Otaku Crave

The Xbox 360 home videogame console of Microsoft Corp surpassed its rival Wii of Nintendo Co in September sales in the U.S. market for the first time this year, according to a survey by the market research firm NPD Group.

Sales of the Xbox 360 reached about 528,000 units, compared with 501,000 for the Wii and 119,000 for the PlayStation 3 of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

Meanwhile, Microsoft said Monday it would cut the prices of its Xbox 360 consoles in Japan as it ramps up competition with rivals Sony and Nintendo ahead of the key year-end shopping season.

Microsoft said it would slash the price of the standard Xbox 360 by just over 12% to 34,800 yen from Nov 1. The move follows markdowns in North America announced in August.

The price of the Xbox 360 “core system,” a basic model without a hard-disk drive, will be cut by almost 7% to 27,800 yen in Japan.

Microsoft will also sell a special set of the Xbox 360 console and two game software titles at 34,800 yen for a limited period of time beginning on Nov 1, a company statement said.

The announcement comes two weeks after Sony said it would lower the price of the standard PlayStation 3 in Japan by 10% to 44,980 yen and introduce a new slimmed down PS3 for 39,980 yen.

The Xbox 360 had the advantage of being released a year before Sony’s PS3 and Nintendo’s Wii, which both debuted in Japan in November of last year.

While sales of the PS3 have been slower than expected due to its hefty price and a dearth of must-have exclusive game software for the consoles, the Wii has been a hit, targeting people who do not usually play video games.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Sony Corp. will release the “XEL-1″ 11-inch OLED TV for 200,000 yen on Dec. 1, 2007. The TV’s thinnest part is only 3 mm thick. The company is projecting output of 2,000 units per month.

Sony’s Executive Deputy President Katsumi Ihara explained the 200,000 yen “I set the price in general consideration of the TV’s image quality, design and product potential. Profitability hasn’t been taken into consideration.”

As for the thickness, Sony devised the shape of the TV and made the thinnest part 3 mm in an effort to highlight the slimness of OLED, a key feature.” Specifically, housing components including an image processing circuit, a tuner and a power supply circuit in the base unit, Sony simply combined the panel and the minimum chassis in the display unit.

The display and base units are connected via an arm. All the necessary wirings run through this arm. The panel itself is 1.4 mm thick, with two 0.7 mm-thick glass substrates bonded together.

STLCD Corp. will manufacture the panel on the same production line used for the OLED panel used for the “CLIE” PDA that Sony released in September 2004. For assembly, a new line has been built at Sony EMCS Corp.’s Inazawa TEC.

The resolution is 960 x 540, 1/4 so-called full HD resolution. As an index of display performance, its contrast ratio of more than 1,000,000:1 is “higher than any instrument at Sony can measure,” Sony said. The luminance is 600 cd/m2, the color reproduction range is 110% of the NTSC specification and the response time is only several ? seconds, according to Sony.

The life before the initial luminance halves is 30,000 hours. The power consumption is 45 W.

As future prospects, Sony said it will attempt to upgrade the screen size, but did not reveal any details. Sony, however, added, “We plan to sell this product taking the time to measure the market response over the next few years. We won’t immediately release our next OLED TV product.”

The 11-inch OLED TV will be presented at “CEATEC Japan 2007,” which is being held from Oct. 2, 2007.

Popularity: 12% [?]

When actress Erika Sawajiri recently attended the premiere of her new movie, “Closed Note,” she appeared on stage before the screening, looking pissed off at something. She stood still, arms folded, and uttered only three sentences the whole time. Her behavior immediately earned her the ire of tabloids and TV variety show panelists. Veteran singer Akiko Wada called her behavior unprofessional. Two days later, Sawajiri, 21, made an apology on her website. “It’s all my fault, and I must take responsibility for my actions. I really apologize for disappointing my fans and betraying their trust. As a professional actress, my actions were not appropriate. I promise to learn from this experience.”

As the fallout continued, her agent and Toho (the film’s distributor) announced that Sawajiri had canceled her attendance at a film festival in South Korea. The official website of the film had to be closed as a result of the massive number of comments by online visitors. Toho offered the explanation that Sawajiri had been exhausted from doing more than 100 media interviews to promote the film. It didn’t help: Sawajiri is still being referred to in the media as a movie queen brat.

Sawajiri made her breakthrough in 2005 with the TV melodrama “1 Littoru no Namida” (1 Liter of Tears). Last year at the Tokyo International Film Festival, she strutted the red carpet as if she was doing everyone a favor by showing up. In the month prior to the “Closed Note” event, she changed her appearance two or three times. One theory is that she has had work done on her teeth; hence the reluctance to smile. Another theory is she just didn’t like the clothes her stylist made her wear for the occasion. As some observers wittily remarked, she looked like a cavewoman.

