The Playstation Vita hit stores in Japan on December 17th, 2011. Since then, sales performances for the powerful little handheld have been… “Not meeting expectations” would be a mild way of stating it. This week, Weekly Famitsu covered the past 6 months of the Vita’s fight in the game market. As of July 7th, the…
The vast, vast majority of Japanese game studios are bland, boring office affairs. Even the entryway for Nintendo’s Kyoto headquarters is nothing to write home about. This, however, is. So start writing. Level-5, the folks behind those Professor Layton games, have a truly spectacular corporate digs. Internal design and architect company Noa did Level-5’s HQ…
After being unveiled at the Level-5 World 2011 last year, news about Level-5’s new open world RPG, Fantasy Life, remained mostly silent. Now, with a release of “2012” and only about 5 months of the year left, new information is slowly trickling out. Set in the world of “Fantazeel,” Fantasy Life is an open world…
Q Entertainment’s MMORPG Ninety-Nine Nights Online, the MMORPG version of Ninety-Nine Nights, is shutting off the lights on September 27 and going offline. Goodnight, N3 Online! [Game Watch Impress]
Longtime card maker turned video game company Nintendo is readying two sets of Kirby playing cards. Starting this August, a blue set (above) and a green set (same, but green) will go on sale in Japan for ¥1,050 (US$13) each. 星のカービィトランプ [任天堂]
Studio Ghibli revealed that Princess Mononoke is coming to the London stage. Theater company Whole Hog Theatre will be doing a production of the 1997 anime next April at London’s New Diorama Theatre. The stage version is a collaboration between Studio Ghibli and Whole Hog Theatre, and it has been in development for over the…
Yesterday at an anime festival in Shenzhen, China, a cosplayer showed up dressed as a female spirit. Dressed? Did I say dressed? Silly me. The cosplayer showed up as the Chinese apparition Nu Gui, but the crowd that gathered was very real. Dressed only in a flesh colored skivvies and wearing nipple covers, the cosplayer…
Kotaku East runs from 4am to 8am Eastern. For more info about Kotaku East click here
Badass Japanese soap opera (and occasionally sublime brawler) Yakuza’s first two games are getting HD re-releases on the PS3. This trailer gives us our first look at the updated editions in action. While many “HD” ports are disappointing, that shouldn’t be a problem for the Yakuza games. After all, outside of cutscenes many parts of…
One of the Zelda series’ most dangerous (and creepy) enemies, the skulltula, is the star of this great piece of art by Asashi-Kami. Bonus: if you like it so much you’d like to wear it on your chest, you can Skulltula [DeviantArt]
What do you get when you cross Optimus Prime with Warhammer 40K’s Orks? A joke with a terrible punchline, I’d wager, but also this amazing custom piece by Singaporean madscuzzy. While it may just look like a slightly modified version of an existing Transformers toy, it’s actually the result of a ton of work on…
Curiosity is the name of the first title legendary designer Peter Molyneux has worked on since leaving Lionhead. This is not a trailer for that game. Well, it is, kind of. It’s brilliant satirist Peter Molydeux’s trailer for Curiosity, which takes Molyneux’s penchant for hype and blows it quite literally out into space.
While there’s official Lord of the Rings (and The Hobbit!) LEGO sets, to keep them affordable and able to fit on a store shelf they’re kept small and fairly basic. So the official Helm’s Deep set looks nothing like this monstrosity Built as a promo centrepiece for a store in Oslo, Norway, Daniel Z’s massive…
BioShock’s Big Daddy enforcers look great, but they’re stuck in the past. All that rust and brass, it’s so 20th century! What they need is a makeoever, bring them up to 21st century standards. Artist Sean Bigham tackled the issue a few years back, and the results are surprisingly tasteful. I especially like the little…
That’s it. No mahine guns today. No more giant robots, no post-apocalyptic landscapes, no bloodthirsty aliens. Today, we’re looking at video game concept art that’s so damn bright and cheerful it’ll put more peps in your step than you’ll know what to do with. It’s all the work of Floriane Marchix, who is currently at…
Following up creepy Christian Bale and tiny Gary Oldman, Hong Kong collectible company Hot Toys will also be releasing incredibly realistic Dark Knight Rises replicas of villain Bane and Batman’s old Tumbler. If you were hoping they’d be available in time to take with you to theatres, though, you’ll be disappointed. Bane ($195) won’t be…
Many Skyrim mods are there to enhance the game in a realistic manner. Better maps, easier menus, improved visuals, etc. This one doesn’t do any of those things. It just turns the game into the most Nordic game of Minecraft you’ve ever seen. Sure, all it really does is add some turn characters in Skyrim…
It’s been well over a year since the earthquake and ensuing Fukushima nuclear disaster took place. The crisis is not over, and people living near the reactors have been cleared out. They are yet to return. In their place, the plants are taking over. Japanese website GetNews is running photos that depict reality in the…
Video games used to be, quite literally for many in US politics, the devil. Or something very close. These days, though, you’re more likely to hear about developers getting tax breaks than games being banned. That kind of acceptance from a former enemy didn’t happen overnight. It took years of education and lobbying. Oh, and…
It’s easy to do something stupid. It’s harder to publicly apologise and own up to it. In the past 24 hours, nerd rap superstar MC Chris has managed to do both “I don’t have security, I don’t have a manager,” gets uttered at one point. Maybe today has changed his mind on that.
Mode
Follow us
