Tag Archives: Shogun

July 4, 2026 · 05:15

Colouring your coat

That is the term I am seeing, do you? It comes in support of what I wrote yesterday about physical copies. I also added a few points that I felt were important. The BBC however (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0ryjyvjq41o) failed to disclose them and trivializes other parts. As such I am now decently convinced that the BBC is enabling or supporting the Have’s against the have not group. It is a whole new setting of people classification. So as we get the headline ‘PlayStation will stop releasing games on discs in 2028’ it remains a dangerous thought, because whatever advantage they have over others (Steam Deck, Xbox) end there and quite quick, they don’t have any advantage over Nintendo, but they will hand them a truckload of people, right of the bat.

The first debatable setting we see is ““This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs,” it added.” It does not adapt consumer trends at all and I reckon that in 2027 they will face had choices for the simple reason that people like physical copies. It might not like the fact that people are forced in a download setting and the United Kingdom has plenty of rural areas, when they learn that Sony if forcing them out of gaming, the battle lines will be drawn. Gaming journalist Vikki Blake calling it a “Body blow to consumer rights” and she is right, it is. Whilst we are also given ““It’s of huge concern for game conservation and a massive problem for gamers with lower disposable incomes who rely on part-exchanging or loaning games from friends to keep up with the AAA price tags,” she said.” As well as ““Just one console cycle ago, Sony made a tongue-in-cheek advert about how easy it is to share games on PS4 as a dig at competitor, Xbox.” Which gives us the second setting, because it was not a mere tongue-in-cheek advert, it was more. Microsoft had seemingly ‘embraced’ the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) and so initially did Sony, their terms of service basically acknowledged it, I warned several news agencies of this in November 2013. They seemingly brushed it away. In the 11th hour, they saw the blowback it was giving, so they laughingly brushed it away with the handing of a game disc. Their was nothing tongue-in-cheek about it, Sony got really scared and did away with it in a public joke. So that was what it was and seeing this makes me fume a little. Christopher Dring, editor of The Game Business gives us ““We still see millions and millions of PlayStation games sold as physical goods,” he said. “It’s a significant business and there are lots of players that prefer to buy this way. It’s tough news for retail.”” It is and if Sony pushes this disclose setting they will hurt their own business in massive ways. And it is shown in other means too, as such we see “Sony has also come under criticism for pulling over 500 films and TV shows purchased on the PlayStation Store from people’s collections with no compensation.” There will be a kick around and Sony will not like that fallout. The question becomes why is this done? There is enough evidence not to do that and I am pushed into the squad of a “have versus have not war” the thoughts that Dutch Journalist Luc Sala gave me 30 years ago is now playing part in what was to come into what is about to happen and it is not mere gaming, I reckon that it becomes about what is after that. I am not sure what ‘that’ is, but we will soon find out.

As I see it, the fact that the entire TPP part was ‘overseen’ gives me the impression that the BBC is embracing the “have’s” in this war and whilst we can accept that everyone takes sides, the journalistic integrity of the BBC is as I personally see it in play, because the journalistic integrity of a place like the BBC should be merely on the fence and not choosing a side, but that could be merely my view on the matter.

Another side is seen with “The firm said its arrangement with the film production company StudioCanal has ended, meaning it no longer has the rights to sell those TV shows and movies, and they will disappear from people’s collections on 1 September.” I believe it is short sighted, I get that it can n longer be sold, but taking it from a catalog is different from deleting it from anyone who bought it, I reckon that those people are entitled to a download of these series and movies. The materials will be downed in a different setting and we are already seeing that. For example you cannot buy Shogun (2024) in Australia, there is also a setting that in Australia Good Omens (2019) only has Season 1, you can only buy the other seasons through places like Amazon. This discriminatory setting is now getting more and more attention (mainly through hatred of Amazon, which is also wrong) so as these ‘products’ are deleted we will see more and more non-acceptance of these settings and gaming is likely the one place where people unite rather fast. You should ask Microsoft, their ‘online only’ cost them their place in consoles and now whilst they were on par with Sony, they are now trailing towards 1:4, those are strong results of failure, as such I hope that someone at Sony needs to receive their walking papers. This got started somehow and at some point people want to know how started all that. But that is merely my point of view. So I hope that the BBC will soon colour their coat in a more neutral colour.

