Korean free-to-play MMORPG Vindictus was recently released in Japan, although as might be expected, online praise has focused on the sexiness of its characters and the lingerie options available for them, rather than the game itself…

The title was first released as “Mabinogi Heroes” in Korea at the start of 2010, followed by a late 2010 US release, which saw its name changed to “Vindictus”; however, European and Japanese gamers had to wait until October and November of 2011, prompting some to try their hand at the NA version.

A distinctly unofficial mod is also proving popular:

Whether this beats Tera Online, the other notably sexy Korean MMO, is probably a matter of personal preference – Tera’s ero-kawaii character designs seem to have proven popular with anime-lovers the world over, although their favourable reaction was marred by the game’s high cost and censorship in western markets.

Even otaku are shocked that Hatsune Miku’s legion of admirers has some how managed to bid up the price of an unofficially created Miku bride figure to ¥389,000 – their astonishment in large part stemming from the fact that the figure was created simply by swapping the heads of two stock figures…

The originals (¥8,650 for the Sega/Tony Miku head, and ¥7,980 for the wedding dress Tamanee’s body):

Online there is the usual disbelief and some spirited bashing of Miku fans:

“Easy money!”

“With breasts that size she’s not Miku!”

“I’ll not bother criticising this, instead I’ll just jump aboard the bandwagon and make one myself…”

“What happened to Tamanee’s head…”

“It says it was repainted but it doesn’t look it. Seems amateurish.”

“I’d like to give this a try. I have a Godzilla figure, how much could I get for that if I stuck Miku’s head on it?”

“What do you expect from otaku…”

“There used to be some great mods, but these are just rude to the sculptors.”

“Mikuota are so dumb…”

“10,000 for the figure and 380,000 for the painting. Seems reasonable.”

“You’d pay ¥390,000 for this, wouldn’t you?”

“For this, ¥100,000 seems fine by me!”

That bride Miku is a gold mine appears to have become quite well known to figure modders – witness the nearly identical performance of a previous iteration.

Disturbingly sexualised young girl RPG Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 has opened a veritable Pandora’s Box by including the ability to create custom textures for the heroines, leading to an immediate flood of textures featuring transparent clothing, carefully placed band-aids, and, of course, outright nudity…

The textures and so on:

The small but dedicated fanbase the game enjoys (almost the entire game is based on material from a single games board on 2ch, and only this tiny group has any hope of getting the obscure references the game is packed with) seems very much intent on supporting the title:

A real nude filter for those feeling short-changed by blurry PS3 textures:

The game itself is available now – whether the near miracle of the first game reaching the west will be repeated is already the subject of some speculation, although it would surely be worth it just to hear the western game press whine about the even more sexist sequel.

Otaku musicians and those besotted with their creations share some of the latest in “ita-guitar” art, with some quite impressive if impractical efforts on display.

Police have arrested 2 hobbyists for the grievous crime of modifying a figure to look like another character, charging them with criminal copyright infringement.

The pair, aged 35 and 36 and involved with the operation of a Niigata toy shop, were found to have modified a figure to resemble a villain appearing in Toei’s Kamen Rider W, selling the completed figure in an Internet auction to a Tokyo man for ¥270,000.

The figure at issue was identified online:

Reportedly their work was of exquisite quality and popular with fans of the show – certainly the case considering the quality of the work on display on their homepage.

They admit the charges, explaining that “As we weren’t making mass manufactured goods but a single hand-made item, we thought they would overlook it.”

The arrests are an unhappy reminder that virtually anyone involved with doujinshi events, parody art and even cosplay is liable to be arrested should copyright holders become unhappy for some reason, or even should police get bored with arresting people for having sex in groups of 2 or more and instead decide to launch independent prosecutions for copyright infringement themselves.

The PS3 has been hacked yet again, this time allowing pirates to sneakily downgrade their firmware freely to earlier (hackable) versions, although directly running pirated copies on the latest firmware is still only a promised future upgrade.

The makers provide an announcement as triumphal as it is lacking in literacy:

PS Jailbreak now supports firmware 3.42, 3.50 and beyond!

Again we revolutionize the world and show the disbelievers that we are the original source. We understand what we are doing and will continue to be at the forefront of support. Officially launched today is the worlds only downgrader.

