December 02, 2004
New Game: Sawaru Made in Wario (JP)
Title: Sawaru Made in Wario
Platform: Nintendo DS (JP)
Publisher: Nintendo
Where: Shibuya Tsutaya
When: December 2
How Much: 4,114 yen (4,320 yen w/tax)
Alas, the DS is finally out in Japan. The first systems went on sale this morning at 7am, though the turnout was nothing at all like last week's crazy Dragon Quest VIII launch. Shibuya Tsutaya had maybe six or seven people waiting in line, and I heard Bic Camera had around 30 or so, a far cry from the 300+ who showed up to pick up DQVIII. I'm sure this is in some part due to the fact that A) today is a regular work day in Japan, B) it's freezing outside and C) most people who wanted a DS for launch day already preordered one, but the small turnout was a bit disappointing nonetheless.
Since I'd already bought Mario and Kimishine from the US, the only game I picked up this morning for myself was Sawaru Made in Wario (to be known as WarioWare Touched! in the US). I'm expecting Chokkan Hitofude and Zoo Keeper later in the day or tomorrow from amazon.co.jp as well. Tonight should be fun -- a lot of friends who bought DS systems today will be gathering together, which ought to make for some interesting Pictochatting, among other things.
Speaking of multiplayer on DS, the Japanese version of Mr. Driller Drill Spirits supports Single-Card Play, whereas the US version does not. How lame! I was going to buy the US version to support the franchise in America (it could use the support; Namco's marketing people haven't been too successful with it thus far), but now that they took out one of the best features of the game, I'm gonna go with the Japanese version instead. Nice work, guys! Your greed just cost you a sale!
In other news, here's a couple of shots of the extremely simple (but slick) Japanese DS packaging (top shot is the front, bottom shot is the back):
That's all for now. More to come when the other games arrive.
Posted by john tv at December 2, 2004 08:43 AM