Have a great day today, it’s Saturday here already and I am a mere 110 minutes away from morning coffee. In Toronto it is still yesterday’s beer-o-clock.

A song in my heart

We all have these moments, we all get that moment that our heart starts to sing and it is never for one reason. It can be a woman (Laura Vandervoort), it can be a video game (Horizons Forbidden West), a movie (John Wick 4). There are different reasons fuelled with anticipation, desire and longing. The heart picks up on this and sings. For me this started in 1982. A mini series on TV caught my attention. It was the exploration of John BlackThorne (Richard Chamberlain) of Japan. It was probably the first time I saw something on the historical side of Japan. We saw the titan Toshiro Mifune and I am decently certain it was the first event I saw with him. Over time I saw more, we saw the Portuguese version of Gimli, portrayed by John Rhys-Davies, Yoko Shimada, Alan Badel and many more. The work of James Clavell brilliantly set to TV. It was a few years later when I got the VHS edition and another decade until I got the DVD. It was a few years ago when I tired to get the Bluray edition, however unsuccessful. I still have the DVD’s. I must have seen the series several times since the 1982 introduction. It never stopped bringing joy to my heart. So when I saw a new trailer, the trailer to the 2024 remake, my heart basically went bug-nuts.

Now we will get to see the cycle from Blackthorne and Toranaga, now portrayed by Cosmo Jarvis and Hiroyuki Sanada. We have seen Sanada in several things (well, you could have). There was 47 Ronin, Helix and several others. I know it will be a few months, and several more until I will be able to get the 10 episodes on Bluray, but the idea in itself makes my heart sing. One of the more prestigious series I have ever seen will be remastered and with the evolution of special effects and camera options, guided by a new cast with decades of insight we are optionally treated to a series that will overwhelm the senses, at least that is what I am hoping for. The 1980 version was ‘only’ 5 episodes, but the pilot and finale were 3 hours each, as such the new version might be on par with that. Yet I am not trivialising this, the original version was a titan and it still is, it stands next to I Claudius as the best drama in history and they have had their positions for half a century, as such the remake will have quite the challenge to equal. I have no doubt that the cast is up to the task. Hiroyuki Sanada is very much on near equal footing as Toshiro Mifune is. His list of achievements is a decent indication of that. The rest? Well, I hope to learn this in about 15 weeks when the first episode airs and I do hope it is something I will be able to see, although it is much more likely I will get the Blu-ray on day one (preferably before December 2024).

For now I feel great and it is Saturday (nice bonus). Shogun returns renewed and I can’t wait to see it. I am enjoying the weekend, I hope you will too.

Shadows are Us

It is almost 20 years ago that me, myself, I, my playstation and controller took a gander into the world of Tenchu. Even as I now shiver on the graphics that were then amazing, the gameplay is something I missed. This came to light when I got a dose of Aragami 2 on YouTube. Proper sneak games are a rare commodity, and as we look for the next sneaker (Splinter cell, Metal gear solid, etc.) those who love stealth games, we all have a fondness for Tenchu,

I personally do not think that there is an exception to that rule. And for some reason, even as we all love Thief and its versions, it feels a little more amazing in Japan around the 1600’s. Japan in that era was a fun place (a little superstitious), but fun none the less. So Tenchu was a lovely step into the past. 10 years after that, when Microsoft still knew what it was doing, Tenchu Z was launched and the thump in my heart was as happy as it could be.

Even as we saw some repetition in the levels, the levels themselves were amazing. And there was the second setting where you wanted to live in the levels you were mastering, the house, the inn, they were all amazing. There were off course issues, there always are for those who do some of the levels again and again, some of the parts that Tenchu 1 offered did not happen in Tenchu Z, yet I was not upset, after 10 years I got to tenchu again.

