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[that_shingo]

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So many Capcom announcements. This is good; it really is. I haven't seen anything at all to get excited about VG-wise for awhile. Summer's always a deadzone for anything more than news concerning games coming out later on. That meets expectations, but before these annoucements, there wasn't much to look forward to. Let's clarify that: even with the news about updates to MVC3, the new Darkstalkers game, and SFxT, I have a few more games to anticipate in this category (not forgetting KOF XIII.) What I'm not seeing are RPGs. JRPGs.

As much as I enjoy them: I don't want to settle for replaying the games I already enjoy. The heart wants something new, even if the something new is another entry in a long running series. No, that's absolutely what I want right now. The JRPG genre on the 360, and in a few notables examples (very few) the PS3, has had new entrants. I'm not interested in those. But then, having said that, I guess the answer is to go back and play the ones I already have. Isn't it? Doesn't lessen the desire for more of the same, though. Maybe I'm being unfair about it. I haven't played Infinite Undiscovery, White Knight Chronicles, or Resonance of Fate. They might be excellent. What they don't do is engender in me a desire to experience them.

I'll leave it there.

*****

I was listening the other day to a report on the closing of Borders stores, and one of the participants explained that the closing of the book megastore might have the beneficial effect of allowing smaller, perhaps locally-owned books stores to fill the void. I felt two ways about that. Because on one hand that's money working for the local economy, that's the return to the serendipity of finding something different in each little bookstore. On the other hand, I'd miss the physical media hub aspect of a bookstore that offers a little bit of everything. Also, it's one less location where I'll have the opportunity to use the phrase "O HAI" in a non-verbal capacity. Like Best Buy, those stores attract a certain kind of clientelle.

...that I like.

But, yes, feeling two ways about that. Plus, I think it should be asked: is there room for the small bookstore with the spread of e-readers? Not that everyone has one, but they're not going away anytime soon. Won't younger generations be less attached to their physical copies if they have a device that let's them carry as many as they like, while providing access to more? I'm fine with being a niche market for what I enjoy, but it's not like marginalization is the quality sought after here. It involves a lot of getting less and less of what you want; in a 'Skins fan sort of way.

That was mean.