Iroiro Gemu Apudeitsu

For the nihongo comprehension less, iroiro is Japanese for "various", and nihongo is Japanese for Japanese. So, the title today is "Various Game Updates", the later two words being phonetically spelled in Japanese. If someone could tell me if there's a difference between Japanese and japanese I would appreciate. I suspect one is a language, and one is a people.

Anyway...

First, I've made some modifications to my translation agenda. After translating at least one hundred difference sentences saying nothing more than, "My pokemon are going to beat yours", atleast one hundred sentences saying, "Holy crap! How did I lose!" and at least another hundred saying, "Wow, your pokemon are extremely strong!", I think it isn't necessary to continue doing so. More than anything else, it was making a part of the game that should be rewarding me for my hard work, more work.

Basically, it became like trying to eat every last crumb of your cookie. Quite simply, it won't be a delicious endeavor. Your big bites you can take are nice, but when you have to lick the crumbs of the floor and plate, you just taste floor and plate.

In any case, this has reinvigorated my translation efforts, which were lagging because of the near endless amounts of text I faced. Now that when I venture out of new towns I just worked very hard translating, I don't slam into another wall of text, which honestly wasn't informing me of anything anyway.

I still translate battles with my rival, any Gym Leaders, or other plot important ones. However, offsetting this is the removal of translating the people in shops and pokemon centers (they just tell you about items and pokemon anyway. I think after playing Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Crystal, Sapphire and Ruby, I'd know my way around).

Other game updates are that a friend here in Japan aquired a computer, a copy of Guilty Gear XX, and a pair of controllers. Despite my recent bashes of games of that type, I do remind you I still enjoy them. It's been fun.

Jack Thompson has continued to perpetuate stereotypes of people concerned about the effect of violent media on children. Actually, that isn't very surprising.

Microsoft has continued to try to draw as much attention as they can to the Xbox360, building up to its launch date (which is just around the corner). Unfortunately, as far as I can tell their attempts to do so in Japan are pretty bad. Quite simply, the amount of space the original Xbox gets in a Japanese gaming store is next to nothing, and the amount of space, effort and time given to the upcoming launch is less than nothing. At one major retailer they have in front of the entrance a list of upcoming game and movie releases going into January, the Xbox360 isn't even there.

While it might take off in the states, or the UK, or Micronesia, I don't see it penetrating the Japanese market at all. I see hordes of Gamecube, PS2, PSP and DS commericals touting games and hardware, but I have yet to even see Microsoft's logo anywhere but on the computers I use in the library.

The inherent problem here is that Nintendo and Sony can surely subsist off of the Japanese market. There are very few potential scenarios currently that show either company losing enough of their Asian side market shares to warrant any worries here. In the states, experts are probably using a random number generator, taking three numbers, and turning them into a fraction that equals one hundred percent. While this leaves all sorts of scenarios open, all of them leave Sony and Nintendo ready for a another round in the console generation after this upcoming one.

Quite simply, Japan was only ever successfully invaded once, and it doesn't appear that they are going to let it happen again.

Random Thought: It is now 5:30 back home. I've been up that late playing video games before.

Owarimasu. (Finished).