Topicless thread

[SleepyD]

learning romaji is just learning japanese anyway, since it's just spelling the words out in english letters, like sa-ku-ra.....

This link has a couple points I agree with: http://allnihongo.com/why-using-romaji-is-bad-for-your-japanese-health/

When you speak, you may be tempted to speak with an "English" accent"

The reasons why it bothers me is that for most people, it just ends up all wrong for them. They mispronounce things because they accidentally conflate the romaji text with English pronunciation rules. Some are subtle, some are just really bad. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YtwPPsBKGQ#t=1m36

Then they have to unlearn what they were doing from the beginning, which is much more difficult than learning it correctly in the first place. I'd love to spare Japanese learners the embarrassment. And for me personally, experiencing that sort of embarrassment would really kill my motivation to learn.

(I will admit that if it was, say, Spanish pronunciation rules instead of English being applied to romaji, you probably would be much better off.)

Reading kanji and kana is faster in the long run

Haihai! Hikari desu, yoroshiku! Atashi wa Ni-juu-ichi desu, soshite otanjoubi no sangatsu juu desu. atashi wa suki ga Hanafuda desu. o namae wa? :3

Yosh! Hikari desu, yoroshiku! Ore wa onnanoko desu, fufu. ni-juu-ichi desu. ore wa otanjoubi no sangatsu juu desu. ore wa suki ga kuro desu. -w-

This point holds true for me too. I just can't read the above quote very quickly at all. It's like reading a paragraph in all caps, that's what it feels like to me.

That's not to say romaji is pointless. No, it has its uses, especially in the beginning. But it's best not to ever be dependent on it and learn the kana as quickly as possible.

[Bella]

Full disclosure: My Romaji pronunciation is awful. I know it's awful, and honestly I don't care if it ever becomes less awful. I have a hard enough time pronouncing words in my native language correctly and miss the mark most of the time (ask Stew if you don't believe me), so naturally it's going to sound like I'm talking with a mouth full of cotton when I attempt to pronounce words from another language. >///>

@Kari: I'm glad you got your teeth fixed! ;^; That sounds really scary, but i had the EXACT same thing happen to me ...... if I hadn't gotten that molar filled when I did, they'd have probably had to do a root canal, which I can't even imagine since I was freaked as fuck just getting the filling put in. ><

[Chocofreak13]

my romaji pronunciation is so good i've caught myself pronouncing english words in japanese. so it can swing both ways. >x<

thanks on the teeth. they're still sore. and for some reason my flosser is missing. but otherwise i'm happy that it's done.

@sleepy: just for the record, it takes me a sec with some words in romaji too. but since i can't even read hiragana yet, that's at least something. at least i can instantly recognize terms like "boku no" and "kimi wa", considering the average learner would only be focusing on the basic terms and not the relaxed ones.

[Dr. Kraus]

Playstation 2013 conference was pretty cool today. Sad that nothing PSVita related other than streaming play from the PS4 was talked about while in Japan they got a bunch of stuff...

[Chocofreak13]

they're already up to the PS4? man...... >>;

[SleepyD]

my romaji pronunciation is so good i've caught myself pronouncing english words in japanese. so it can swing both ways. >x<

@sleepy: just for the record, it takes me a sec with some words in romaji too. but since i can't even read hiragana yet, that's at least something. at least i can instantly recognize terms like "boku no" and "kimi wa", considering the average learner would only be focusing on the basic terms and not the relaxed ones.

I've caught myself saying "Donde está el toire?" before.
Short phrases and words in romaji are fine. But once you start stringing long sentences, it's so much faster to read through kana. That's why it seems like such a chore to read romaji.

My Japanese friend has a similar feeling when playing Pokémon games in Japanese, since they were all in hiragana without any kanji. I'm not sure if they changed that in the new gen versions.

they're already up to the PS4? man...... >>;

PS1 was 1994. PS2 was released in 2000. The PS3 was released in late 2006. It's 2013, so we're due for a new console generation. haha

[stewartsage]

Last two days my back's been hurting pretty bad the last couple of days.  And now I'm getting a headache in class... awesome.

[Nichi]

@Sleepy: Hard to believe it's been that long. I have a PS1 on my desk right now with the LCD screen; the original PSP, if you will. I often bounce between it and my PS3 for older games :3

[Chocofreak13]

after hearing someone on facebook talk about the new "feature" involved with the next gen consoles, i think this is where my interest stops. i'll stick to collecting older games from now on. >>;

@stew: damn, that sucks. have some bengay or a heating pad?