Sawajiri’s case is an example of what happens when idols in Japan go off the rails. Amid Japan’s culture of shame, when a talent transgresses, he/she has to practice “jishuku” (self restraint). This starts with a public apology, often in the form of a deep bow with the manager at a press conference (or in Sawajiri’s case, online), followed by a self-imposed break from public appearances. It is very different from the U.S. (think Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, for example), where the practice is to deny, spin and, when all else fails, try rehab, or go to jail, after which they go on Jay Leno to show how they have changed.

Sawajiri’s management has gone into full damage control mode because she is a goldmine for the company. Besides her movies, she has appeared in 24 TV commercials this year. Unlike in the U.S., Japanese celebrities are employees of their management companies. They are paid a salary — the opposite of the U.S. where stars pay their agents a percentage and hire an army of publicists and lawyers to do damage control when necessary. In Japan, the production companies recruit their stars at a young age, train them and then supply them to the media, movies and events. A talent’s “shelf life” may depend on how scandal-free he or she remains. Big companies like Oscar Promotion, for example, teach their talents how to hold their alcohol, spend money wisely and be careful where they go and who they are with.

This doesn’t mean Japanese celebrities don’t have their share of scandals. They happen every week, and not just to younger talents. In recent months, guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei, 45, was fined for assaulting a colleague over “musical differences.” He apologized on his website. Cynics might say it’s much easier to apologize on a website when you don’t really feel sorry than it is to do the fake bow in public. Comedian Hidekazu Nagai, 37, a married man, had nothing to laugh about when he was fleeced in a badger game in the Philippines after he and a friend picked up a couple of local girls. Nagai’s agency announced that he is going to New York for a year to study English.

Women are expected to be more contrite than men, however. Former news anchor Mona Yamamoto, 31, lost her plum job on “News23″ after just a week when her affair with Diet member Goshi Hosono came to light in September 2006. She stayed out of the spotlight for a couple of months before restarting her career with the support of Beat Takeshi on Jan 1. She has slowly been making appearances on the variety show circuit.

Japan’s entertainment world is a tightly knit relationship between the production agencies and the media. Companies like Oscar, Johnny’s and Yellow Cab have tremendous power when it comes to their talents. The production companies are money-making machines that work very hard to create and protect an image that sells. Once the fallen stars are rehabilitated, they are farmed out to variety shows for their comeback. The production companies basically dictate to the networks who to use — that’s how powerful they are.

If Sawajiri turns out to be just another skyrocket (someone who goes up, burns real bright and then falls to earth), she will quickly be replaced in the firmament. The industry is like a revolving sushi restaurant: there is a never-ending selection to pick from.

Popularity: 17% [?]

This sounds like a great pre-order item!

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Final Fantasy VII, Suntory and Square Enix have collaborated to re-create “Potion,” an item that appears in the ever popular RPG. It replicates the item in every detail and just like in the game, it is intended for recovery use, blending dolomite, royal jelly and vitamin B into the drink. It comes with a book that can only be acquired with the drink. The item is limited to 77,777 units.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Following the massive success of Ramen kan, literally ramen in a can, which went on sale in April and sold 2 million cans ever since, Umai has followed it up with Udon kan. Just like the ramen, konjac is used to prevent sogginess. There are two versions: “kitsune,” which comes with deep-fried been curd, and curry. And just like Ramen kan, once you open the can, it is ready to serve. It will be sold in convenience stores and vending machines for 300 yen for “kitsune” and 350 yen for curry.

Now, if only they could release some of this stuff over in the states!

Popularity: 10% [?]

This may be aimed at kids aged between 3 and 8, but it sure is entertaining for everyone else. Bandai’s pajamas display an illuminated image once in dark. The specially coated print cannot be seen in the light. There are six variations of designs from “Geki Ranger” to “Kamen Rider.”

Popularity: 11% [?]

TOKYO — Digital download sales of songs by Hikaru Utada to the end of September have already hit nearly 10.5 million according to EMI Japan, the first artist worldwide to break the 10 million mark in a single year.

Digital downloads, which in Japan are dominated by contents for the mobile phone market, amounted to 10,491,000 from January to September, selling more in nine months than anyone has managed in a year.

The song ‘Beautiful World’ has been downloaded over 800,000 times, boosted by its inclusion in the movie “Evangelion 1.0 You are (not) alone”. The tune is used for the closing credits of the new cinematic version of Hideaki Anno’s anime classic, which has been chosen to close the Pusan International Film Festival after a huge opening in Japan last month.

“We know that “Beautiful World” sales were helped by the release of “Evangelion” because at weekends after young people have been to see the movie, there is a huge rush of downloads,” said Nozomu Kaji from EMI Japan.

“In Japan, almost all of the music downloads are for mobile phones, like most of the 800,000 downloads for “Beautiful World”. These days tracks are released for mobiles before the CD is out,” said Ritsuko Jinno, from PR at EMI Japan.

With high-speed internet connection on 3G phones the standard for most of Japan’s 100 million handsets, music and video downloads, along with a host of other contents, is a fast-growing market.

Popularity: 13% [?]

