Have you seen a Japanese JRPG developed for a foreign market? I sure as hell haven't.



I'm just wondering how long it'll take before they'll start developing RPGs at the rate they do for PS2. If at all.

Yeah, Square should have learned that with the successes that were Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and Secret of Evermore and that Final Fantasy movie,

Evermore was done by a US team, but I admit I forgot Mystic Quest.

But the thing is that RPGs arn't as huge here as they are in Japan. So more people here may play games in general, but way more in Japan play RPGs which is why they do look at what's hot in Japan for their sense of direction.

Did the US team that made Evermore (I think it was Hawaii or something like that) have autonomy or did they need to get their projects approved by Square Japan?

Also, is it sad I just realized that SoE is probably only game in the Mana series (yes, I know it's not quite) other than Secret that I actually enjoyed?

omg! it still not the open beta for Home but I just got an invite for the close beta!

I pretty sure they'll send others invitation in the next few days ^^

I'm sad, there was no darkness demo for us though :( oh well I 'll take it in the euro PSN :P

?

I thought the closed beta took place in May. What the fuck, why would they have a closed beta in July when they're planning to release Home in September/October? Sony's awesome marketing strategies make less sense from day to day.

It started in May, they're just inviting more people.

yes in started in may and is still continuing... they are just inviting more people every few weeks...

Same thing they did for the Warhawk BETA. The BETA which I got invited like 5 days before the open BETA, better then nothing but C'MON.....

UPDATE
Looks like Sony's E3 showing was the warmup round. Sony apparently is going to make a series of huge announcements for PS3 and PSP at Leipzig next month. Most will probably be new functionalities and future plans, and perhaps a few more first-party games previously unannounced, possibly some new 3rd party content.

New functionalities coming out this year are free-view-TV, and Video On Demand. Thank god the PS3 has swap in - swap out HDD support.

Source: http://www.mcvuk.com/news/27815/PS3-...dy-for-Leipzig

Were you active on the Playstation boards and/or a GAP member? I'm trying to figure out the damn criteria for invites (because I want one).

edit// also demos being released in one region doesn't matter. Just make an account for Japanese PSN and an account for European PSN and you get all the demos they put out. Thats pretty much what I did.

well I'm a gap member but I'm not there very often (if none at all XD) but I participate in previous psp games beta before (like killzone libertine, rachet and clank : size matter and socom)

you have a better chance to be accepted if you're in GAP but I think for now maybe 95% of the people that got accepted are in GAP.

They are probably just picking random people that are in GAP though, because like I said I participate in other beta and I just got an invite for this one...

and for the region ps store, yeah i already have an Euro account, but I don't like to play games where I really don't understand what's going on or can't even read the menu of the games, so I doN,t have a jp account (yet)

Oh well, I haven't been in any other betas so there goes my chances. I'm not even a GAP member, I tried posting on the PS boards a little but people there are too dumb so I gave up.

Tell us how Home is.

where all i can say is there room for A LOT of improvement ... the beta is just too small to really enjoy it I think XD but there's a lot of potential though. I'm pretty sure when they'll release the final version that it will be really better.

The only things I really hope they'll change is the way you place object in your home. You see they created that wonderful physic engine so the furniture behave a little like real one. So when you move and press x to place an object they like drop the object where you want it, but the object bounce a little on the drop and most of the time it change a little the direction. It's a little hard to have an object the the position you want because of that...

but I'm pretty sure they change that (I hope...)

(I guess I'll stop here since I'm not suppose to talk about the beta :\)

Oohh. Supposedly, we are getting some new firmware this week.
Personally, all I could really care about is folder organization and in game access to the XMB...

No offense, but why is Sony seemingly incapable of implementing the XMB custom wallpaper feature.

I am tired of staring at a shit gradient, ok.

Oh. And that.

So personally, all I could really care about is folder organization, in game access to the XMB, and custom wallpapers.

(maybe also custom avatars...)

Yeah I'm tired of my black HDTV screen, I need to get a burnt im image of my PS3 wallpaper in that baby ASAP! lol

(yes I have the screen saver turned on, just wanted a better way to support this feature then some lame one liner like, "I agree")

The music player IN GAME, file organizer, and wallpaper are definately the big 3 things that they need to get out the door now before their focus becomes HOME, because thoes are the things we've been beating our heads against the wall for since the fixed the PS2 jaggies and upscaling.

UPDATE
It looks as though the firmware V1.9 has already hit japan. The update includes;

• Ability to rearrange games on the XMB
• Option menu now includes "eject disk"
• Press triangle to eject games/CDs/movies in the XMB
• XMB backgrounds
• Change the folder classification
• Emoticons
• Change CD output to 44.1/88.2/176.4kHz
• Force 24Hz output for Blu-ray over HDMI
• Change PS3 video settings in-game
• "Bit Mapping" in the "Music Setting"
• Save AVCHD type animations from a Memory Stick
• Change settings like upscaling while playing PS and PS2 games
• Add bookmarks
• Web browser security function in the browser's tool section
• Avatar moves during audio visual chat

No music player though, damn...

Would that really be new or didn't this already come with the 1.80 update?

As for the rest, I don't really care. I'm rather interested in updates on the game market!

Heavenly Sword demo confirmed for this ThursdayIt's from Eurogamer, so I don't know if this only applies for the European Store. I need to set up one of those accounts anyways, as I still don't have the Darkness demo :/.

I'm very happy with what will be the 1.90 update and Heavenly Sword. Patience is a virtue, but god damn waiting all that time is going to kill me. I don't get why the US gets neglected with a "Coming Soon".

Quick question. I'm going to go to my PS3 so I can set up a European PSN account. Is there any other region that I should add? I think I read somewhere that Hong Kong was worth getting as well.

I mean, I would assume the big 3 are US, Japan, and Europe...

Oh that's cool, I'll get to use my PS3 to actually play a PS3 game for the first time when I download that demo.

I'm reading that Heavenly Sword runs at native 720p, rather than 1080p. Is this common for PS3 titles?

The forced 24Hz addition is new. Apparently, the PS3 had a difficult time determining whether certain displays were 24-Hz capable or not, and the new firmware will make sure that it will kick in.

Interestingly, the CD upsampling will work through optical as well as HDMI, but I doubt there will be any satisfying improvement from 44.1 kHz.

...and now that they finally implemented XMB wallpaper, I don't even know what to put on it.

It's hilarious how it still won't show animated gifs.