[Nichi]

What new feature? The rumored "no used games because Gamestop = The Pirate Bay" feature?

Yeah...also, the lack of PS3 disc backward compatibility is also a turn-off for the PS4 :\

[Chocofreak13]

that, and that most (if not all) games are going to be download these days, or streaming. that's a big fat no for me. >>;

(also, they're really kicking their own ass by cutting gamestop out of the equation, considering i'm willing to bet the exclusive bonus content from preorders netted them quite a bit in sales.)

[SleepyD]

Sorry this is so long. m(_ _)m If you quote this, you probably want to just cut the relevant bits in.

Gamestop/Used Games
Well the big financial reason for that is not because Gamestop = The Pirate Bay, but the fact that the developers/publishers don't get any share of the profits from Gamestop. From a business standpoint, it's understandable they want to cut this out. I have no solid numbers for you, but I'm pretty sure the "losses" from used game sales well outpace any profits they get from preorder sales.

On a similar note, there's the issue of out-of-print games. That falls in the used game category, since the developer/publisher lost a sale to someone forced to track down a used copy. With downloadable games, they can keep old games online for as long as they want. I remember looking for a copy of Tales of Graces f, and found out they only ever did one print run of the game. So even only a year after it's release, it took me forever to track down a copy. Print runs are VERY expensive, and unless they can guarantee a large number of sales, they cannot justify the cost of doing so.

Social Media
There is a sizable demand for social bits and downloadable game stuff. While I don't care much for facebook on my console, I do see some potential in streaming your gaming sessions or stuff like that. That said, I do enjoy being able to cut myself off from the world when it comes to games, so I trust the developers to develop some games of the sort. Just because a feature is there, doesn't mean a game developer has to use it.

On a tangentially related topic, something I just watched:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZwJq88cWKY

Download-Only Games
Steam's success shows that downloadable games are indeed the future. And again, finances are a big reason why--Simply put, it's cheaper.

There are some games, particularly games like Corpse Party along with a number of other Japanese doujin games, that were only available for download on PSN. The higher ups couldn't justify the cost of printing such risky titles that would only garner sales of a few hundred at most. I'd rather they did download-only, rather than not bring it over at all.  I like that it gives them the ability to take on games that are more niche and would only appeal to a smaller set of people. (I feel fighting games will go the way of scrolling shooters in the next few generations, and will require this option to keep the genre alive)

And with Japanese doujin games, they often just release online only, and any print runs they do (if they ever decide to do so) are small and only available at a few events, such as Comiket and the like, until they run out, never to be printed again.

Personal Thoughts
Man, I talk too much online. It's like, I like writing essays or rants or something (even though I decidedly did NOT like doing so in school).

Anyway, I love physical products too. If corpse party had a physical game copy, I'd jump on that. I plan on importing Arcana Heart 3 from Europe just because they got a physical copy.

But last weekend I discovered that a shop in Little Tokyo actually had a second floor I was unaware of. It was stocked full of anime Laserdiscs. I noticed that people who bought these things got way more awesome cover art (owing to the large real estate a LD cover gives you) than we ever will with DVDs and BDs. So, things change. Sometimes not for the better. But we'll find other outlets. Anime figures, anyone? Those LDs were like $75 a piece (non-sale price), and had about as many episodes as a DVD would. They need to sell something at a high price point. haha

I feel that developers and publishers could still find other ways to satisfy my want for a physical product. That would probably mean more limited release products. They'll need to avoid the temptation to do another print run of whatever product they ship with the game, however, in order to keep our satisfaction that "yes, I did buy this game, and here's my proof." It's similar to doujin circles, but this limited release is more artificial since they'll probably have enough money to make more if they wanted to. Doujin circles usually just move on to the next project, since only the big circles can afford to do print runs of older stuff.

[LeaflameSD]

@Sleepy: Well that is one idea down the drain...

[Nichi]

I had a faster connection, I might not mind the current direction of "download everything" as much, but as it stands, anything that screws over those who live in an area with shit-tier internet is something I'm strongly against; given how I'm insecure about my crappy 64KB/s connection :\

[LeaflameSD]

I don't understand why anime torrents have to be 10-30GB when I've seen torrents that are like 2-4GB that have awesome video quality. Anyway I'm currently looking for Slayers 1-26 torrents that aren't bigger than 4GB

@MMX: I don't mind downloading directly. Also my connection isn't that great either ;0_0;