iDevGames

The Flip-flop

mwtokyo0202.jpg Carlos and Miwa

Images from the our WAP phones

Attending the Macworld Expo in Tokyo is like buying the latest soft drink from the numerous vending machines found on every street in Japan; sometimes you hit upon something that not only claims to be delicious—but is, and sometimes you wish you hadn’t spent your 120 yen. I’ve been attending the show in Tokyo for a few years now, and after last year, I vowed to stay away from this year’s show. High on my list of reasons not to go was the lack of any expected major news. Where was the buzz among the rumor sites? It seems that the Tokyo show is becoming more and more of a bore each year as Apple announces major products during the US shows.

In addition, Japan’s economic condition is getting so severe that I expected many no-shows among software and hardware developers. So what changed my mind with only one day to go? It was my curiosity over Apple’s planned “Mac OS X Game Arcade” corner. With several publishers such as Ambrosia Software and MacPlay also in attendance, it seemed like a great opportunity to meet the people behind these names, as well as the Apple employees who are helping to make the Macintosh an attractive gaming platform.

Keynote Review

With mission in hand, my wife Miwa and I set out towards Tokyo from the southern island of Shikoku at 3:30am—the day of the keynote. To my disappointment, we were 45 minutes too late to watch the keynote. Since I missed the speech, I headed to the pressroom to obtain some Apple PRs. There, I met Bryan Chaffin, Editor-in-chief of the online Mac site, ‘The Mac Observer”:http://www.macobserver.com/.” Since most of you already know what was announced, I will provide you with my ‘Japanese’ perspective on the keynote speech.

iPod

This is a hit product for Apple in North America and it only looks to be getting better. That said, I can’t help but wonder if the current iPod makes sense in the Japanese market? Although the floor was littered with accessories for the Japanese “otaku,” I’m not so sure if the iPod will reach beyond this group. This stems from a few observations of the Japanese consumer market:

• The mini-disc (MD) format is very entrenched in the 12 to 26 age group
• The expanded contact“> features are nothing new to even the most basic mobile phones in Japan

Not too long ago, I was running around asking when Apple would add Bluetooth to their machines. Japanese PC and mobile phone makers have been releasing limited Bluetooth products for over a year now. Perhaps Apple’s move will help speed up the adoption of this wireless technology in the consumer market. If you’d like to learn more about how Bluetooth works, check out the site ‘How stuff works.”

Keynote Speakers Wanted—Japanese Developers Need not Apply

mwtokyo0203.jpg

Carlos Searching for Miwa and bargains

That title is a little rough, however it best describes what Apple has been doing during their Macworld keynote speeches. Companies with crucial Mac applications such as Adobe, Microsoft and Macromedia are always welcomed onstage, as they should be, however it seems to me that Apple is forgetting about local developers. It’s important that Apple nurture and support Macintosh development in Japan. A healthy local software market will lead to a more attractive platform—something that obviously benefits Apple.

Let me take a moment to spotlight some of the key developers in Japan. (If you’re not interested in the Japanese market, then you should be, as it accounts for the second largest market for Apple outside the United States.)

Justsystem Corporation

Years ago, when you thought of word processing, one name came to mind-Ichitaro. In fact, every office in Japan I have worked in had a license for Ichitaro. Like many companies though, they were faced with a serious foe that trampled them. If you guessed Microsoft, then you guessed correctly. Interestingly enough, they still sell a Mac version of Ichitaro, but it hasn’t been updated in some time. The reason why they are still important to the Macintosh is for ATOK, the leading Japanese input system (the first Mac OS X application I purchased) and the “JustHome” home budgeting series. JustHome isn’t available for the Macintosh (Windows only)-but it should be. Just as Apple needs Quicken in America, I feel it needs JustHome in Japan.

Ergosoft

A long time rival of Justsystems, their latest products, EGWord Series (word processor) and EGBridge (Japanese input software) run on Mac OS X. It is interesting to note that unlike many US developers that have been taking their sweet time to support Apple’s new OS, these guys have been on the forefront of the Mac OS X revolution.

Agenda

This company has several applications and was best known for its postcard creation software (a huge business in Japan). Their home budgeting software “Papatokakeinouto” has been available for Mac OS X for some time now.

E-Frontier

This company has been increasing its share of the 3D market in Japan at an incredible pace. They offer their Shade 3D product in several versions, ranging from beginner to pro-level. What’s better, they are now selling English versions as well. (See the 3D section for more information on this company.) Unfortunately I don’t have the space to list all the companies that would do a great job at representing the Japanese Macintosh industry. However, the list above should be a great place to start.

The Mac OS X Game Arcade

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Mac Developers

Left: Carlos Center: Matt Walicke of Ambrosia Software

Right: Dafydd Williams of ATMOS Software

While the majority of visitors to iDevGames are game developers, we get our share of users who are interested in Mac games. So it’s logical that I next cover Apple’s effort to promote the “fun side of the Macintosh. As ‘Inside Mac Games“ reported, several top publishers were demonstrating (or were they playing?) their games at the arcade. Ambrosia Software featured Deimos Rising, Escape Velocity Nova and a game under beta called Pop-Pop. I spent several minutes studying the beautiful background tiles in Deimos Rising, which I heard were rendered in Bryce. Pop-Pop features a great multiplayer mode and cute graphics. “Inside Mac Games” has a complete preview posted on this very addictive title. The Escape Velocity Nova crew were the most enthusiastic developers at the arcade. Luke Smart and Dafydd Williams managed to transport me to another universe with their explanation of the game’s mechanics and the development process. The game is deep and contains a storyline richer than anything from “Skywalker ranch.” With promises of a postmortem from them and way too much Sci-Fi in my brain, I turned around and came face-to-face with the ‘Terminator.’ Actually it was Andrew Welch, el Presidente of Ambrosia Software, Inc.

