Category: Japan

Posted on

Report: Sony Expanding PSVR To Location-Based Experiences In Japan

Report: Sony Expanding PSVR To Location-Based Experiences In Japan

With around one million units sold, Sony’s PlayStation VR (PSVR) is one of the more popular headsets on the market right now, but the company may already be looking to other ways to monetize its device.

The Wall Street Journal cites sources “familiar with the matter” in saying that Sony is planning to roll out PSVR to location-based units in Japan after slower than expected sales. These units would apparently not be run by Sony itself, but instead the company will find partners across various industries to make use of its kit. Japanese gamers may well soon start seeing the headset in arcades and other facilities across the country.

The report doesn’t specify if Sony is considering a similar approach to PSVR in other territories, though the company has in the past said that the device is selling better than it expected. Sony’s original internal goal was to hit one million in sales by April 2017 and, while we don’t know if it’s yet reached that milestone, news that 915,000 units had been sold by the end of February certainly suggested it was on the right path.

Location-based VR is not a new concept; VR arcades are already springing up across the globe, particularly in Asia, and many companies are making moves to take advantage of them. HTC, for example, launched Viveport Arcade, which acts as a middle man in licensing software to arcades, while IMAX launched an extravagant pilot facility showing off VR experiences at the start of the year. Perhaps Sony hopes that by getting the kit on more heads out in the wider world it can drive sales in the home.

PSVR is set to have a busy few months with significant new content like Farpoint and Starblood Arena rolling out over the next few weeks before we head into E3 2017 in June.

Tagged with: , , ,

Posted on

Three Months After Release, People Are Still Lining Up for PlayStation VR in Japan

Three Months After Release, People Are Still Lining Up for PlayStation VR in Japan

New gaming hardware launches always lead to a rabid fervor. Early adopters and brand loyalists will line up days in advance just to be one of the first consumers to get their hands on a particular device. I personally know people that have camped out for new phones, gaming consoles, and Black Friday shopping deals. It’s a real thing. PlayStation VR was no different when it released.

But what I haven’t heard much of is the need to do that for a device that’s been available to the general public (at least in most regions) ever since early October. Now, over three months later in late January, folks in Japan are still being forced to line up outside just to get their hands on a PS VR headset. It would appear Sony is having trouble keeping up with demand, even all this time later.

In the images posted by Twitter user kaztsu, you can see hundreds of people across a wide variety of locations around Japan sitting, standing, and even sleeping outside to save their spot in line. It’s hard to tell exactly how many people were waiting over the past few days, but across the entire country it was likely several thousand. The rabid fans were photographed by by Twitter user kaztsu and first reported on by Kotaku.

When fans found out that a new shipment of Sony’s PS VR headset was set to hit stores that day, the lines started forming. Reportedly, demand was so high, even at this stage of the product’s life cycle, that many of the people pictured are simply there to receive a mere chance of getting one. Exact shipment numbers weren’t guaranteed and many of these people aren’t waiting on a pre-order or pre-purchase of any kind, they’re new buyers.

According to the Kotaku report, major retailers were passing out raffle tickets in the morning and announcing winners later in the day. In some large cities, such as Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo, people started lining up as early as the night before to try their chances at scoring a headset.

Despite the closure of RIGS developer Guerrilla Cambridge, excitement for Sony’s PS VR remains higher than ever. However, it does make you wonder if this is pure demand outstretching supply, or if there is a shortage of some kind going on?

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard [Review: 9/10] just released this week for PlayStation 4 and features a 10+ hour campaing that’s entirely playable inside the PS VR headset. That’s sure to provide gamers with enough thrills (and nightmares) to make the long and arduous wait worth the time.

Have you ever waited outside for a product launch? Did you have trouble getting a PlayStation VR, or still haven’t gotten one yet? Let us know in the comments below!

Tagged with: , , , , ,

Posted on

‘Let’s Play With Nanai’ Mixes Adult Dolls With Virtual Girlfriends To Create A VR Sex Simulation

‘Let’s Play With Nanai’ Mixes Adult Dolls With Virtual Girlfriends To Create A VR Sex Simulation

Simulated sex in virtual reality is popular both in the U.S. and Japan. And one Japanese company is hoping that its adult VR game will make the leap into the West.

Let’s Play With Nanai is one of those weird young girlfriend erotic simulations where you can have VR sex on the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive. Not only do you immerse yourself using the VR headset, you can also simulate sex using the torso of a sex doll that is synchronized with the VR animation.

The producers of the game hope it will be a hit at AVN, the big adult trade show in Las Vegas where a growing number of VR porn creators will hawk their wares. The AVN Adult Entertainment Expo takes place from January 18 to January 21 in Las Vegas.

