I’m assuming that most of you by now have heard about the rumored prices for PS3 games in Japan. For those that haven’t, it’s been speculated as somewhere between ¥8,800 ($75 USD) and ¥9,800 ($85 USD). You may be inclined to worry about the prices domestically if the Japanese prices are so high. PS2 games retailed in Japan for about 6,800 yen, about $10 more than their American counterparts (actually, they pay more for a lot of stuff.) Also, Activision did announce that all of their US titles would cost $60 USD.

I think it’s fair to say that the likely US price for games will be around the $60 USD. It kind of surprises me that people would blindly complain about the price without even a bit of research.

Note: be sure to check out the trailer of White Knight Story. It’s awesome.

Edit: It appears as though my magic crystal ball is right. Sony has basically announced that PS3 games will be $59.99. The SonyStyle store is selling the games for that price. No surprise there.

And it’s freakin sweet. It’s kind of weird how orz got his computer around the same time I didI actually got this yesterday, but it took me too long to transfer all of my files to new laptop from my old Sony Viao. I was using my two 1GB memory sticks with the File and Settings Trasnfer Wizard. Ah, such a pain. My new lappy is an Alienware.

Here are the specs:

• Windows XP Media Center Edition plus a USB TV tuner and remote
• Intel Core 2 Duo 7600
• 17″ WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD
• 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz - 2 x 1024MB
• 160GB (80GB x 2) Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ NCQ & 8MB Cache (RAID 0)
• 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon® X1800

I’ve really realized how mch impact my processor and my extra GB of RAM makes when I deal with scans. My old desktop (a P4 2.4 GHz) and the Viao I was borrowing (PentiumM 2.2 Ghz,) both with 1 GB of memory, both stuttered when I was dealing with scans at 1200 dpi. With this comp, I can open those files with an image editor in about 1 or 2 seconds. I haven’t tried out any games with this laptop yet (I didn’t bring enough PC games with me,) but I will be sure to make a post about it when I do. Maybe I’ll add pics later ,but for now,later.

Now, now. There is no need to cry for the loss of my wallet. It will all be better soon, I promise.

Being the philosopher I don’t claim to be, I can’t help but to think of the future. I can say that it looks very bleak for my wallet, especially since I’m still awaiting a certain paycheck that I had thought was coming sooner (although, it appears I miscalculated.) Nonetheless, I shall highlight some of the things I hope to acquire in the future.

(more…)

Please, won’t anyone think of the children?

I would like to encourage anyone who reads this to check out Folding@Home. I have little doubt that many of you leave your computer on overnight (running torrents, maybe?) I do doubt that many of you reach 100% CPU power often. With all that potential CPU power you guys have, you might as well use it to help some researchers or something. This program is a great way to do that. Please check it out sometime.

In related news, Folding@Home is being made for the PS3 (I think they’re calling Folding@PS3 or something like that) to take advantage of its Cell processor. I wonder how my new CPU will compare to the number-crunching power of the Cell when it comes to folding. I’ll be sure to install it on my PS3,whenever I choose to get it (of course, definitely not at launch!)

On my quest to find a Bouken Desho Desho? [冒険でしょでしょ] ringtone for my phone, since I was started to get tired of my old Waltz, I stumbled across J-KEN, a Japanese ringtone site. I haven’t really looked at all of their stuff, but I’m sure they had a lot of ringtones, since they had about 15 different versions of Bouken Desho Desho?.

Before you ask, I have no idea how to register for the site. Here’s an easy to get a ringtone using Firefox:

• When you find a song you like, click the pink button right about the mobile phone button.
• You should see the media player playing ringtone. Click the link right below the media player.
• Next, right click on the page and go to ‘page info’.
• Then, click the media tab and scroll down until you find a filetype that says ‘Embed’.
• Click ‘Save As’ and you’re done!

It’s a pretty cheap way to circumvent registration, but it gets the job done nonetheless.

Yea, I finally got my 1 GB memory stick pro duo. I actually got two of them. Don’t ask why, it’s a story so complicated that not even I know it well. Now I can finally play other games besides Lumines without fear of losing my high score.

Of course the first thing I did when I got the memory stick was save my precious game of Lumines (oh, how hurt I would be if I were to lose my precious save. The horror that would befell me.) Then I did all that formatting business and transferred all of my PSP wallpapers on my computer to the stick (the one I’m using now is pictured above.)

Don’t be too surprised to find a post about a PSP game other than Lumines in the future.

The first volume of Stray Little Devil was pretty much an impulse buy. It had a pretty cover and the art seemed good enough so I decided to buy it. I had no idea what the manga was about at all. I’m glad that the manga is good enough so that it doesn’t feel like I wasted my money.

The manga takes place in a world populated by angels, demons, and monsters. It stars a girl who has been mysteriously transported to this world due to a summoning spell she attempted to show her friend but failed. The girl, Pam, finds out that she turned into a demon.

She enrolls in this training facility for other young demons-in-training. There, she meets her instructor and two fellow demon trainees and finds out that she needs to find a familiar since in this world, every demon and angel requires one.

Pam, the main heroine of this cute little story.

If you’re expecting the kind of story where demons do evil things and the main character slowly turns into some type of evil being, you’re looking at the wrong manga. Stray Little Devil’s main draw in is its cute character designs and cute stories to go along with it. This is the story of some average, naive high school girl trying to learn to cope in a new world.

With me and most cute manga, I really like the art style. I’m sure those who don’t like loli-looking girls won’t agree with me, though (they would probably hate Ichigo Mashimaro, too.) I’ll let the scans do the talking.

Note: I finally got Lights. That makes me happy. Now the only thing to do is get to 999,999 pts. to get the last challenge mode skin. Then I can go on to the other modes so I can get even more skins. …I’m not addicted.

Here’s another good artist: Natsuo Mibu [壬生夏生 / みぶなつき]. What draws me to his work are his character’s eyes. They remind me of the eye quality of works by Fujishima Kosuke or Ito Noizi. If his artwork seems familiar to you, it may be because he is the character designer for the tetsudou musume figures. Besides that, it doesn’t seem that he has done all that much more, besides a few illustrations here and there for some magazines and doujin.

Sample pictures:

PS: Lumines high score = 300+ K. Somewhere about level 95 but below 100. I’m almost skilled enough to get Lights.