Allowing you to downgrade your new console to any previous firmware version. With a PS Jailbreak and PS Downgrade now all all 44 Million users and counting can enjoy Homebrew. We dont like new comers beeing singled out , so we ventured into the unknown once again and now brought you an out of the box USB solution.

All dealers should contact us for new pricing schedules, as well as marketing material. We have just completed a new batch of product ready to ship immediately.

Please beware PS Downgrade only installs on original PS Jailbreak devices. There are numerous inferior clones and copycats out on the market claiming to be compatable with our support. This is FALSE!!! Buy original from a trusted reseller or risk being stuck with a paperweight.

It should be noted that “PS Jailbreak” does not actually support the latest firmware – it is instead now possible to revert to an earlier firmware which “PS Jailbreak” does support, as previously PS3 firmwares were strictly upgrade-only with no downgrades possible.

The irony of the makers of a piracy tool complaining vociferously at every turn about unauthorised copies and even apparently trying to develop their own copy protection hardly bears mention.

There are some suspicions that an upcoming upgrade to the PS3′s firmware will once again break the device, but it does seem Sony is slowly losing ground.

Zombie apocalypse FPS Left 4 Dead 2 has received some less than obvious K-ON! crossover modifications.

K-ON! and zombies are apparently a combination too good to pass up:

Players of Final Fantasy XIV, perhaps bored of waiting for their timers to reset, have already turned their hands to modding – in this case a nude filtered Miqo’te displays all – particularly in the nopan version below:

It is not quite finished it seems:

Square Enix has of course forsworn any such risqué marketing tactics – officially all it will be providing is a variety of breast sizes, a wide array of lacy underwear and a distinctly lolified character race:

It seems it has been the PS3 which cracked the hacker, and not the hacker the PS3 – the major force behind cracking the PS3 has given up and retired in circumstances few could help but interpret as an abject admission of defeat at the hands of Sony engineers.

Obnoxious celebrity cracker Geohotz has “retired” from hacking rather than face the shame of defeat it would appear – far from delivering an update in his famed battle with the PS3 firmware, instead all he delivered was a terse notice of resignation and some bitter whining about people “taking this way too seriously”:

“It was a cool ride, and I’ve learned a lot about a lot. Perhaps one of these days I’ll do a more formal goodbye.”

With the PS3 still completely unhacked halfway through its lifespan, and any crack likely still years in the making, it seems any eventual hacking will be too late to make much difference – quite the coup for Sony.

The credibility of Geohotz was already at an all time low after he admitted distributed a fake picture suggesting he had hacked the iPhone 4, as he did so successfully to the former model – little wonder he felt the need to retire:

I didn’t fully realize most of the current scene don’t care unless they are getting something. Now I do. It’s late tonight, I’ll think about what to do about this in the morning.

The real reason behind no release isn’t technical. It’s just that it will never stop, after blackra1n, people demand unlock, after blacksn0w, people demand untethered. I miss the days when jailbreaking and unlocking were difficult, it attracted a much higher caliber crowd.

Also, to the haters, the picture is quite obviously fake.

Apparently he is far more obtuse than he is usually given credit for – it seems self-evident that the only reason his fans care about his antics is the opportunity for piracy it offers them.

Or else this is merely a crude attempt to deflect attention away from two abject failures in a row, coming on the heels of some typically egotistical hacker posing which led his followers to believe it was merely a matter of time before they were happily downloading “backup” Blu-ray ISOs for their freshly cracked PS3s…

Hackers dissecting the Xbox 360 “Slim” report a disturbing discovery – internal parts thought to be associated with RRoD failures remain unchanged, causing some to speculate that the new model may have the same problems which plagued older revisions.

At the heart of the speculation is the so called “X-clamp,” a part which is claimed to be one of the major contributory factors to RRoD, and which hardware hackers quickly noted with some consternation remains substantially identical between the models.

An explanation given by “modders” (actually just pirates using the usual euphemisms about “backups” and “modding”):

What are X-Clamps?

X-Clamps are metal brackets which hold the Xbox 360 CPU and GPU down tightly onto the motherboard. There are two individual x-clamps within the Xbox 360 which hold down the heat sinks for the CPU and GPU.

