The Nintendo Wii is set to get a Video On Demand service this December, called みんなのシアター Wii / Wii Theatre for Everyone, and developed by Fujisoft, with anime and movies to be available via streaming download. Each episode is projected to cost from 100-400 Wii Points (or ¥100-400), and the WiiWare itself another ¥500.
A company whose training regime for new employees includes making them scrub toilets with their bare hands, and then drink the toilet water to guarantee its purity, boasts of how its program ensures only “excellent” employees are retained, and that it drives 40% of the trainees into quitting.
“I’ll sell you a day’s worth of my milk for 300 Yuan ($45); I’ve got enough to suckle two or more. I’ll even give the customer priority”. Such is the sales pitch made by a lady (32) determined to sell her excess secretions, finding herself with more than enough for her infant.
And Microsoft’s reply would be “no thanks”? Crooked former billionaire felon Horiemon (堀江貴文 / Takafumi Horie), disgraced former boss of Livedoor, has come out in an interview saying that Sony would be better of selling off its hardware business, including the PS3, and focusing on pursuing its true calling of producing blockbuster movies, going on to claim he was planning to buy Sony and make this so.
With the sudden resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda, and the news that 麻生太郎 / Taro Aso (or “Rozen Aso” as he is also known) looks to be the new PM, the stocks of anime production companies and related enterprises have surged dramatically, likely in anticipation of very sympathetic handling from Aso, a man who plays upon his love of manga, and who appreciates the value of otaku culture.
As part of an initiative to reinvigorate the local economy, the Hokkaido government is set to establish special areas where cannabis can be grown freely, so as to put fallow fields to work and reduce the need to import.
NicoNico Douga’s dreams of world conquest may be over before they have begun, as it seems Google has acquired a service, Omnisio, which offers a strikingly similar feature set, including the ability to blanket videos in comments. The service is currently in beta on YouTube.
Data and insider anecdote both point to a sudden and precipitous collapse in YouTube pretender NicoNico Douga’s popularity; in the face of such a reverse the talk of making Nico into national infrastructure seems mere hubris – it may be lucky to ever turn a profit, let alone expand overseas.
Might this have something to do with the recent supplication of Nico before its new masters? In all probability, yes; the graphs really speak for themselves on this.
NicoNico Douga bosses 夏野剛 / Takeshi Natsuno (a seasoned seller of mobile phone melodies parachuted in to try to stop the cash haemorrhage at Nico’s managing firm Niwango) and 西村博之 / Hiroyuki Nishimura (no less a man than the founder of 2ch and now Nico honcho) have given a most interesting interview on the future and past of NicoNico.
Much is revealed of their plans for expansion; notably we hear they intend to see NicoNico become a part of the national infrastructure of Japan, that they intend a plan of overseas expansion, just as soon as they have dealt with the trifling matter of losing millions of dollars, and that, yes, the biggest challenge facing them may indeed be kowtowing to the intellectual property cartels without wiping their servers bare.
Hoping to break into (or rather, create) the English (or at least something approximating it) language market for bishoujo games/hentai games/eroge is new entrant MangaGamer (replete with a poorly designed Engrish site), with their site set to open for business on July 10th, offering digital download editions of a variety of less well known titles, to start with at least.
This manga, published in 1982 as “My Computer God – The Story of Bill Gates” (マイコンの神さま ビル・ゲイツ物語), in KoroKoro Comic, is a fascinating piece of history, and quite amusing to boot. As a piece of history, it harkens back to a time when Bill Gates was the Larry Page or Sergey Brin of his day, a dynamic entrepreneur in charge of an up and coming venture company, a far cry from the monolithic titan of corporate America Microsoft would later become. The entire story is translated below.
