Sep 09
超級馬力歐的選物販賣機
我這個週末去了高雄的大遠百百貨公司。在那裡我看過幾個選物販賣機(娃娃機)上面有任天堂的超級馬力歐展示。大遠百平常有很多選物販賣機，可是這是我第一次看這些展示。我仔細看過後好像有人自己做的不是官方做的，可是看起來品質非常高。
Dec 09
Japanese for Gamers
Trying to configure my Japanese Wii has been difficult at times. Due to the Japanese containing lots of Mandarin characters my girlfriend has been able to translate a lot of the menu options but it’s still quite hit-and-miss with a lot of the options. Against the difficulties I’ve managed to configure wirelesss and access the online store, but I’m still quite lost in the menus, especially on my own.
Today I found a site that covers a lot of Japanese language that is directly related to gaming. Japanese for Gamers covers common Japanese for reading game magazines, using game menus, RPG, Sports and strategy games and gaming companies. After a quick look I can already recognise some of the options that I’ve seen in the Wii menus. I’ll fire up the Wii later and see if I can put them to the test.
The site is a geocities site, so I’ve Vacuumed it just in case it dissapears. If it does I’ll post up the archive. If there’s any more resources for import game players please post them in the comments.
Dec 08
Translator Required - Famicom TV Remote Controller
I picked up a Famicom controller TV remote while in Tokyo recently. The only problem is, the instructions (unsurprisingly) are in Japanese. Most of the Japanese includes Mandarin though, so my girlfriend has been able to decipher some of the instructions, but we still can’t get it to work.
From what we can tell, the A button should be pressed once, followed by the B button and while keeping the B button held down press and hold the left arrow on the D-pad. The red LED on the controller lights and stays lit, and as far as I know it should turn off when it has the correct frequency for the TV. I’m not sure if it’s the translated instructions, or the rare brand of TV that we’re using that is the problem. I’m posting the Japanese instructions here in the hope that someone can translate them, in the meantime I’ll try and track down some Japanese reading Taiwanese and see if they can help.
Dec 08
Japanese Wii advertising
The recent sales figures from Japan for the Wii release show that Wii Sports came out on top, outselling the US favourite, Zelda: Twlight Princess. This has been reported on a few blogs as perplexing or a shocker.
While this is strange in comparison with the US figures, when considering that the advertising in Japan features almost solely Wii sports, and that this is the flagship title, it is no suprise the this game is outselling the others. The Tokyo subway is covered with poster ads for Wii and Wii Sports, and a Wii Sports TV advertisement is running inside of the newer trains.
This could also be proof that the Wii is selling as planned - that non-gamers are buying the console who may not have heard of Zelda, opening the new market that Nintendo is aiming for.
Oct 20
Photo Tour of the Kaohsiung computer district, Taiwan
The Jianguo Road area in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan is full of computer and technology related stores. I recently ordered a 120GB SATA drive for my Macbook and used the trip to collect it as an excuse to snap a few shots of the area and any interesting things that caught my eye.
You can see all of the photos in this Zooomr Photo Set (My free Flickr account is maxed so I’m testing out Zooomr), and I’ve featured some of the more interesting photos below-
This tablet PC is an 8.9inch Fujitsu Lifebook P1510. the screen swivels so it can be used in both laptop or tablet mode. With a 1.2Ghz Pentium M it’s not the most powerful system, but it just feels so damn good to use it. i can’t remember what the resolution was but I can remember thinking it was fairly decent for a machine of it’s size. Comes with a 60GB HD, USB2.0, Bluetooth, Modem, LAN, WiFi and finger print sensor but only 512MB of memory.
A shot from the balcony of what seems to be the biggest gaming store in the area. This store is absolutely crammed with games for all platforms, consoles, DVDs, figurines, Web Cams and other hardware. It makes me wish I could read Chinese or Japanese so I could play some of these games.
No this isn’t a Wii, it’s a Core Duo based small form factor system that are quite common, although not as common as the millions of variations of mini MP4 players. At $29,990 it works out at about £480 or $900US, which seems a bit expensive to me, I’d be more tempted to buy an Intel Mac Mini - although, all prices are negotiable here 
I know there’s places in Taipei and Japan that are bigger and better, but this is still a long way away from anything you’d find in the UK etc, I could hang out there all day
Sep 16
XBox 360 owns Taiwan
I’m not sure about the rest of Asia, but in Taiwan XBox 360 seems to be everywhere. I’d always thought that the XBox didn’t do so well outside of North America and Europe. That probably explains why there’s a such a push for it here.
Some of the larger chain stores seem to only stock 360s and not PS2s or Gamecubes. Could be an exclusivity deal, or just that the other consoles aren’t profitable here anymore. Either way, there’s no mistaking that Microsoft wants it’s console to be popular over here.
This is one of the things I like most about Taiwan (and probably one of the things the locals hate the most), that you can see giant posters for games consoles and computer components on the street. I couldn’t imagine being on a UK high street and seeing a huge Seagate Momentus poster, or 3 storey XBox 360 ad.