So what happened? Why did the PS4 not have its own Tenchu, or whatever it would be called. A Japanese set stealth game, I know there is a sizeable population that wants one. Even if we see an upgraded remastered Tenchu Z, it is a stage that could propel the cloud consoles (Google Stadia, Amazon Luna and whatever Microsoft has) forward and yes, Microsoft does have the advantage, but only if they act, if not it is up for grabs. Microsoft does not have IP on Japan or stealth gaming. I wonder why I had not missed it sooner. Perhaps I had hoped that Ubisoft got its act together. Perhaps I hoped that some would remember the great games.

Yet if Aragami 2 (due out in September 2021) delivers, we will feel happy and after such a long silence it should optionally receive a large following. Yes, the first Aragami had flaws (a few) but it felt much closer to the original Tenchu than many other stealth games. Styx and Thief are good games, they have their own niche and they are quite good, yet it is not sneaking in 1600 Japan. The era speaks to our imagination, it has pretty much since a man named James Clavell wrote Shogun in 1975. The age of Blackthorn and Toranaga. It spoke to most people and the image continued in gaming. So now, when we see the Sony PS5 and Microsoft alternative, we see a system that can render an entire village, one would hope that Tenchu gets a new lease on life in gaming, optionally in a much larger setting. We learned so much over 20 years that this is all possible and cloud gaming might actually end up with a larger advantage.

Options
Cloud gaming has its own stage and its stage is a lot larger than any game. I staged that play in a previous blog when I coined the return of Murder on the Zinderneuf. The cloud consoles will have an option what I call ‘cross gaming tokens’ Something found in one game can be used in another game, or better stated becomes an unlocked item in another game. Consider that you find a house ceramic in Murder on the Zinderneuf, that could unlock the steampunk version of Monopoly, When you play Tenchu, you can unlock a weapon that is an additional weapon in Clue, and so on. It is a stage never contemplated before , or never acted on, but in cloud gaming it becomes real, as we embrace subscriptions and therefor we need long term gaming. As such long term gaming is found in adding to games, but what makes the addition? By adding games, other games will optionally be enhanced, or even added to, all because you played Murder on the Zinderneuf and you examined the chess set in a room, a new chess set is added to chess. And there is no end to the options you can unlock making a long term connection. Now consider that setting in a game like Tenchu. As the enemy is there, it is also possible that a game like Anno 1600 will unlock more powerful enemies in Tenchu.

Remember that evil Dutch Merchant? Well, if you played Anno 1600, he will become a VOC representative, complete with two bodyguards yielding a ‘Donderbus’ (the Dutch invention that would later become the shotgun). When the stage is adjusted the game becomes again enticing and rewarding. A simple stage of adjusting, and players like Ubisoft never went there, why is that (equally other players did not go there either).

So whilst we can argue that we must move forward, we have a ton of options that have not been acted on, as such there are years of exploration in sight and there Cloud gaming has the option to offer more, not merely another version of a game, but a much larger game, if only the developers had that in sight when they thought that one platform is merely a port of another platform.

In all this we can lie in the shadows awaiting what comes next, or we can adjust the lights and create alternative paths. So whilst we all await a new game, what is wrong with replaying a game we forgot about, only to see that it has been enhanced by other games we have played in the meantime. I believe that there are a lot of developers and they do not realise the impact of long term gaming yet, they seemingly forget that soon we get to a point (in 6 months) when some people will have played the same game for 10 years. There are not many games that are worthy of that but Skyrim pulled it off, so what happens when on 11.11.21 the game offers the players something new in the same game they played? In opposition, what happens when the ‘patch’ will unlock a whalebone dagger in Dishonored 2? These are options that cloud gaming can offer, or perhaps a Skyrim board in Monopoly, an Axe in Clue or a Skyrim style chess set? It is not merely cosmetic, consider that over time you get additional rooms, people and items in Clue. The standard formula you had in your mind will no longer work, it needs adjusting for the different items optionally altered items. The game suddenly becomes more fun to play again. A stage many forgot about but Cloud gaming enables it and suddenly the stealth games all get an upgrade and that is what we like a challenging game that offers more over time. So whilst we see Aragami 2 coming in September, what happens when some of the guards have crossbows? Do not laugh, the Japanese had crossbows as early as 230 AD, they called them Shudo, they also had something not unlike a ballista, but that came 400 years later, still ahead of Europe though. History provides a whole range of options and opportunities. And the coming of Argami 2 made me consider that. I wonder what Google and Amazon are doing. Most likely relying on a deal with Ubisoft, I wonder how that goes over time.

