The numbers 1 and 5. And the letter X.
Wouldn’t you just know it. The first post I get around to making in a while and it’s one of those geeky ones.
But is that really so surprising?
Come on, a new game system came out two days ago. How can I not write about that?
So here we go.
For those who may not know (but if you’re reading this, odd are you do), the Xbox 360 came out in Japan this past Saturday. Not a big deal for me, since I’d been saying just the day before that I was going to hold off on one ’til more games I was interested in came out.
“Was” being the operative word in that last sentence.
I’d gone to Akihabara on Saturday to pick up some RAM for the Mac mini and to trade in some older games and stuff. I also wanted to see what the buzz (if any) for the 360 was like. (To say the original Xbox failed in Japan would be using the nicest possible terms.) Unlike the US (and Canada, the UK and the EU), the 360 was not an instant sellout.
People were buying, and playing, it though.
Aso Bit City had Ridge Racer 6 up on their demo systems, so I took it for a whirl.
Big mistake.
Ridge Racers was the title I bought with my PSP last December, and I’ve always dug the series. (It’s a rather unrealistic arcade-style racing game, for those who aren’t familiar with it.) The 360 version is damned nice. I hadn’t played it at Tokyo Game Show, so this was my first time with it. Wow.
Temptation begins to set in.
I was also on the prowl for a camera a friend of mine back in the states was asking about, so I headed over to the jumbo-sized Yodobashi Camera to look for it. And to check out how the 360 was faring there.They had a special checkout set up for it and people were definitely buying. The weirdest thing I saw was a pair of systems left unattended (after having been paid for by somebody):
No way those would’ve just sat there in the US.
Business seemed brisk, but I had other shops to hit up for info on the camera. So off to Shinjuku I went. The big Bic Camera shop was my next stop. They’d gone so far as to set up a special window on the outside of the building to handle the “mad rush” of people shopping for a 360.
The dude running it looked kinda lonely.
Business was better up on the games floor, but I’m pretty sure not everybody in line was getting a 360. But I was just there to look and scout out info, and my temptation seemed to be waning. It’s not like I need another game system.
Then I went to my friend Jon’s place to game for a bit.
He’d just gotten his 360 that morning and was inviting friends over to share in the fun. And there was much fun to be shared. We played a bit of Perfect Dark Zero and Call of Duty 2, along with some of the Live Arcade games. CoD2 really impressed me. I’m not much for the whole WW2 shooter thing, but I was digging this, much to my surprise.
And Live Arcade is fucking genius.
Geometry Wars and Mutant Storm are fantastic games, and the ability to play classics like Smash TV and Gauntlet over Live is a great idea.
But did I really need another system?
Of course not! I’ve got no projector right now. What am I gonna game on? I’m not going to buy a TV just to tide me over until I get my projector back. And really, my DS and PSP are enough to keep me busy for a while. You know, until the games I really want – like Project Gotham Racing 3 – come out.
What’s that? There’s a VGA cable for the 360?
Hmmm, I do have that LCD monitor I’ve been using on the mini…. But that’s just sad. Using a system that’ll output a nice, high-def signal on a 15″ monitor? And what would that be like after gaming on 80″ of glory for the past 10 months?
It’d be something like this:
Sad, sad, sad…
But what the hell, right?
^.^