PS4 Verdict:
Quote:
Writing in his regular column in the latest issue of Japanese game magazine Famitsu, Goichi Suda – better known as Suda51, the lunatic visionary behind No More Heroes and Lollipop Chainsaw – has this week shared his initial thoughts on PlayStation 4.
“I’m writing this just a few hours after the reveal of PS4,” begins Suda, whose Grasshopper Manufacture studio is currently at work on multiplatform title Killer Is Dead. “The PS3 has been on sale for seven years but it’s still very much alive and doesn’t feel old at all. The life cycle for hardware has gotten longer, I keep thinking. But saying that, I’m thrilled that we can welcome the PS4 at the end of this year.”
He goes on to detail his first impressions. “I think that in the future, cloud delivery will become totally commonplace,” he writes. “Social networking has certainly done that. To be able to play anywhere, on any device, with shared data – this will be an alluring new feature for games. You’ll have your own personal profile or ID that you can access from many different devices and enjoy your game from anywhere, in various different ways.
“That this play style will become a reality is futuristic enough. But in addition, cloud saving becoming standard practice is an evolution in itself. It will add new value and will surely result in new ways to play. Thinking about the future of this stuff and then constructing and outputting something appealing is our job as game designers, and from that challenge we can take new strength.
“And that makes me horny.”
Though Suda’s comments are not especially controversial, they nevertheless convey his enthusiasm for Sony’s new hardware. Under the heading “Another turn-on,” he writes, “As has been announced, Grasshopper Manufacture will make games for PS4, as will (parent company) GungHo Online Entertainment and (sister company) Acquire. I can’t go into detail at this stage, but for sure the new challenge is exciting.
“During PlayStation Meeting 2013, Sony showed such a strong vision. Now we have to decide how to find our own victories within that and present games that express the Grasshopper world. And that makes me horny again.
“Whichever way you look at it, talk of new hardware means a new sense of excitement within the industry. The buzz will surely go unabated until the holidays. It’s going to be a precious year.”
“I’m writing this just a few hours after the reveal of PS4,” begins Suda, whose Grasshopper Manufacture studio is currently at work on multiplatform title Killer Is Dead. “The PS3 has been on sale for seven years but it’s still very much alive and doesn’t feel old at all. The life cycle for hardware has gotten longer, I keep thinking. But saying that, I’m thrilled that we can welcome the PS4 at the end of this year.”
He goes on to detail his first impressions. “I think that in the future, cloud delivery will become totally commonplace,” he writes. “Social networking has certainly done that. To be able to play anywhere, on any device, with shared data – this will be an alluring new feature for games. You’ll have your own personal profile or ID that you can access from many different devices and enjoy your game from anywhere, in various different ways.
“That this play style will become a reality is futuristic enough. But in addition, cloud saving becoming standard practice is an evolution in itself. It will add new value and will surely result in new ways to play. Thinking about the future of this stuff and then constructing and outputting something appealing is our job as game designers, and from that challenge we can take new strength.
“And that makes me horny.”
Though Suda’s comments are not especially controversial, they nevertheless convey his enthusiasm for Sony’s new hardware. Under the heading “Another turn-on,” he writes, “As has been announced, Grasshopper Manufacture will make games for PS4, as will (parent company) GungHo Online Entertainment and (sister company) Acquire. I can’t go into detail at this stage, but for sure the new challenge is exciting.
“During PlayStation Meeting 2013, Sony showed such a strong vision. Now we have to decide how to find our own victories within that and present games that express the Grasshopper world. And that makes me horny again.
“Whichever way you look at it, talk of new hardware means a new sense of excitement within the industry. The buzz will surely go unabated until the holidays. It’s going to be a precious year.”
Soul Sacrifice and Project Diva:
Quote:
Also causing a stir in Japan this week are Soul Sacrifice on Vita and Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F on PS3. Soul Sacrifice scored a red-hot 37 out of 40 in Famitsu, which pegged the single-player mode at around 25 hours of play and praised the co-op multiplayer that is the game’s central feature. The magazine dedicated a full 11 pages to a play guide and interview with creator Keiji Inafune and director Teruhiro Shimogawa.