Ayaka Hahn, CEO of ImagineVR, a Los Angeles company with Japanese investors, said that her company distributes the title on its VR content platform.

Let’s Play With Nanai is a VR porn title that lets you interact with a physical sex doll. Image Credit: ImagineVR

You can use your smartphone’s gyro sensor syncs with the app and the animated figure in the VR app, Hahn said. Players join Nanai in her room and have sex with her, using the torso of a physical doll to simulate the feeling of having sex. The players can change her outfit and underwear using gaze controls.

The controls for this game are simple. You attach a smartphone to a surrogate body, and Nanai will react according to the movements of that body. You can have “simulated sex” with the virtual character using a variety of positions. Hahn said the “sex action is pretty ‘soft’ as the game theme is a ‘sweet first-time sex with your girlfriend.’”

The developer, an indie group dubbed VRJCC, created the game as they reminisced about the times when they went through college without girlfriends. So they figured they would create a virtual girlfriend. The game debuted in Japan in the summer of 2016.

Now it is available for download in English and Japanese. New updates are coming this spring. ImagineVR previously created the VR porn title BeachHouseSex.

This article by Dean Takahashi originally appeared on VentureBeat.

Tagged with: , , ,

Posted on

‘A.I am Monster’ Is A Japanese VR Game Where You Play As A Giant Robotic School Girl

‘A.I am Monster’ Is A Japanese VR Game Where You Play As A Giant Robotic School Girl

We see plenty of strange (and sometimes downright creepy) VR games coming out of Japan, but every once in a while there’s one that we can’t help but highlight.

A.I am Monster is one such game. Cave, a studio known for scrolling shoot’em up arcade titles, is working on this bizarre experience in which you play as giant robotic Japanese school girl.We can’t work out much of the story from all the Japanese, but it looks like the protagonist is a normal girl that has the power to transform into this giant because of course. You tower over Tokyo and use position-tracked controls to swat buildings away, pick up military tanks and throw them into helicopters that are trying to bring you down. No, I’m not making any of this up. Just watch the trailer below.

Fair warning: the trailer does have a school girl actually playing the game, but not all is as it seems. Wait until the end of the footage.

Honestly, Tokyo can’t catch a break when it comes to giant monsters that want to destroy everything. You even have a laser beam, which you fire out from your chest to destroy multiple buildings at once. You get points for making as much carnage as possible.

In truth, gameplay looks incredibly rough. The framerate slows to a crawl every time the players topples a building or enters combat, and the textures are bland, blurry, and plain. We’re not sure why Cave is showing the game in such an early state, but we certainly hope the team can dress things up a bit in time for the full launch, which is scheduled for some time in 2017. We’re also not yet sure if it will come to the Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR too.

Kaiju games are already pretty popular in the VR field, with several games that let you destroy cities already available on both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. We’re also looking forward to next year’s Giant Cop, which puts a different spin on the genre by tasking you as a giant that protects a city.

Tagged with: , , ,

Posted on

PlayStation VR Headsets In Japan Live In Cute Little Prisons

PlayStation VR Headsets In Japan Live In Cute Little Prisons

To fully appreciate virtual reality, you have to try it yourself. That’s why retailers have demo stations set up for HTC Vive and PlayStation VR headsets throughout the United States. But that’s not what is happening for PSVR in Japan.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has released the impressive-but-flawed VR add-on system for its PlayStation 4 console in its home country, but the publisher is not pushing hard with in-person demonstrations. Instead, retailer outlets have a PSVR on display that they keep locked down at all times. It makes it look like Sony’s VR system is in a little cage because the technology is too dangerous or something. Mark Macdonald, vice president of business development at Rez Infinite (PSVR launch title) developer Enhance Games, noted that Sony hasn’t done much advertising at all for its $500 headset system in Japan.

We’ve asked Sony if any demo stations are hiding around Japan or if it has plans to roll them out, and we’ll update this post with any new information.

“So far, Sony hasn’t managed to set up actual VR demos in Japanese stores,” gaming-industry analyst Dr. Serkan Toto wrote in a tweet. “[Sony] chains their headsets and has them displayed at random points-of-sale.”

It’s possible that Sony is holding off on a full retail-marketing blitz until it can produce more VR units for Japan. As I mentioned, the publisher did have demonstrations at retailers like GameStop in the U.S., so it clearly understands the importance of letting people try the tech for themselves. Maybe once Sony feels like it has saturated stores in America for the holiday season, it will shift some of its resources back to Japan. The United States has more PS4 systems than any other country in the world, and Japan has lagged in terms of hardware sales as that country shifts more and more of its game-related spending to mobile devices.

This post by Jeff Grubb originally appeared on VentureBeat.

Tagged with: , , ,