Welcome to ‘Inside the PlayStation Universe: Asia Edition’ as we take a flight to sunny, tropical, Nagoya, Japan. We will be talking with Dane Smith, Japan Editor and creator of some of the site’s original series like the Marathon Trophy Competition and Skip and Max’s Prime Time Gaming. A licensed school teacher turned global traveler, he is one of the newer members of the team, having only been on staff since September 2012.
What games have you been playing this week: Lots of different ones, especially Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory and Sleeping Dogs. I’m trying to get in all kinds of fun gaming before the release of XCOM because the trailers look so good, and the build-up has me wanting to play that game so badly. I sunk a lot of time into the Dynasty Warriors 8 review but when I get a hold of XCOM…how do you kill that which has no life? It is going to be a fun review.
What news story caught your eye on PSU in the last seven days?: Well, if anyone has seen my forum signature then they would know I am a huge Yakuza fan. This story about Sega teasing something Yakuza-related peaked my interest the most. What could it be? I have no clue. It would be awesome if it was the localization of Yakuza 5 into English but they are announcing this in Japan, so most likely a Yakuza 6, spin-off, or a 3+4 HD collection for the Japanese market.
What are you doing when you’re not a PSU editor?: This week I’ve been working on my novel, which attempts to put my character creations from the Lasombra Files and Skip and Max’s Prime Time Gaming into one philosophically fueled murder mystery narrative. Will it succeed? I hope so! But it has been fun so far, and I can’t wait to finish it off so I can get reaction from the fans of the two series. This has been the reason why there has been a distinct lack of both programs being written during this past month.
I also live in the Nagoya Kamurocho (Yakuza fans will immediately get the reference), and do a lot of jogging at night. No random people bumping into me and saying I broke their cellphone, looking for some kind of epic street fight showdown. Kazuma had the easy life.