Will

What do you think an Otaku is? I think of them as people who are obsessed with something, traditionally anime and manga but more recently has crossed into other things such as gaming. Thats our western view anyway, I think in real terms an Otaku is simply a Japanese term for a fan of something. Is it something restricted to Japan? I would say so in general but when Japanese culture goes through its phases of being popular is tends to spread a little. Would anyone here consider themselves an Otaku? Not myself personally. What do you think about people who are Otaku? So long as they're not ridiculous about it I see no problem. Have you had any brushes with the Otak? Not that I know of, I'm sure that some of the people at work probably are though. Do you mind if I ask what this is for? Uni project? If so what course do you do?

I suppose it depends how simple and how much content you want within. A friend of mine used to freelance doing simple sites for local independant shops and I seem to recall her charging a couple of hundred pounds for each.

I'm not sure if you get a big insurance drop at 21 or just the standard one year older slight discount etc. I hit 25 next year so hopefully it will bring some nicer cars into my insurance price range. As for minimum wage I have no idea how anyone can live on that much money. I earn a fair amount more and still struggle to do the things I want while actually making sure I don't die. I suppose its fine for people living at home with a main parental income but I'd hate to have to live on that much money.

To be fair driving round here I could quite probably manage it with no danger as I'd be sat in a ridiculous traffic jam. At least it spices things up a bit!

Currently driving this: Having moved to London recently I hardly use it at all so I may well get rid of it soon. If I get a decent pay rise next year I'll probably buy something 'fun' for the weekends.

Perhaps, but then its hard to say to other publishers "Please don't release your big games at Christmas so that we can have a free run at sales." It would have suffered much more releasing at any other time. Its definately a good game though, well worth it for multiplayer frolics.

Iizuka-san was just in my office having a chat with my boss! All in Japanese so I didn't pick anything up but it was still amazing scenes!

This is exactly what I've found. I have no idea why on earth anyone thought this was the right way to go. Also the fact that you can't unlock the new events in multiplayer. I have absolutely no desire to play this game on my own and now I'm being forced to un order to open up new events to play with friends. Its very annoying that records aren't saved, the whole point is that anyone can get them and they they're there for next time you play. To me it takes a lot away from something that is otherwise a good experience.

I'm finding the camera angles to be fantastic, its very rare that you end up in a situation where you even need to consider changing the default. Something very few (infact probably no) games have done before.

Ahhh that makes more sense. Thanks! Maybe after the uproar with that Harry Potter guy being gay Nintendo are hoping to get some publicity by outing Mario?

Can you post another picture actually showing which bits to look at, I've tried but I just can't see this.

Of course 360 sales fell after the Halo 3 launch week, but you could hardly call it slumped massively. They took a good while to get back down to the level they had been before the games launch. It will be interesting to see where the consoles lie after Christmas. Wii and PS3 are doing very well and the 360 seems to be being left behind a bit. Nintendo really need to get more machines out there or they could suffer if they don't live up to the potentially massive sales available to them.

Well like I say I've not got access to any actual figures at the moment so I won't comment on those bits of your post until I do. I don't think theres too much problem in judging the Wii userbase at the moment, it should be fairly reflective of the overall base. If anything a consoles userbase will become more casual as it goes through its lifecycle so ratios of casual/hardcore are likely to be more in favour of the latter now than they will be later on. I completely agree with those saying Galaxy will be slower to reach its eventual sales figure, I'm just not at all sure it will sell to the levels of Halo 3. I think the eventual attach rate for Galaxy will be extremely low, but as you say, if hardware sales continue as they are then that will not be a factor in it reaching a wide audience. Its certainly interesting, I was chatting with the games manager in a virgin megastore today and they happened to be getting a delivery of Wii's about 4 hours later. The queue to get the machines was already full so I went and had a chat to the people waiting to see what they were buying. Nearly all of them had Mario and Sonic but only two of them were buying Galaxy (Only 8 people in the queue - not the best representation I admit). Mario can certainly still sell the games he's involved with, its just that the new Wii market wants those games to be completely different to what they have been in the past it seems. I'm just not even sure what the overall outcome of the Mario vs Halo situation will be. Its very easy to make an argument either way. Whatever the outcome they both deserve to do incredibly well as they're both fantastic games.

When the Wii disc drive glows to tell you have mail mine no longer lights up smoothly and the fades away smoothly. Its very, not stuttery, just kind of not as smooth fade as it used to be. Obviously this is not really a problem that upsets me, it would just be nice to have it work as it used to. Has anyone had this happen and know how to solve it?

