Siliconera Thursday, December 26, 2024 10:00 PM
Village Vanguard will sell some exclusive merchandise of the Prince and his cousins from Katamari Damacy. This is to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the game. [Thanks, PR Times!]
Pre-orders will be available until January 19, 2025. Then, you can expect your orders to come out some time in Spring 2025. As a note, Village Vanguard does not offer international shipping via its website. So if you want to purchase these items but you don't live in Japan, you might need to employ a proxy service.
Here are the items that are part of the Katamari Damacy Village Vanguard collection, as well as their prices:
You can purchase goods of The Prince, as well as his various cousins that appear in the franchise. This makes for 24 total variations of acrylic mascots and clear cards. The Prince and the King of the Cosmos feature on the T-shirts, and the flakes feature various items and level motifs from Katamari Damacy. There is even a massive cow, for those with fond memories of rolling up the Holy Cow.
The Katamari Damacy items at Village Vanguard are open for pre-order until January 19, 2025. Katamari Damacy Reroll is available on the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Windows PC.
The post Katamari Damacy Prince and His Cousins Head to Village Vanguard appeared first on Siliconera. |
Siliconera Thursday, December 26, 2024 9:30 PM
An unofficial poll was held in Japan to determine the cutest Pokemon, with Eevee shining at first place. Over 19,000 people participated in this poll. [Thanks, PR Times!]
Here is the ranking for the cutest Pokemon:
Each Pokemon includes some comments from the people who voted for them, explaining why they like them. Some people, such as for Emolga and Cinccino, included the movesets they gave their Pokemon in the game. One person for Emolga even included what item and personality their Emolga had. However, the majority of comments focus on the Pokemon's visuals, as well as their memories of them from the game or the show.
The official ranking website gives information on their evolutions, types, voice actors (from the anime), and debut generation. You can also filter the rankings to see which demographic voted for which Pokemon. For example, boys under the age of ten had Sylveon as their favorite. Women in their thirties preferred Mew. You can also filter via blood type, likely due to the blood type personality theory that's prevalent in Japan.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, the most recent mainline entry in the franchise, is readily available on the Nintendo Switch. The next game is Pokemon Legends: Z-A, which has a 2025 release window.
The post Eevee Named Cutest Pokemon in Minna no Ranking Poll appeared first on Siliconera. |
Siliconera Thursday, December 26, 2024 9:00 PM
Sales for Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons have surpassed 8 million in Japan, with it still appearing in eighth place in the weekly sales ranking in that country. The game will be five years old in March 2025. [Thanks, Famitsu!]
Nintendo is dominating the Japanese market, as all of the top best-selling games for the past week were for Switch games. Here is the ranking list:
The same goes for hardware as well. Between December 16 and 22, 2024, the Switch sold 14,065 units, the Switch Lite sold 34,542, and the Switch OLED sold 55,544. Meanwhile, the closest to reaching those numbers was Sony's PS5. The PS5 sold 15,213 units, the Digital Edition sold 4079, and the Pro sold 5358.
Reasons behind the high sales of Nintendo hardware and software are likely due to the Christmas season, and both the games and consoles being more family-friendly. One could conceivably purchase a game for a child or a family member, so that everyone could play it together. Animal Crossing: New Horizons in particular is a game that many people got into during COVID-19 pandemic, as many people were stuck at home with nothing to do during quarantine.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is readily available on the Nintendo Switch.
The post Animal Crossing: New Horizons Japanese Sales Pass 8 Million appeared first on Siliconera. |
Siliconera Thursday, December 26, 2024 8:30 PM
The recently announced McDonald's Japan collaboration with the Evangelion anime series is being promoted with a new commercial introduces the new burgers and showcases the Evangelion Unit-M mech. The restaurant is adding new hamburgers and sandwiches paired with Shinji, Asuka, and Rei
The hamburgers are expected to appear in Japan from January 6, 2025. The new items are the Mexican Cheese Chicken Sandwich which is paired with Asuka, and the Hash Brown and Beef Burger with Garlic Mayo that is associated with Rei Ayanami. While the Double Teriyaki Cheeseburger is not a new item, the item is now being paired with Evangelion protagonist Shinji.
You can check out the new commercial here:
The commercial shows scenes from the Rebuild of Evangelion film series with some details changed as to include characters holding McDonald's burgers and items, as well as to feature the Unit-M mech. Additionally, the "new" Evangelion Unit is designed after the McDonald's logo and some of the food items from the fast food company, most notably the fries and Big Mac burger.
And here is a new illustration of the Evangelion Unit-M:
The McDonald's Evangelion burgers will appear in Japan on January 6, 2025. Furthermore, the Eva Unit toys that transform into McDonald's food items will be sold in Japan via lottery.
The post Evangelion McDonald's Commercial Pairs Characters With Burgers appeared first on Siliconera. |
Siliconera Thursday, December 26, 2024 7:30 PM
Sega has officially shared unique Otoshidama envelope designs for New Year cash gifts based on games released by the company and its subsidiary Atlus. People can find and download the PDF file on Sega's Social Media Present Site and print any of the envelope designs they like.
