocolate. Shame the statue doesn’t really look like Bruce Willis. But…

This Modern Japanese Ruin Would Make a Fascinating Computer Game

“Haikyo” (廃墟) means “ruins” or “abandoned building” in English. Previously, a haikyo and the story it told provided inspiration for an indie game. This latest discovery could, too. Website Tokyo Times explored a huge abandoned house that belonged to a wealthy Japanese politician. The house was built from concrete in 1928. Two years later, the…

This Man Really Loves Ramen Noodle Soup

Meet Steven Jo. The guy loves ramen noodle soup. So. Damn. Much. Check out more of Steven Jo’s music on his YouTube channel Ramen Noodle Soup! [StevenJoTV@YouTube via BuzzFeed] Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from…

Japanese Politicians Make the Best Zombies

Zombies make everything better. They really do. Even Japanese politics. Spotted at the recent Wonder Festival figure event, here is a collection of “Zombie Politician Busts.” The small statues are of Japanese political bigwigs, former PMs Yukio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan, power broker Ichiro Ozawa, and politician Azuma Koshiishi The busts are an interesting commentary…

How a PS3 Game Launched Japan’s Newest Sex Symbol

These days, it seems like you cannot turn on the TV in Japan without seeing her. Her name is Mitsu Dan. She’s currently Japan’s biggest sex symbol, appearing in racy TV shows and even racier movies and photo spreads. But before rocketing to fame last fall, she was just another pin-up model, and her biggest…

Beware of Fake Pokémon Scans

This Pokémon trainer art does resemble the male trainer in very real Pokémon X/Y screens. But it is not a real Japanese magazine scan. It looks like one, but it’s so fake. Here’s why. For example, here it gives “atarashishii” as the reading for the Japanese word for “new”, which is “atarashii” (新しい). This mistake…

On the Wii U, Monster Hunter Looks Better Than Ever

No one can doubt that Monster Hunter is a phenomenal success in Japan. One iteration or another has been on every major console of the last generation (sans the Nintendo DS). So it is no surprise that when the Wii U launched in Japan, it had a Monster Hunter to go along with it: Monster…

Watch North Korean TV Announce The Nuclear Test

Earlier today in Asia, North Korea carried out its third nuclear test. The country’s central news station in Pyongyang announced the news. As ShanghaiIst points out, the anchor isn’t nearly as excited as the one telling us about last December’s rocket launch broadcast. Maybe because it’s their third nuclear test rodeo. For more coverage, check…