iiotenki

The Tony Hawk of Tokimeki Memorial

A most of the time Japanese>English game translator and writer and all the time dating sim wonk.



iiotenki
@iiotenki

Now that I don't have to rely on proxies to purchase anything from it, Mercari has such a fascinatingly surreal user culture for a modern e-commerce site here in Japan that's amplified by the fact the site structure clearly isn't built for some practices.

Feel the need to ask permission to buy something that's openly listed? I don't think anybody's going to be offended if you hit the "I want to commit to giving you money in exchange for goods" button like you're on literally any other shopping site, but okay, you do you.

Want to make an offer to a seller? Do it in the public comments because there's no formal offer button elsewhere.

Made an offer the seller has accepted, but not ready to pay for it quite yet and are scared somebody else is going to snipe your item? Ask the seller to edit the title to say "For ___-sama only," because there's no way for sellers to send offers directly to individual users.

The idea of Mercari is that its limitations are both intentional and meant to make transactions feel a little more personable compared to shopping on Rakuten or Amazon. Which it is and a lot of the best deals on game stuff have come from there because it's not as big on formal stores selling on there. But when you mix in Japanese social dynamics, it all comes across as an overly (unnecessarily?) polite online flea market or swap meet. There's a quaint charm to it and for all of its other archaic aspects, the nuts and bolts of the actual transactions are straightforward enough. It's just amazing to find a part of the Internet in 2023 where sellers have to explicitly state in their listings and profiles, "You don't have to ask permission to buy anything and if you talk in the comments and someone else buys without asking, tough luck."


iiotenki
@iiotenki

Anyway, I bought a proper Super Famicom, partly because it has one of the known superior PPU chips inside to hopefully mitigate the mild sprite ghosting my US SNES has and also just because it was getting to be a pain in the ass using my cart adapter to play Japanese since it was very finnicky about booting while also having an alarming death grip on the cartridge contacts. Paid all of about $60 and need to put it through its paces more, but I'm content! And frankly worth it to not have to deal with the latter alone even if the ghosting somehow persists. (And yes, I know you can trim the tabs off, but I'm always squeamish about doing anything permanent to console plastic, no matter how minor.)

Also just nice to not see a miserably yellowed unit for once in this country. You can still get a Super Famicom for pretty dirt cheap if you're not picky, but boy are the Book and Hard Offs of the world packed with yellowed units to the ceiling anymore. Phew. 😩

Anyway, back to admiring Tokimemo Pocket on the Super Game Boy and contemplating how even that's a superior experience to the actual SNES port.



DevilREI
@DevilREI

One of the worst things about being a Sega fan is accepting how much Yu Suzuki simultaneously built and screwed up the company.

He made Hang-On! Space Harrier! Virtua Fighter! All amazing, revolutionary stuff! His area of expertise is arcade games, and if he had stayed in that realm, I feel like arcades might be in a very different place today.

But that's not what happened. He had an idea for an epic multi-chapter gaming ~experience~. He fucking nearly bankrupted the company because nobody seemed willing to tell him "no" to any bizarre request or idea he had! And that finally caused Sega to put him on a leash before he left!

(It's weird, because while I hate a lot of corporate suit mandates that prevent creators from trying bold and exciting things, I'm forced to acknowledge there's also got to be some oversight to prevent shit from getting out of hand. Like with Yu hiring an actual interior designer for Shenmue for realism. What?)

Since then Yu's found himself constantly wooed by and employing the services of less-than-competent (if not downright shady/scammy) individuals, who seem to have gotten where they are by showering him with praise and attention. And now these individuals, who know he's a mark for "revolutionary technology," have brought him in on the NFT grift.

Thing is, Air Twister is weird and great and arcadey and awesome! It's proof that Yu still has it in him to make amazing stuff in that vein! He just needs proper oversight and guidance from people who aren't shitbags!

I don't know if he can be helped at this point, really. He outright admits that he doesn't play games or do much online himself, so anyone with some impressive-looking/sounding tech and sufficient hero-worship will get in his good graces and he'll be none the wiser. It's heartbreaking, really.

Man. Maybe we could have avoided this timeline if Psy-Phi released.


Kinsie
@Kinsie

In a 2018 career retrospective with EDGE Magazine, long-time collaborator Toshihiro Nagoshi paints a word-portrait of Yu as someone perhaps a bit childlike in both curiosity and temperament, with an inability to stop himself if he wants to do more and a deep aversion to design documents in favor of "finding the fun" during development. Which can work if you're making an arcade game that's only supposed to last 2-20 minutes a pop with a small team, but when you're making Shenmue...

The bit about oversight just reminds me of how effectively Kickstarter and other crowdfunding initiatives taught the world that publishers, for all their much-deserved bad reputations, exist for a reason and are generally pretty good at ensuring that the visionary set don't wind up half a decade late for their own release date having sold off all the sequel rights to make up for budget shortfalls. (Not naming any Steves, of course)



Now that I don't have to rely on proxies to purchase anything from it, Mercari has such a fascinatingly surreal user culture for a modern e-commerce site here in Japan that's amplified by the fact the site structure clearly isn't built for some practices.

Feel the need to ask permission to buy something that's openly listed? I don't think anybody's going to be offended if you hit the "I want to commit to giving you money in exchange for goods" button like you're on literally any other shopping site, but okay, you do you.

Want to make an offer to a seller? Do it in the public comments because there's no formal offer button elsewhere.

Made an offer the seller has accepted, but not ready to pay for it quite yet and are scared somebody else is going to snipe your item? Ask the seller to edit the title to say "For ___-sama only," because there's no way for sellers to send offers directly to individual users.

The idea of Mercari is that its limitations are both intentional and meant to make transactions feel a little more personable compared to shopping on Rakuten or Amazon. Which it is and a lot of the best deals on game stuff have come from there because it's not as big on formal stores selling on there. But when you mix in Japanese social dynamics, it all comes across as an overly (unnecessarily?) polite online flea market or swap meet. There's a quaint charm to it and for all of its other archaic aspects, the nuts and bolts of the actual transactions are straightforward enough. It's just amazing to find a part of the Internet in 2023 where sellers have to explicitly state in their listings and profiles, "You don't have to ask permission to buy anything and if you talk in the comments and someone else buys without asking, tough luck."