“It’s a game that will make people think, ‘I’m glad I bought a PS Vita!’,” Inafune told Famitsu. “Just like you can’t mention the NES without thinking of Mario, I want Soul Sacrifice to become synonymous with Vita.”
“It wasn’t enough for the game just to look cool,” said Shimogawa. “I wanted to be able to say with pride, ‘We made that original, hit game’.”
Inafune was on hand to sign autographs at retail/rental store Tsutaya in Shibuya on Thursday. “The date of 7 March has come to mean as much to me as my own birthday,” 4Gamer quotes him as saying at the event.
At another event also held on Thursday, at Sega’s Joypolis arcade in the gaudy Tokyo entertainment district of Odaiba, a live band kicked off the release of Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F, the PS3 version of the Vita rhythm game with almost the same name (the upper or lowercase F distinguishing between the console and pocket platforms). The event featured guest spots from voice actors behind the Vocaloid range, reports 4Gamer.
Project Diva F is the first Hatsune Miku game to go multiplatform. The virtual pop idol is the flagship character in the Vocaloid software plug-in range and has become a star in her own right in Japan, despite the fact that she doesn’t really exist. Part of the appeal is that anyone can make their own song with Hatsune Miku on vocals, simply by buying the plug-in and programming it to sing. The music in Project Diva F is a mostly excellent selection of bonkers electronic pop and seems to have been cherry-picked by Sega from the growing community of Hatsune Miku songwriters.
It will be interesting to see how both games fare in the charts – Soul Sacrifice is Sony’s great white hope for Vita in Japan, while Project Diva f’s release on Vita caused a surge in hardware sales when it was released last year. It was nonetheless hampered by Vita’s limited install base – no doubt Sega will be watching the charts as closely as we will.
“It’s a game that will make people think, ‘I’m glad I bought a PS Vita!’,” Inafune told Famitsu. “Just like you can’t mention the NES without thinking of Mario, I want Soul Sacrifice to become synonymous with Vita.”
“It wasn’t enough for the game just to look cool,” said Shimogawa. “I wanted to be able to say with pride, ‘We made that original, hit game’.”
Inafune was on hand to sign autographs at retail/rental store Tsutaya in Shibuya on Thursday. “The date of 7 March has come to mean as much to me as my own birthday,” 4Gamer quotes him as saying at the event.
At another event also held on Thursday, at Sega’s Joypolis arcade in the gaudy Tokyo entertainment district of Odaiba, a live band kicked off the release of Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F, the PS3 version of the Vita rhythm game with almost the same name (the upper or lowercase F distinguishing between the console and pocket platforms). The event featured guest spots from voice actors behind the Vocaloid range, reports 4Gamer.
Project Diva F is the first Hatsune Miku game to go multiplatform. The virtual pop idol is the flagship character in the Vocaloid software plug-in range and has become a star in her own right in Japan, despite the fact that she doesn’t really exist. Part of the appeal is that anyone can make their own song with Hatsune Miku on vocals, simply by buying the plug-in and programming it to sing. The music in Project Diva F is a mostly excellent selection of bonkers electronic pop and seems to have been cherry-picked by Sega from the growing community of Hatsune Miku songwriters.
It will be interesting to see how both games fare in the charts – Soul Sacrifice is Sony’s great white hope for Vita in Japan, while Project Diva f’s release on Vita caused a surge in hardware sales when it was released last year. It was nonetheless hampered by Vita’s limited install base – no doubt Sega will be watching the charts as closely as we will.
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Ah Goichi Suda, always getting turned on by new things.
Still i must admit I'm really looking forward to soul sacrifice, it looks pretty damn good. Can't say the same for Project Diva though, Not a Vocaloid fan after all.