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Accuracy can be hit or miss. A lot of people in the translation communty use tools like chiitrans, chiitrans2, Translation Aggregator(TA) and agth. Google reguarlly flags sites with these as malware and specifically mentions these as malware, when they're no such thing. They also regularly flag mentions of RPG maker 2k(JP) as malware. To me it seems more like the engine is looking for anything that injects or hooks, which chiitrans, TA and agth do. Or non-standard character sets which the old RPG maker is. It uses the old non-ISO language flags. Newer versions like RPG Maker VX Ace do everything properly.

Yeah that's a link I included in the original story along with your basic links to SE and Level 5. Surprised no one has jumped on it saying the subtitle is actually closer to "Defenders of the Sky" or "Defenders of the Starry Sky" (depends who you ask atm). It was written last night right before bed as soon as I could piece it all together. I got some stuff like the DQ Arcade game from Famitsu's blog directly, most of which is on their main page now. Surprised most english news sites have no idea about the Arcade game...

Yeah that's a link I included in the original story along with your basic links to SE and Level 5. Surprised no one has jumped on it saying the subtitle is actually closer to "Defenders of the Sky" or "Defenders of the Starry Sky" (depends who you ask atm). It was written last night right before bed as soon as I could piece it all together. I got some stuff like the DQ Arcade game from Famitsu's blog directly, most of which is on their main page now. Surprised most english news sites have no idea about the Arcade game...

I don't think this is a translation; I think this is the slogan.

In my experience from a few trips to Japan, it is very common to use weird English as product slogans. Most Japanese have enough high school English to understand a short slogan made up of common words, even if they don't speak it that comfortably.

Perhaps my favourite was a 7/11-type store that had the phrase "So Delicious! So Happy!" plastered all over its fast-food takeouts.

I no longer view this as badly translated English. It's really its own thing - the use of English words to convey a Japanese esthetic. It's clear that these big companies could use correct English if they wanted to.

Famitsu is live blogging it. It's going for ¥25,000 on Dec. 2, over there. I want to doubt it, but it looks like the Seatle/NYTimes article is accurate.

See also:

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/09/14/nintendo-japan-c onference-not-so-liveblogging/
http://www.famitsu.com/blog/express/
http://gemaga.sbcr.jp/
http://www.irwebcasting.com/060914/01/
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6157572.html?tag=brea king_news;link
http://gonintendo.com/?p=5583

Announcement on Playstation.jp - http://www.playstation.jp/news/2006/pr_060315_ps3. html And some pics from the news conference on Famitsu - http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/2006/03/15/103,11 42401068,50042,0,0.html They're going to do a worldwide simultaneous launch in November...

Just came across this article in Famitsuu Online. It has the sales figures for the first three days after the Xbox 360 release. The article is based on data gathered across the nation by Famitsuu's marketing arm. Here's a quick summary of the numbers:

360 Sales: (initial three days)

• Estimated 360 sales: 62,135 units
• Estimated units shipped to stores: 159,000 units

Original Xbox Sales: (initial three days following 2002/11/22 launch)

• 123,929 units

Top 360 Software Sales:

1. Ridge Racer 6: 29,891 units (Namco)
2. Perfect Dark Zero: 14,897 units (Microsoft Games)
3. Need for Speed Wanted: 6,842 units (Electronic Arts)

Software Sale Ratio: (first three days, software sales / game unit sales)

• Xbox 360: 0.91 (less than one game being sold with each system on average!)
• Original Xbox: 1.45

The article goes on with some commentary about how the delayed release of Dead or Alive 4 will affect the system's sales. It was originally slated as a release title, and expected to be their "killer title". It was first delayed one week to 12/17, then pushed back to the end of the month for 12/29. The editor surmises that 12/29 should be considered the "true" sale date for the 360, and postulates that many of the people buying the system with no games are in fact waiting for DOA4.

My half-baked conclusions:

It looks like there are a lot of unsold units in stores, and despite the claims that the official launch was a "success", they have barely reached half of the original Xbox's opening three day figures. (Remember that the original Xbox went on to take less than 5% of the share). If these initial numbers are any indication, the Xbox 360 is off to a very poor start in Japan.

It's probably no surprise to the readers here that the Japanese-made RR6 is handily outselling Need for Speed Wanted. What's more of a surprise is that the average consumer seems to be buying the Xbox 360 with just one game, or in some cases, none at all! That has got to hurt short-term profits for Microsoft, who is taking a loss on the hardware and hoping to recover on software and online licenses.

I think that if anything, the delay of DOA4 probably pushed up sales of the other titles. Many purchasers had pre-reserved a system, and it would suck to have nothing but a beta of FFXI to play on the system you lined up for.

When GP32 came out, people accused it of being too similar in design to Game Boy Advance.

Now, it looks like Nintendo has decided to borrow Gamepark's design for the GPi , a notebook-style GP32 device (not yet released) that has a touchscreen, built-in mobile phone, and runs Linux.

See for yourself:
-- GBA SP
-- GPi

Another interesting thing about this is that both devices are updates to existing platforms: GBA SP from GBA, GPi from GP32. Perhaps Nintendo sensed a potential threat from Gamepark and decided to become more competitive?

• Gamers.com - Not too much info nowadays (they got bit too)
  
• The GIA - Fairly good coverage of major events. Very review and gameplay heavy, rather than industry news.
  
• Gamasutra - Industry news in a simple format, though more finance and 3rd party tools related
  
• FGN Online - Pretty good coverage. It's now an IGN affiliate.
  
• SegaDojo - Fairly good SEGA related coverage
  
• MS Xbox - For the people who can get past the fact that Microsoft might just have a kick ass gaming machine
  
• Final Fantasy Online - For any Final Fantasy freak. The site's down at the moment, though
  
• IGN Games - Coverage of anything and everything in gaming
  
• GameSpot - Okay, so it's GameSpot. At least they publish all their media in downloadable MPEGs
  
• Core Magazine - All the random things that other people don't cover, including interviews and stuff straight from Japan.
  
• US Famitsu - Currently down, with no plans of coming back up, but it's the US branch of the standard gaming press in Japan - Famitsu
  
• Stomped - Lots of coverage of gaming in general, with some focus on FPS.
  
• Blue's News - Blue keeps going, and it's always focused on FPS for the most part.
  
• OMM - And of course, Old Man Murray.
  

• Gamers.com - Not too much info nowadays (they got bit too)
  
• The GIA - Fairly good coverage of major events. Very review and gameplay heavy, rather than industry news.
  
• Gamasutra - Industry news in a simple format, though more finance and 3rd party tools related
  
• FGN Online - Pretty good coverage. It's now an IGN affiliate.
  
• SegaDojo - Fairly good SEGA related coverage
  
• MS Xbox - For the people who can get past the fact that Microsoft might just have a kick ass gaming machine
  
• Final Fantasy Online - For any Final Fantasy freak. The site's down at the moment, though
  
• IGN Games - Coverage of anything and everything in gaming
  
• GameSpot - Okay, so it's GameSpot. At least they publish all their media in downloadable MPEGs
  
• Core Magazine - All the random things that other people don't cover, including interviews and stuff straight from Japan.
  
• US Famitsu - Currently down, with no plans of coming back up, but it's the US branch of the standard gaming press in Japan - Famitsu
  
• Stomped - Lots of coverage of gaming in general, with some focus on FPS.
  
• Blue's News - Blue keeps going, and it's always focused on FPS for the most part.
  
• OMM - And of course, Old Man Murray.
  

psxndc