Japan

Today the folks at Nintendo revealed an interactive online tour of their massively impressive theme park: Super Nintendo World. Starting at the front page of the park on the park's Universal Studios Japan site, the user drops in and explores the park in full 3D motion. One wonders whether the work that was put into this presentation might be flipped for use with a virtual reality presentation - how easy would that be?

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Here at the tail end of the year 2020, Nintendo aimed to celebrate a KIBO stream from the International Space Station. In the mix on this particular event celebration was a new Pikachu delivered via Mystery Gift in Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield. If you have either one of these games, this unique, rare, limited edition - whatever you want to call it - Pikachu is yours to claim.

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Today we're getting up close and personal with a few bits of the collaboration known as Razer x A Bathing Ape (aka BAPE). This "A Gaming Ape" collection spans several accessories, a pair of headphones, a mouse, and a mousepad, as well as a few key pieces of gaming-ready clothing. The first item we're going to take a look at here today is the Razer x A Bathing Ape Goliathus Speed.

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Some industries were hit harder than others during this COVID-19 pandemic. Those that relied on people gathering in a single location, big or small, were some of those that got hit the hardest, and even big resorts and theme parks, like those under Disney's name, temporarily closed or let go of thousands of employees. Despite that, there are still some that try to push through, often under modified conditions, and Nintendo seems intent on showing that it's business as usual by holding a Direct live stream focused solely on its upcoming Super Nintendo World theme park.

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Today the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) opened a space capsule containing material from the asteroid Ryugu. This was the Hayabusa2 re-entry capsule, retrieved all the way back on December 6, 2020, at landfall in Woomera, Australia. This opening and retrieval is a little odd, as JAXA describes he material as "thought to be the particles attached to the entrance of the sample catcher (the container in which the sample is stored)."

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Visitors to Universal Studios Japan will get the opportunity to enjoy some Nintendo-themed activities in the new Super Nintendo World early next year. Nintendo has confirmed that Super Nintendo World will open on February 4, 2021, in Osaka City. The new area is part of Universal Studios Japan, and its opening day is on a Thursday.

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According to Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan, "everything is sold." Ryan spoke of the Sony PlayStation 5, the company's latest gaming console, and the state of affairs the company and the public are now in. Ryan suggested that "of all the things" he learned this year, he said he "wouldn't plan on doing another big console launch in the midst of a global pandemic." He added that he "wouldn't recommend it to anybody else."

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This week the folks at Capcom revealed a device called Capcom Retro Station. This is a tabletop gaming device made to deliver a set number of games ONLY. Those games are mainly Mega Man and Street Fighter in nature, and the console might be relatively difficult to find in a store near you.

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A rural Japanese town called Takikawa on the island of Hokkaido has been dealing with nuisance bears roaming neighborhoods within the city. The town installed a pair of Monster Wolf robots after bears were increasingly roaming in the town back in September. According to town officials, since the pair of robotic wolves had been installed, no bear encounters have been reported.

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The arrival of AirPods introduced a new problem cities weren't prepared to deal with: dropped earpieces that end up on train tracks and other places from which they're not easy to retrieve. This problem is truly a global one, with reports coming from multiple countries on this issue and the ways officials are dealing with it. Japan, it turns out, may have found the best solution.

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Some of the biggest recalls ever seen in the automotive industry focused on defective airbags provided by Takata, now known as Joyson Safety Systems Japan. The faulty airbags hit virtually every automotive manufacturer and led to the unfortunate death of some involved in accidents in vehicles using the defective airbags. The Takata successor is in trouble again, this time for delivering as many as 9 million seatbelts that don't meet quality standards to domestic customers.

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The PlayStation 5 is nearly here, and when it arrives, Japanese players are going to have to contend with a change that seems simple on the surface but could be massive in reality. Apparently, Sony is changing the function of some of the PlayStation 5's controller buttons in Japan, swapping the functionality of the "X" and "O" buttons. That, as you might imagine, is going to be frustrating for Japanese players who are already used to the current functionality of the DualShock 4 and the controllers that came before it.

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