China tops Nintendo's Rampant Piracy List

Rampant? Really, Nintendo? Are Chinese piraters looting and pillaging, slaying the men and having their way with the women? Methinks you're being a bit too dramatic, but such a concern might be a good reason for you guys to help persuade the Chinese that a legitimate console market could help conquer the hordes of evil piracy you see going on rampantly here.

Instead of complaining about it so publicly, why not try solving the problem first? Complaining is when all else fails (it's also for pussies).

(thx Kotaku!)

Beijing gray market video game vendors break non-existent Killzone 2 street date

My friend was at our usual Ping Le Yuan video game store this past Saturday, where he saw Killzone 2 already on sale, a good six days before it's official launch date. The catch? It's 500RMB, or about $70. Worth it? Probably not.

Flower!

As usual I'm late to the party, and I'm sure everyone has formed their opinions about Flower, what a cool artistic game it is, how much fun it is to fly around sailing in the wind as it swirls your little petals to their hearts delights through meadows, dabbling in brooks, breezing around solumn rock outcroppings, and so forth.

It is a beautiful game. It's a peaceful game, a game that frees you of the confines of your dank little apartment that's half a floor underground, of which the cutscenes only serve as a vicious tormenting reminder. Flower, are you mocking my existence?

No, well not intentionally so. But I envy its beauty, I want to own it, make it mine, a goddess I'll never know.

The thing, though, that really bugs me about playing it? It has made me realize how bad a game player I am. Not bad skillwise, although that's true too, but rather from a theoretical point of view. Or maybe an ideological one. I don't know. The point is, I don't play this game, even this game, in which winning hardly seems to be a point at all, because I enjoy it. 

I play it to accomplish all the tasks to perfection. FOR SHAME. It really does ruin the fun of it, why? Because I end up focusing on figuring out how to get all my damn flowers to bloom, rather than the joy mentioned nigh four paragraphs ago.

Is it different for each level? Do I just need to have a butt load of flower petals when I end the level? All of them? Does getting zapped on level 5 lower my flower budding capability? Are there three sets of green petals on every level? THE GAME EXPLAINS NOTHING ARGH. Shouldn't I be basking in this ambiguity, celebrating its enigmaticity, if that is a word? Letting my imagination run away with itself at the possibilities this game presents, or at the very least, let my fucking obsession with perfection drown in a pool of drool so that I can get on with finishing the levels that it will let me play regardless of how well I did on the previous ones? Isn't that what's so cool about it, that you can enjoy the loose interpretive narrative no matter how unskilled you are, which makes my girlfriend (who is so amazing at everything else) happy to play as well?

Yes, this is my problem with game playing, my vice, my flaw. So I ask readers, do you have any flaws in your perception of gameplay that interfere with your actual joy of playing the game? Am I alone? What a desolate place this is.

Sony headed for more trouble?

There's a Chinese report out that Sony might be headed for trouble keeping costs down as sales fall... that's just bad, bad news. If it's true. Although Chinese media does tend to be better at reporting on business stuff than anything else.

Original article can be found here:

http://homea.people.com.cn/GB/8807545.html

Want to buy a console in China? It's easy

Even though video game consoles are not officially on the market in China yet, it's not hard to find any of them in the major cities like Beijing, where I live, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Any of the three systems in addition to the PS2 are readily available here, and surprisingly the prices, despite being imported, are roughly the same you'd pay in the States. A recent inquiry at my local dealer said the PS3 is going for about 2700RMB (~$400), an Xbox360 Arcade is 1600RMB (~$220) and the Wii runs somewhere around $300 last I checked, but that was awhile ago.