The 2025 New Year edition contains a total of eight designs. Six of them are based on the following games:
In addition to the six games mentioned above, Sega included two more envelope designs based on Sonic and Shadow from Sonic & Friends. The latter is a series of short CGI animation episodes that has been running on Sega's official TikTok account.
Sega has been regularly sharing new Otoshidama envelope designs every year, but it does not seem to permanently publicize the files. The 2024 New Year edition featured titles like Sonic Superstars and Sonic Frontiers, but the PDF file for those designs is no longer available on the webpage.
The company has instead permanently shared Tanabata wish papers for the Japanese summer festival that starts on July 7 every year since 2021. It also published permanent Sonic-themed message cards for Father's Day and Mother's Day.
Out of the seven titles featured in this set, only two of them have yet to be released in 2024. Sega will release Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC on February 21, 2025. It is also working with the recently-acquired Rovio of Angry Birds fame to release Sonic Rumble for PC and mobile devices in the 2024-2025 Winter season.
The post 2025 New Year Envelopes Designed After Sega and Atlus Games appeared first on Siliconera. |
Siliconera Thursday, December 26, 2024 7:30 PM
Head of Studio Zero and Metaphor: ReFantazio Director Katsura Hashino apparently said he would like to turn the latest Atlus title into a series. According to leaker ryokutya2089, Hashino said that he has an idea of what he'd like to do with the game given the chance to turn it into a series. [Thanks, ryokutya2089!]
In a new Famitsu interview alongside GPTRACK50 Studio President Hiroyuki Kobayashi, Hashino talked about the latest Atlus title. As of writing this, there are no concrete plans to turn Metaphor: ReFantazio into a series. However, Hashino doesn't close the door on the idea.
Hashino shared that Studio Zero started the project that would later become Metaphor: ReFantazio with the intention of creating a third major RPG title for Atlus, following the Megami Tensei and Persona series. Because of this, Hashino would like to promote Metaphor: ReFantazio to grow and become a signature title within the company.
Since the interview was held alongside former Capcom developer and Sengoku Basara Producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi, Hashino joked that the next game he makes might be an RPG set in the Sengoku period of Japanese history and in the style of the aforementioned series.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is readily available for the PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC.
The post Hashino Would Like to Make Metaphor: ReFantazio a Series appeared first on Siliconera. |
Siliconera Thursday, December 26, 2024 6:00 PM
With the launch of Infinity Nikki in late 2024, it is now time to look ahead at what's next for the free-to-play gacha game in 2025. If Love Nikki and other past games are anything to go off of, event collaborations are likely to happen at some point. The best scenario for Infinity Nikki would be event collaborations and crossovers with Sanrio and Disney in 2025.
As of the time of writing, Infinity Nikki already has a whopping 20 million downloads and counting. That is quite impressive for a game to accomplish in less than a month. It is imperative that Infold Games takes advantage of this massive player base across mobile, console, and PC sooner rather than later. After all, players move on from games quite fast.
One of the key features of Love Nikki from my brief time with it was the event collaborations. There were some excellent Disney crossovers that saw fantastic dresses show up in the game based on popular princesses like Cinderella, Ariel, and more. These not only looked incredible within the 2D experience, but they boosted further interest in the mobile game.
A similar situation could happen with Infinity Nikki if it had its own event collaborations. Disney is a must for sure, as there are just too many great possibilities for outfits, but this time in 3D. I'd, personally, love to see additions of characters like Rapunzel from Tangled, Moana, and Mulan.
Players, including myself, would absolutely be willing to shell out some hard-earned cash for these official Disney outfits in-game. Some of them would even make sense for the various abilities that the outfits have in this open-world title. For instance, Rapunzel's dress might be a gliding dress and be available when leaping around. Or a Snow White dress might be great for grooming animals.
Beyond Disney, I'd also like to see a Sanrio collaboration in Infinity Nikki. The possibilities here are almost limitless. It would require a bit more creativity to make dresses and outfits work for human characters, rather than anthropomorphic creatures, but it would be worth the effort.
Just think of all the Sanrio characters having outfits in this title. You could get a simple dress and hair bow similar to what Hello Kitty has. Or you could get an intricate black outfit with skulls using Kuromi's style for inspiration. I, personally, would be the first in the world to purchase a cute blue and white outfit based on Cinnamoroll.
There are a couple of ways these Infinity Nikki event collaborations with Disney and Sanrio could work. For one, the outfits could appear in the in-game shop. This would require players to actually spend real-world currency for the Stellarites to get them. But it would be nice if one or two outfits appeared in an event banner.
There would be so much room for additional items as well. How about a cloak for Momo that makes him look like My Melody? You could get this cloak through a Mira Journey pass or for pulling so many times on the event banner. The potential is just incredible, especially from a business perspective for Infold Games. If the developer wants to maximize the possibilities for Infinity Nikki, it is my hope we get monumental event crossovers with Disney, Sanrio, and more in the future.
Infinity Nikki is available for free on Android, iOS, PS5, and PC.
The post Infinity Nikki Needs Sanrio and Disney Event Collaborations in 2025 appeared first on Siliconera. |