Since they have been poorly designed the x-clamps bend when introduced to immense heat (if you’ve ever played an Xbox 360 you know it gets hot), and with that bend the Xbox 360 motherboard and break the connection between the GPU (sometimes CPU too) and the motherboard, thus you will have a RROD.

Although there are many things that can cause the RROD this is the most common.

Supposedly after-market clamps can stave off these failures.

Failure rates in the later revisions of the hardware are said to be less dire than the oft-quoted 54% figure, but the console still possesses an apparently well deserved reputation for atrocious reliability.

As to what parts cause most of the failures, only Microsoft can say (and they certainly seem intent on saying nothing), but excessive preoccupation with cutting unit costs at the expense of quality seems to characterise Microsoft’s gaming hardware.

Just how reliable the new version will be remains to be seen, but it seems Microsoft’s cunning removal of the red LED may have been its only effort at eliminating lingering problems in the new model.

An eroge publisher is distributing a patch for its latest release which removes the skirts of all female characters.

The patch is being released as a pre-order bonus for Softhouse-Seal Grandee’s new eroge title “Zettai Junshu – Kyousei Kozukuri Kyokashou!!” (something along the lines of “Absolute Compliance – Compulsory Conception Permit!!” – the title alone probably summarises the scenario rather well), and removes the skirts from all the female characters in conversation scenes.

A bevy of promotional videos of the game for those interested:

And the obligatory ero:

Maniacal devotion to MMORPG powergaming is exemplified by this player of top asteroid mining simulator Eve Online – careful arrangement of his computers allows him to simultaneously control 12 accounts at once, an impressive if profoundly dubious feat.

Supposedly this arrangement was required in order to avoid being identified and banned as a bot or macro user.

Just how much ISK he can earn in an hour is not specified.

Those wondering how to realise their dubious dreams of an LCD Hime need look no further than this video, which provide a bilingual Engrish/Japanese guide to making a device (“onanism hole”) capable of simulating sex with Asuka.

Most parts, save the Tenga which can be acquired readily enough, are likely to be locally available; the software used for animating Asuka is XXCake, available here.

Those looking for Asuka wearing a Test Plugsuit can find several hundred such images on the Channel, including the one used above.

An individual is claiming to have finally cracked the PS3’s formerly invincible copy protection system.

Although he claims to have cracked the hardware, he admits not yet having cracked the software, so a usable application is presumably some way off, if possible at all.

The cracker in question, identified as “geohot” (or George Hotz) and already well known for his previous exploits, explains:

I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I’ve also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip.

3 years, 2 months, 11 days…thats a pretty secure system

Took 5 weeks, 3 in Boston, 2 here, very simple hardware cleverly applied, and some not so simple software.

As far as the exploit goes, I’m not revealing it yet. The theory isn’t really patchable, but they can make implementations much harder. Also, for obvious reasons I can’t post dumps. I’m hoping to find the decryption keys and post them, but they may be embedded in hardware. Hopefully keys are setup like the iPhone’s KBAG.

The cracker was previously involved in “unlocking” the iPhone’s protection in 2007, so although any actual proof of his accomplishment is entirely lacking, he is at least relatively credible by way of former deeds.

Hopeful pirates (or “backup and homebrew enthusiasts” as the facile euphemism has it) have wasted no time in celebrating the possibility of finally getting free games on the PS3, though whether a usable modchip emerges from the hack remains to be seen, as does Sony’s response.

The owner of a Super Dollfie was so dissatisfied with the refusal of his charge to dance that he rebuilt the doll as a robot and had that dance for him. The happy event is captured in two videos, reproduced below.

IevanPolkka:

Mozart’s “Turkish March”:

The doll’s homepage: “dancingdoll.”

With virtual figures, sex robots and now dancing dolls, it seems a new era is dawning for the desperate.

The ease of modifying the cover of Sony’s PSP series of consoles and the obsession of otaku with their favourite anime and game characters have combined favourably to create a vast array of tasteful “痛PSP” covers, an expansive selection of which are collected here.

It would appear the necessity of using the consoles in public has all but restrained the usual erotic artwork from appearing, though there are a few very notable exceptions…

Those looking to create their own can find all manner of guides online.