Where to buy:

In Beijing there are two choices--big malls like in Zhongguancun, the electronics/tech gadgets lala land of Beijing, where huge multistory complexes exist that cram in about as many vendor stalls as possible--if there were a fire, I'm sure most people would not get out alive. That said, it's the easiest place to find just about whatever you want, including video games and their systems. Zhongguancun is too far for me, but there's a similar place on a smaller scale near where I live called Pingleyuan. It's a lot of the same stuff but much quieter, and the guy who sells systems there is cool and seems pretty knowledgeable about gaming. The other choice is the little shops around the drum tower area--for some reason that's a popular location for console selling.

I bought a white PS3 last June, 40GB model, and it was by and large a hassle-free experience. Generally you don't need to bargain much, but you can probably knock 100-200rmb off the price if you get games and accessories with it. Most shops will have plenty of accessories, especially important cables like HDMI and even HDMI to DVI cables for computer monitor users. As far as I can tell they do come with a warranty, but I'm not sure it's the manufacturer's--rather you can either return it for a refund, get it exchanged, or get it repaired depending on how many days have passed.

There are some things to remember, however--the most important, I think, is that pretty much any Xbox360, Wii, or PS2 you buy will have been modified to play pirated games. This is done for the obvious reason--cost. You get a modded console and you can buy games just like buying pirated dvds--something like a buck a pop. The downside to this, at least for the Xbox360, is that you cannot play online.

The PS3, however, has not been modded. I guess no one's figured out how, or maybe the infrastructure doesn't exist yet to pirate Blu-ray discs in mass quantities for cheap. This means all the games you buy will cost you their actual price, which is anywhere from 260-400rmb. I find that there aren't any bargain deal prices like you can find in the States on older games, and I've never heard of used games being sold here either. The plus side is, you can play online with the PS3.

Other important considerations: remember that all consoles are imported, and if you like to watch DVD you bring from home, you might want to reconsider buying one here rather than one from the US, as consoles are region locked and in China, all consoles come from either Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, or maybe Taiwan. This means no legit DVDs from the west will play in them. Lamer than a paraplegic chicken, I know. Even worse, the PS3s are all NTSC and won't play PAL anything. Yet oddly when I rip a PAL movie to an avi file, it works fine. Dunno what's up with that.

OH wait, the actual worst part is buying a Wii here, because you can't change the damn language settings. If it came from Japan, you're stuck with Japanese, which I imagine has caused many hurt Chinese feelings.

Finally, the Xboxes, depending where it was imported from, may have 110v only power supplies, in which case you'll need a power invertor or power regulator to convert the voltage--DO NOT use one of those little crappy Radio Shack ones. It will fail and then you'll cry.

Other links on buying video game systems in China:

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2009/02/09/buying-a-wii-in-china

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2005/07/29/buying-a-ps2-in-shanghai

And in Taiwan:

http://toshuo.com/2009/buying-a-wii-in-taiwan/

The latter raises an interesting point--that the Wii doesn't even offer Chinese, simplified or traditional, as an option, suggesting that Nintendo doesn't care much for Chinese-speaking markets. I'm sure that would change the microsecond China starts allowing consoles to be sold on the mainland.

WCG 2009 in China??

According to gotfrag.com, this appears to be the case. This is big, this is huge, this is the Ron Jeremy of Video Game competitive events!

From the official WCG website:

National finalists then convene to compete in the ultimate international tournament in e-Sports, the World Cyber Games Grand Final, where each country's best players battle for the largest and most prestigious prizes in competitive gaming. The WCG 2009 Grad Final will be held in Chengdu, China.

Sweet, now I gotta figure out how to get there.

(Details in Chinese here and here)

I'm back and... wait, why am I praising Texas?

Yes, after an extended Chinese new year holiday, aka Spring Festival, the killer melons, well melon for now, is back.

So why am I praising Texas, and not China? I guess for two reasons--one they've given me something to praise them for, and two for giving me something to praise them for. Make sense? I'm high. Kidding.

Texas has declared Feb 3 Video Game Day!!! Holy shotguns and beer guzzlin, what a glorious achievement. I hope I live to see such a thing happen in China, but I fear that day shall never come to pass...