No More Heroes coming to Xbox 360 in Japan

While we’re not sure when or if it will make its way to North America, we do know that an Xbox 360 of No More Heroes is in development for Japan. Developed by Marvelous Entertainment, the Xbox 360 version, roughly translated as “No More Heroes: Heroes Paradise,” will be released on Xbox 360 February 25, 2010 in Japan.

We do not know whether or not the game is a straight port of the original Wii game, nor if it will offer more than just the cursory graphics overall, Xbox 360 refined control scheme and achievements. You can see some screenshots from the game at the Japanese Xbox 360 game page.

One thing we do know from the game page is that it is still a single player game and will feature more cut scenes and voice acting to enhance the bizarre storyline of the original as concieved by Suda51. More information when we have it.

Nintendo DSi on top, PSP moves up in Japan

According to Media Create, the Nintendo DSi was the best selling console in Japan for the week of Oct. 19 - 25th, 2009. During the week Nintendo managed to sell 42,199 units, followed by the PSP with 32,865 and the PS3 finally beating out the Wii with 29,977 units.

No hell has not in fact frozen over - price cuts are like little miracles!  Personally I think that the PSP go would be doing a lot better if its price point wasn’t more than the Wii at this point. Go figure. Full list below:

1 - DSi: 42,199

2 - PSP: 32,865

3 - PS3: 29,977

4 - Wii: 25,917

5 - DS Lite: 6,550

6 - Xbox 360: 4,470

7 - PS2: 1,951

Source: Media Create

PSP go off to a slow start

According to www.andriasang.com, citing sales figures from Enterbrain, the PSP go only moved around 28,750 units in Japan in its first weekend at retail space.

This is probably the magic number that Sony was hoping for.  Sony and other software makers released select titles for the launch including Persona 3 Portable, Dissidia Final Fantasy and titles like Disgaea Infinite and LocoRoco Midnight Carnival. If anything it proves that Sunday launched are not always a great idea for hardware debuts.

Anyway, hopefully Sony’s go “will go somewhere” by year’s end.

Capcom joins R4 lawsuit

According to a report on Game Politics, Capcom is the latest company to join in on a lawsuit against R4 flash cartridge makers using Japan’s Unfair Competition Prevention Act as the hammer.

Capcom joined Nintendo and 53 other game publishers in this lawsuit that hopes to curtail the use of this game copying device for the Nintendo DS. While Nintendo managed to get an injunction against the makers of these devices last year in a Tokyo court, that doesn’t seem to have had much impact of the situation.

“We are expecting the entire society including users to recognize that our company and other software manufactures have extremely sustained damages from proliferation of illegal instruments, such as the Game Copying Devices,” said Capcom is a statement today. “..and the computer industries have sustained serious damages because of those vendors, and we expect to influence the society to eliminate such illegal instruments from the market.”

It will be interesting to see if Nintendo and friends can do anything to curtail the use of the R4 in Japan. While it’s not impossible, it won’t be easy either. It will be a lot harder to deal with the use of the R4 in places like China where piracy and black markets are an integral part of the consumer shopping experience.

Japanese hardware sales for Sept. 14 - 20, 2009

Japanese hardware sales are in for the week of Sept. 14 - 20, 2009, with the DSi continuing to top the hardware sales charts in that region with right around 66k units sold for the week - according to data from Media Create.

The PS3 came in at a respectable 55k, followed by the PSP at 21k, the Wii with over 16k in sales, the DS at 13k the Xbox 350 at just under 5K and the PS2 at over 2k. Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver editions for the Ds probably didn’t hurt DS/DSi sales for the week. Full list below:

- DSi: 66,073

- PS3: 51,055

- PSP: 21,073

- Wii: 16,698

- DS Lite: 13,555

- Xbox 360: 4,965

- PS2: 2,723

PS3 Slim selling well in the UK, Japan

According to Famitsu, the new PS3 Slim’s design and pricepoint are a hit with Japanese gamers, who have bought over a 150,000 units in Japan in the first three days of launch last Friday. Meanwhile in the UK, ChartTrack reports

Earlier today, Chart-Track confirmed with VG247 that PS3 sales in the United Kingdom were up a whopping 1,000 percent.

If Sony can keep up this momentum in Europe and Japan and here in North America, then we might just have a contentious fight on our hands for second place in this generation’s cycle of consoles. Of course, as an example, the Xbox 360 saw some modest gains in the UK as well in that same week.

We’ll see how both systems did later this week when NPD Group releases numbers for North America.

GamersGate and Rockin’ Android in pact

GamersGate has inked a distribution deal with indie video game publisher Rockin’ Android that will see the digital download service carry the company’s first North American release, SUGURI. Additional titles from Rockin’ Android will follow. The Japanese fan-favorite hybrid, side-scrolling shoot’em up, fighter SUGURI, scheduled for availability at the end of June.

SUGURI is a hybrid shooter/fighter game created by Japan indie game developer Orange Juice. The game offers rendered designs, unique weaponry, rapid-fire combat gameplay action and a cool techno-trance soundtrack.

More details about this and many other games can be found at www.gamersgate.com.