Japan’s Best-Selling Games of 2012

Siliconera recently used data provided by 4Gamer and put together a list of t he top 30 best-selling games in Japan for 2012.  Pokemon Black and White 2, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, New Super Mario Bros. 2, Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry’s Wonderland 3D, and Resident Evil 6 were the top 5 games (check Siliconera for the full list of 30).

One thing important to note is that every game on the list was developed and published in Japan. Maybe we’ll see some Eastern games penetrate into the list this year, but I’m not holding my breath considering the fact that Resident Evil 6 cracked the top 5.

[Source: Joystiq]

Namco Bandai fends off conspiracy theorists

Here’s the abridged version.  Some orders for the Wizard’s Edition of Ni No Kuni had to be cancelled at the Namco Bandai store because they said that they had oversold. Shortly after, some of these collectors pieces had found their way to PlayCanada’s eBay store at a whopping $400.

Now, the funny thing here is the fact that some fans believed that Namco Bandai has been conspiring to sell these copies at a higher price through PlayCanada in an effort to nickle and dime their fan base.  For some reason, this is much easier to believe that someone buying more than one copy of the Wizard’s Edition and scalping them online.

Joystiq contacted Namco Bandai and they’ve stuck with their original story, assuring us that they are not trying to scalp their own product.

When did we become so neurotic and paranoid?

[Source: Joystiq]

Heavy Rain composer passes away at 56

Heavy Rain composer, Norman Corbeil, passed away yesterday from his bout with Stage IV pancreatic cancer. Corbeil’s son posted about his father’s passing on The Cancer Forums , and this was later picked up on NeoGAF.

Personally, I’m saddened by this because I will always think of Heavy Rain as one of the most important narrative experiences of this generation. A big part of story-telling is being able to manipulate the player’s mood and emotion. For a suspenseful game like Heavy Rain, the score played a huge part in doing so.

We here at SideQuesting give our deepest condolences to Corbeil’s family and friends.

[Source: 8bitfix]