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Japan’s Pirates Answer Pirate Questions… Arrr!

We have already polled you, Joe Q. Reader, about piracy. Let’s hear the results of a Japanese poll. Are they the same? Japan’s japan.internet.com polled 1,000 internet users about piracy. The sample was 55.3 percent male with 1.0 percent in their teens, 16.1 percent in their twenties, 27.1 percent in their thirties, 30.9 percent in…

Wii Gets 25% Price Cut (Down Under)

While Americans enjoyed a Wii price cut last year, Australian gamers were left out in the cold (well, sunshine), continuing to pay the same price we had since 2006. That all changes tomorrow. Yes, starting April 29, the Wii will go from AUD$400 to AUD$300 (USD$370-USD$275), a massive 25% price cut. The basic offer will…

Nice Hair, Miku, Real Nice

I do not have long, plastic, aqua-colored hair. If I did, I’d want it to look like this. Vocaloid and music game character Miku Hatsune is getting immortalized in yet another figurine. Sculpture Masaki Apsy has outdone himself with this stunning Miku figurine. More details are forthcoming. ミクappendのデザインに関わらせて頂きました。 [Masaki Apsy Weblog]

Goodbye, Floppy Disks

In 1981, Sony brought the world the 3.5-inch floppy disk, which for nearly two decades would stand as the PC world’s preferred means of storage. In 2011, after 30 years on the market, Sony will cease production of these disks. Despite the advent of superior mediums like CDs, DVDs and flash drives, the format lived…

Not Everywhere Has This Final Fantasy XIII PS3 Controller

Japanese role-playing game Final Fantasy XIII might already be out in the West and Japan, but the localized version is not out in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Yet. To mark the release of the Chinese-language version of the game, Sony is releasing a special FFXIII-branded PS3 controller. Priced at the equivalent of US$90, the controller…

The Video Game Marriage Proposal

Anders Howard, who works by day as a game designer, wanted his marriage proposal to be something special. Something memorable. So he made his girlfriend a “game”, and called it Dinner Love and the Quest for Soup What starts as a Godzilla-like quest for food soon becomes a tale of love, ending with the proposal…

First Proper Look At Final Fantasy Creator’s New Game

The most we’ve seen so far of The Last Story, an upcoming Wii role-playing game from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, has been artwork. It’s about time we looked at the actual game itself, eh? This week’s issue of Famitsu gave the world its first look at the game, which many are hoping will bring…

A New Look At Vanquish, From The Creator of Resident Evil

Are you excited yet about Vanquish, the third-person shoot ’em up from Bayonetta and Madworld studio Platinum Games? Did we mention it’s from the guy who made God Hand? And did you see these new screen shots? Game director Shinji Mikami’s latest may feature familiar shooting action—with, apparently, a Bayonetta style “Witch Time”-like time-slowing effect…

Kotaku Off Topic: Baconator

Consider this edition of Kotaku Off Topic a two-for-Tuesday, a chance to comment not once, but twice on the topic of your choosing at no additional cost. (Yes, I cleared this with my manager.) Say, anyone have a version of this NASA photograph of Neil Armstrong from the Gemini VIII launch that’s at, say, wicked…

Vanquish Screens

Kingdom Hearts

The Cub Scouts Get Video Game Badges

Scouting is no longer just about the outdoors – roughing it, blowing up a can of beef stew in a campfire or drinking kool-aid that tastes like chewable aspirin. The Cub Scouts are now awarding pins for video games. Not for Gamerscore, trophies, or beating God of War III. The Cub Scouts have put together…

Pentagon Wants To Build Better Soldiers With Video Games, Mind-Reading

The Department of Defense aims to train a better breed of soldier using video games (aka “simulations”) that monitor voice recognition, facial gestures and cognitive patterns through EEG scans, reports Wired. Hope for future video game controllers! [Wired]

Pac and Blinky, Paired on a Paring Board

This cutting board runs $165, but it’s perfect for cutting vegetables – or strawberries, oranges, apples and melons. But not Galaxians or keys. Seen on Etsy by reader Cameron O.

Halo: Reach’s First TV Spot Shows How Spartans Are Made

In the ongoing tradition of beautifully filmed, high-class live action Halo commercials comes “Birth of a Spartan,” Microsoft and Bungie’s promotional short for the Halo: Reach beta. That’s right. We’re doing beta commercials now. The 60-second spot features the Spartan-izing of Carter 259, who you’ll soon better know as the future leader of Noble Team…

Madden 11 to Explore the Difference Between Simplified and Easy

Two videos and some screens released today give visual context to Madden NFL 11‘s “Gameflow”, described in Totilo’s preview yesterday, and other features that designers say will halve the amount of time required to play a game. Play-calling gets a big streamline and not just within Gameflow, the new mode in which an offensive coordinator…

Madden NFL 11 Screens

Play Way More Than 18 Holes With The Raunchy Tiger Woods’ Affair Tour

The face of EA Sports Tiger Woods PGA Tour series is now the unwilling subject of another video game, the adults-only, sexually explicit screw ’em up Tiger Woods Affair Tour 2010. D-Dub Software, makers of the free-roaming sexual, drug-charged Bonetown, have struck while the iron is room temperature, turning Woods’ extramarital dalliances into a video…

BioShock 2 Won’t Go Metro This Week

The Rapture Metro pack, previously scheduled to arrive this week for BioShock 2 fans hungry for more of the multiplayer action they so desperately crave, will miss its stop. 2K Games has pressed pause on the downloadable map pack’s release. Instead, the BioShock 2 Rapture Metro add-on will coming to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3…

Fourteen Halo 2 Fans Refuse to Let It Die

Lots of people continued playing Halo 2 past the midnight deadline Microsoft gave 12 days ago for discontinuing original Xbox multiplayer support. Fourteen have managed to still keep their consoles connected and running since, prolonging the game’s final goodbye indefinitely. Console overheating concerns and dropped Internet connections have whittled their numbers, but so far, neither…