Sengoku BASARA, or “The Western Market That Could Have Been”
This is the Great Nippon Spirit.
Many of you anime fans who like to keep current with Japan's anime seasons have probably heard of -- or have been watching -- Sengoku Basara. The show just recently ended its first season, with a second season announced by Production I.G. Studios themselves. The entire cast of characters has a rabid Japanese fanbase, primarily female -- a strange paradox, given that the anime is very blatantly a shounen battle series. The original video game franchise has grown from the first game, Sengoku Basara, to a straight-up sequel, a Guilty Gear-esque 2D fighter developed by ArcSys and Sammy, a PSP brawler that quickly took first place in software sales on its release; and a third title in the works for 2010. The anime brought with it a number of incredible product placement opportunities, from cellphone straps and character novelties to a Pizza Hut endorsement, a special rice label deal, a half-dozen different character-specific flavors of energy drink, and, oh, a stage play. Outside of Japan, however, Sengoku Basara (known to the rest of the world as Devil Kings) has almost never been heard of. What happened?
PSP2? So Soon?
According to Eurogamer Spain, who claims to have gotten a hold of some classified information, Sony's planned successor to the PSP packs quite a punch in the pixels. It's reported to be built around a quad-core the POWERVR SGX543MP graphics chip, allowing it match the capabilities of the original Xbox and, apparently, even run DX10. If true, this would certainly suggest that the new device will be in possession of a high-resolution screen, perhaps even 1280x720.
However, with the PSP Go just around the corner, it seems somewhat unlikely that Sony would be planning the PSP2 with such current tech, rather than a chip in development. There does, of course, remain the possibility that they plan to keep both the PSP and PSP2 on the market simultaneously, as they have done with their home console line. And there are always the persistent rumors that a PSP phone is coming, so who knows if this could be their planned iPhone-killer? It's doubtful we'll get anything out of Sony at this stage, though.
Exclusiva: Características gráficas de la PSP2 [Eurogamer Spain]
God Eater Is Great
Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G is popular in Japan. Really popular. And Capcom's making buckets of money off of it. Which is great for Capcom. Namco Bandai wants it to be great for them, too. So they're releasing God Eater. God Eater is a lot like Monster Hunter, but it's a Namco Bandai game. Which is great for Namco Bandai. Trailer after the jump. It's great, too.