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Tagged as Amazon, Amazon Luna, Anno 1600, Aragami, Bethesda, chess, Clue, donderbus, Dutch, google, Google Stadia, James Clavell, Japan, Metal Gear Solid, Monopoly, Murder on the Zinderneuf, Netherlands, Playstation, Shogun, shotgun, Shudo, Skyrim, Sony, Splinter Cell, Tenchu, Tenchu Z, Ubisoft, VOC

November 3, 2020 · 23:31

A streaming war

Yup, this is about to come to larger blows, you see, there is Netflix (of course), Apple, Amazon Prime, Canal Plus/Foxtel and Disney Plus. There are a few more, but in many cases HBO is added to the film channels of Foxtel, and so on. Yet these players never took a serious look at the treasure of the east, Japan particularly. Yes they all look at the manga, yet there is a lot more. The Zatoichi series, which was followed by an amazing movie with Takeshi Kitano. There are a lot more, and even as there are some really good movies around that are done in
Japan (Earthquake bird with Alicia Vikander), Japan has a lot of original non manga material to offer. In the horror section there is the Audition and Oldboy, the second one is also seen as a remade English version, but it is nowhere near as good as the original, perhaps it was the atmosphere. There is of course the setting of Ju-On and that video that kills within 7 days, but those are the visible ones that made the press. A lot of people got interested in Japan as a provider of entertainment after Kill Bill part 1, that is fair enough, we all have our moments. For me it was the 1980 TV-series Shōgun with Richard Chamberlain, based on the novel by James Clavell with the same name. A series where we see giants like Toshiro Mifune, Yoko Shimada, Frankie Sakai, and Hideo Takamatsu (and many more). Not just that, even the Middle-Earth trusted Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) was already amazing 40 years ago. I reckon it might be time for a remake, if only the 1980 version was not so darn perfect. Yet there is more in Japan than just remakes. To see that we merely have to look at the Playstation 4 and the almost perfect Ghost of Tsushima. Until the game was there, I know nothing of this place and the setting it had. And I know I am not alone. We might want to travel back to 2006 when Clint Eastwood release the second part, Letters from Iwo Jima. As Flags of our fathers showed us the American side, Clint took a gander and showed us the other side as well. What we ended up with is a near complete view of a war no-one really wanted, but we were all forced to fight it, because there was no other way.

Yet as we see the roll call of movies in Japan, we see the western view of it and some of it is really good, there is the Forest with Natalie Dorner who is pretty amazing (for those who merely know here from her ways to excite Henry VIII, or be the sweet dear in GoT), this is the movie to watch her in). We need to acknowledge that a movie about Japanese in Japan can only be made by the Japanese. We do not deny that Lost in Translation is a gem, yet who knows of 100 Yen Love, and before you think that this is mere love movie, think again, in this particular case it is Billion dollar baby on steroids. A slob turning her life around and it is that underdog fight that for some reason is a lot better when it is done in Japan. There is another example, The Ramen Girl, underestimated and a little shallow, but it shows us a side of Japan we rarely see, their strife for excellence, a spiritual side perhaps, perhaps not. But there is a multitude of sides to Japan we always seem to ignore. The technologists look at Japan, because what we see there now will hit our borders in about 5 years. Yet in all that, we seem to forget that Japan has a soul and even if we do not understand it, some wall parts are shown in their movies and TV-series. With the world wanting more and wanting something different, there is every chance that Japanese entertainment goods will b e fought over by the streaming giants. And if these parts do not convince you, take a look at Gokusen (2002) and I can tell you right now, the plot twist that hits you at the end of season one, is one you we’re never ready for.

You could say: Only in Japan!