Because it was a reply to someone else's post that didn't mention Mario Sunshine. I'm not saying the game didn't do well, just that it continues the declining Mario trend. Yes thats very true, the point of the thread wasn't the overall sales of Galaxy though, it was which of that and Halo 3 is doing better, at the moment thats Halo 3 - by quite a large margin. The problem games like Galaxy face is that the majority of Wii owners are not people like us who have been into games for a while and know what the best titles are. Its telling that Mario Sunshine sold to 1 in 5 GameCube owners wheras so far Mario Galaxy is only selling to 1 in 20 Wii owners. I didn't skimp past it at all, I was responding to a particular post that made no mention of it. I'm not in the office today so I don't have any figures for me to make any worthwhile comment on it. I would imagine that Mario Galaxy will sell in a very similar fashion to New Super Mario Brothers indeed. The game still sells well now and I expect Mario Galaxy will do well for a good while too. Whether its enough to catch and overtake Halo I'm not sure. Its all going to depend on how long the Wii keeps up its ridiculous sales for. I completely agree with the rest of what you say on the Wii sales model. Overall sales for exclusive games obviouslly depends a lot on the hardware sales for the machine a game is available on. This can cause problems with comparisons of actual performance and often a relative figure is more helpful in both comparing success and gaining knowledge on particular customer bases. Of the people I know with Wiis the gamers among them have already picked up and are playing Mario. The more casual types have heard about it but haven't bothered with it yet, most have it on their radar as a possibility. Unfortunately the majority of Wii owners are made up of the latter type of gamer.

What are you actually saying is bull? Halo sells well on day 1 and its hype that immediately goes away, Mario sells well on day 1 and its got legs and will carry on selling at this level? If we look at your previous Mario games it would seem to me the franchise is going one way: Mario 3 - Best ever Mario 64 - 10m Sunshine - not even a mention Seems like the series hit its peak a long time ago from that. Both the 360 and the Wii have roughly similar levels of consoles in homes and the fact is that Mario hasn't done as well as Halo 3.

Mainly I'd base it on who the consoles are aimed at and the people that are buying them. Like it or not the Wii is aimed at and bought by people who are not the traditional gamer, and this is showing in the sales of software and hardware. Also, Wii hardware sales were down the week Metroid launched, does that mean that the game was so bad it kept people away? Of course not, there was just less supply that week. Along the same lines this week, more in supply means more have sold. I doubt a great deal of that is down to the launch of Mario.

I don't doubt that the Wii sold more the week that Mario was released. Its the link between the two that causes the problem.

Doesn't mean Mario had any effect on it though. People most definately bought 360's to play Halo, I doubt quite so many bought a Wii to play Mario.

I don't know how you can say galaxy has shifted more consoles than Halo 3. Wii's sell out regardless of games, if a shop has them it can sell them. Judging by the current attach rate of about 5% I don't think you could really say Mario has had much of an effect at all.

Going on first week Euro sales Halo 3 absolutely destroyed Mario. In the UK its about 370k to 70k launch week sales, other Euro sales won't make a massive difference on the ratio. Not surprising at all really. Most people with a 360 a hardcore gamers who knew about and wanted Halo 3. Most Wii gamers are casual who don't have a clue about games.

Overall: 1. Need for Speed 2. Fifa 3. Call of Duty Golden compass might be up there if the movie does well or theres some offers around it. Wii: 1. Mario and Sonic 2. Mario Galaxy 3. Wii Play or Big Brain Academy.

I wouldn't quite say its that many. Also most people buying a Wii are not really all that much into games and once they have the machine + a few games they're happy to pull the machine out every so often when friends are round and not really buy anything new for it.

The meal I had last night was excellent, and cheap! All you need is: 2 Chicken breasts 1 Onion Garlic Asparagus A bottle of Pesto Some Pasta Pack of Mushrooms 1. Chop up the Chicken, onion, mushrooms and garlic. 2. Boil the Pasta and aparagus. 3. Fry the Chick, onion, mushrooms and garlic. 4. When both look cooked drain the water from the pasta/asparagus and mix in the fried bits. 5. Mix in the Pesto to taste. 6. Serve. Easy to do, very tasty, cheap and you can do it without any of the bits you don't like.

Just ordered mine from Game. Really looking forward to getting stuck into it this weekend. I've managed to see practically nothing of the game in the build up to its release somehow so almost all of it should be completely new to me.