As Japan greys, who will look after the elderly? Maybe one day their aging children — in robot suits — if technology under development comes out of the laboratory and into the home.

Among the array of futuristic products for the senior citizens or their caregivers on display at a trade fair this week in Tokyo was a power assist suit that makes it easier to lift an elderly person out of a wheelchair or bed.

The suit looks clunky, takes 10 minutes to put on, weighs thirty kilos (66 pounds) and has blinking lights and wires reminiscent of a robot in a sci-fi movie.

But it allows the wearer to lift a person as heavy as 100 kilos as if they were carrying only half that weight.

“I don’t feel heavy at all. Because of air pumped in the suit, I just feel like I’m carrying a normal backpack,” said Hiroi Tsukui, a participant in the project as she carried a young man onto a table to demonstrate to onlookers.

For now the suit, developed by Kanagawa Institute of Technology, is only made to order and generally targeted at nursing homes and hospitals.

But Tsukui hopes it will be used in ordinary homes in the future.

“Of course 80-year-olds won’t be able to wear this. But perhaps for their children who are in their 50s and need to take care of their parents, this could prove to be useful,” she added.

Japan, which has one of the world’s lowest birth rates and yet forbids immigration, is increasingly turning to robots to take care of rudimentary tasks in hospitals and nursing homes as the young population dwindles.

Researchers are also looking to improve “robot suits” for the elderly to wear themselves for more autonomy, instead of relying on caregivers or their children.

A “muscle suit” developed by Tokyo University of Science also allows the wearer to lift heavy objects.

The half-body suit incorporates artificial muscles made of elastic rubber and nylon and air pumps for the arms.

Hiroshi Kobayashi, an associate professor at the university that spearheaded the project, admitted that hurdles remain before it could be easily used.

The suit, which weighs four kilos, presents “some safety concerns for elderly people,” he said.

“So for now we have limited the suit to caretakers or even construction workers whom I think would benefit greatly from this. But we hope in the future this will give old people more mobility with their arms,” he added.

Another product designed to give elderly greater mobility is auto giant Honda Motor’s “Walking Assist” product which can help the elderly walk independently without the help of a cane, walking frame or arm of a carer.

It’s a chunky belt with sensors and leg straps that monitor leg movements to help the user walk correctly.

As the person walks, a device behind the thigh pushes the leg forward and once he or she steps on the ground, another one at the front of the thigh pushes inwards, stabilising the user.

The belt is currently only a prototype, as its three-kilo weight could be a little too heavy for a frail elderly man or woman.

Taiji Koyama, an assistant chief designer at Honda R&D Co., hopes that in the near future his team, which has spent eight years on the project, will be able to make the belt lighter and easier for the elderly.

“We hope to roll this out as a product as soon as possible so people will be able to use it,” the engineer said.

“It is a lot lighter than ‘muscle suits’ that use artificial muscle. They still have a long way to go to become mainstream as they remain difficult to wear,” he added.

Popularity: 19% [?]

 CHIBA, Japan - It can take your pulse, check your body fat, time your jogs and tell you if you have bad breath. It even assesses stress levels and inspires you with a pep talk. Meet your new personal trainer: your cell phone.

The prototype Wellness mobile phone from Japan’s NTT DoCoMo Inc. targets users with busy lives who want a hassle-free way of keeping track of their health, according to company spokesman Noriaki Tobita.

The phone, unveiled this week at the CEATEC electronics show outside Tokyo, has an inbuilt motion sensor that detects body movement and calculates how many calories you burn.

The sensor can tell whether you’re walking, running, climbing stairs, or resting, and counts the calories accordingly to tally daily totals, Tobita said.

“It’s with you wherever you go, like a portable personal trainer,” he said.

Like Nike Inc.’s +Nike technology, the handset also keeps track of jogs, letting users set targets and keeping track of time, distance, and calories burnt — all while listening to music through headphones.

Hold the phone with outstretched arms, and it turns into a mini body fat calculator. A sensor at the top of the phone takes your pulse from your fingertip.

Worried about bad breath? Use the phone’s breathalyzer. After Tobita blew on a tiny hole on the side of the handset for about three seconds, the screen flashed, “Not too bad.”

The Wellness phone, developed by NTT DoCoMo and Mitsubishi Electric Corp., also asks questions to assesses stress levels and offers advice.

When the busy spokesman answered “Yes” to a series of questions — including “Do you feel lethargic?” and “Do you go to bed after midnight?” — a message appeared on the screen warning he was under a lot of stress.

“Don’t worry, tomorrow’s a fresh new day,” the phone then flashed. “Keep your chin up!”

NTT DoCoMo is still testing some of the phone’s other technology, including a function to keep track of meals and calculate calorific intake, as well as a networking capacity to let users share data, Tobita said.

Japan has some of the world’s most advanced cell phones, enabling users to surf the Web, check in at airports and play motion games.

DoCoMo has not set a release date or price for the Wellness phone. The Tokyo-based company’s phones are not sold overseas.

Popularity: 33% [?]