Microsoft’s ongoing crackdown on pirates and modded Xbox 360s is said to have resulted in 600,000 Xbox Live accounts being banned from North America alone, with more to follow…

The “disturbing truth” runs thus:

A conversation with a friend who works for a call center that handles an Xbox 360 account has yielded a disturbing truth: Microsoft has started its annual Xbox Live banning spree and it has disabled 600,000 accounts so far in the US and Canada.

The target of the banning spree are mainly people who have modified their consoles to play pirated games. My trusty source says that they have been given instructions to push for a million banned accounts by the time the holidays are over.

Leaving aside the question of the reliability of this “trusty source,” it is obvious Microsoft has banned a very large number of Xboxes, and an even larger number of Xbox Live accounts.

Such is the ire of these unhappy pirates that the man in charge of Xbox Live has been subjected to the usual deluge of Internet harassment, with him reporting death threats against himself, his family and even his dogs, along with threatening calls throughout the night.

For those interested, the chat logs of his (genuine) appearance on IRC to beg/threaten his stalkers into stopping are visible below:

The threats relented after he mentioned they were being reported to police – with the bans evidently proving quite effective, it seems the Xbox 360′s noisy pirate community is proving quite the pushover so far.

Via Hachimaki.

Microsoft’s recent mass banning of users of modded consoles from Xbox Live apparently did not go far enough – banned users are now learning that they can no longer use their console’s HDD for any meaningful purpose, with installation to the drive no longer possible on a blacklisted console…

An abridged description of the changes:

Firstly, and most obviously, you cannot connect to Xbox Live on this console any more. This means no more game updates (aka title updates), XBLA games, marketplace content, netflix/sky player and so on. There is no way around this, all online capabilities are now disabled PERMANENTLY.

Hard Drive installs are now disabled on the banned console. This means any disk-based games you have will no longer play off of the hard drive.

There is no way to fix this, that functionality is simply gone from the banned 360.

Windows Media Centre functionality is disabled. It is still possible to stream video/music content via the video library.

So, in summary:

Your Banned 360:

* Cannot go on Xbox Live

* Cannot install games to the HDD

* Cannot use Windows Media Centre extender

* Cannot be used to get achievements from backups without corrupting your profile

With no warranty, Internet access, or even hard drive, it might have been kinder just to “brick” the consoles and render them entirely inoperative…

The PC version of Street Fighter 4 has stimulated a huge variety of erotic mods, with Cammy and Chun-Li the most amenable to modification, particularly in light of Cammy’s skin-tight bodysuit.

A variety of them can be seen below:

And of course there is the Cammy nude filter mod…

You can find download links on the (Japanese) Street Fighter IV Mod Wiki (see the left sidebar for links to character pages).

Capcom may yet end up regretting the PC release, particularly with the possibilities on offer when modding the actual character models, rather than just the skins, becomes possible…

Fans will doubtless come to see the PC version as the definitive version however.

With the release of Street Fighter 4 for the PC a variety of mods have begun to appear, and naturally one of the first on offer is a nude filter version which strips the (comely female) characters of clothes, in this case Cammy…

You can see the resultant battle below:

Player 1

A stroke of unintended genius on Capcom’s part?

Of course, given the state of Street Fighter 4′s manly character designs we might think the usually vast audience for such things is a little reduced.

Street Fighter 4 PC is available now.

The PSP version of Idolmaster, Idolmaster SP, has had its secret debug mode unlocked by 2ch. They soon discovered that the mode allows custom posing in a manner akin to that of the esteemed 3D Custom Girl, and a stream of erotically posed idols quickly followed…

You can see the results of their efforts below:

Via Ore-teki.

Expect sales to pickup with this… The game is on sale now. Debug gear sold separately.

For those times when having a joystick perched on the edge of a desk or lap is just not good enough.

Possibly this has been taken to unnecessary extremes…

Some of the first in what will probably prove to be a never-ending stream of musical instruments emblazoned with the cast of K-On! emerge.

Many fans in fact quickly shelved their aspirations of emulating the quartet on learning how much their instruments cost…

Enterprising modders have made considerable progress in modding Grand Theft Auto to include a multitude of characters from the Touhou universe.

These models are for GTA: San Andreas, so if you are looking to download them or merely browse a substantial amount of GTA mods, take a look at the Gosuke Factory Database. GTA IV, alas, looks not to be receiving any modding activity of substance for some time…

You can also see some rather jarring videos of them in action on Nico.