The concept of the Mac OS X Game Arcade was the brainchild of Apple’s Consumer Games Marketing Manager, Richard Hernandez. We talked at great length about Macintosh games and I was very pleased to see that Apple placed such a capable individual in his position. Since there was little said about the Mac OS X Game Arcade in the Macintosh media, I’d like to cover some of the points that could lead to an even better arcade for the next show.

It was obvious that the arcade was displaying Macintosh games, but what wasn’t obvious was that the games were running on Mac OS X. In speaking with several Japanese visitors, I realized that the majority of them didn’t realize that the games were running on Mac OS X. A few even commented that there were no games for the new operating system. This might be a common misperception outside of the “gaming world” (i.e. the occasional player), and one that the Mac OS X Game Arcade could have helped to demystify. Solving this problem would have been as simple as placing a poster in Japanese at eye-level stating that this was indeed an arcade featuring Mac OS X games. Although many Japanese have trouble communicating in English, most are adept at reading it. However, it would have made more sense to list the game titles and publishers in Japanese at every Mac in the arcade. I think this would have helped to reinforce the game in the visitor’s mind—something I’m sure the publishers would want.

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Ambrosia Software’s Pop-Pop

The next issue centers on “the right content.” It doesn’t take a marketing major to understand that some products will not do well outside of their original market. Localizing and customizing a product are often required for success in business. Thinking along these lines, I felt some games just didn’t appeal to Japanese Macintosh users. This was caused by difference in culture, lack of localizing, or lack of “console polish.” I don’t want to target any game in particular, but it was obvious that some games didn’t have a crowd of six to eight people deep.

Unfortunately, many publishers overseas are convinced that popular titles in their markets will be sure hits in Japan. In some cases this is true (i.e. The Sims) but not in all cases. For the most part, my wife (a very typical iMac owner) passed on many games that I was ‘mesmerized by.’ Lack of console polish is a bit harder to explain. The best example of a developer who understands this is Pangea Software. In fact, their latest game, Ottomatic, was one of the few games running on Macs outside of the arcade area. Pangea Software’s titles are perfect for an expo: nice eye candy, easy controls, and gameplay that can be learned in 20 seconds. No doubt this is one of the reasons why Apple bundles their games with the iMac. Pangea Software’s games also boast user-interfaces that make gamers who are accustomed to consoles feel at home. The topic of game consoles leads right into the last issue, game controllers. I realize that this might be related to issues with the Mac OS X HID Manager¹ but the arcade was really in need of them. Some games are of course better suited for a mouse, however Apple and its developers need to work together to find a solution to this dependence on the keyboard (and/or mouse) for Mac OS X gaming.

Again, I want to emphasize that Richard Hernandez and Apple should be commended for bringing the publishers and developers to Japan to highlight gaming on Mac OS X. This was an important first step, and I look forward to seeing the arcade grow with each new show. Perhaps next time, Japanese user groups can be recruited to help guide the visitors through the many games that will be appearing on Mac OS X or Apple can set up multiplayer networks.

Music on the Floor

Since my interest in the Mac extends to music, I set out to visit the booths that were making the most noise. As with game developers, many software and hardware developers have been affected by the move to Mac OS X (actually, probably even more so). Just as graphic artists are waiting for Photoshop and Quark on Mac OS X so they can fully migrate, so too are musicians who rely on audio heavyweights such as Logic, Performer, ProTools and Cubase. Mac OS X audio apps are being released at a trickle, but hopefully by next year most of players will be on board.

For my own use, I have been shopping around for a product to bring audio in and out of my desktop G4. There are many options ranging from PCI cards, USB devices and a Firewire-based interface (MOTU 828). Each choice seems to contain its pros and cons so I was hoping that talking with the manufacturers’ reps would clear things up-it didn’t. Like me, I think many audio people want a Firewire-based solution, however we don’t need the extra features of the MOTU 828. It seems that we all crave the same thing, which is an under$400 Firewire device; I’m convinced that any company that makes such a device will clean up. Mark of the Unicorn or MOTU, as they are commonly known (love their original website), had a great booth and demo. However, as my question of “Why don’t you make a MOTU 414?” went unanswered, I moved on to Yamaha. This was their worst booth in recent memory. They seemed to be bored; perhaps it was from the industry waiting to adopt their mLan technology. Working under the Edirol brand, Roland had an attractive booth that featured their USB audio devices as well as software. Their UA-3(0) has been a popular low-cost device with musicians wanting to get sound in and out of their Macs for some time. Some Mac users have cautioned against using USB for audio work. However, I listened to Edirol’s USB devices for some time and felt they would be great for the work I plan to do (working on sound and music for games).

mwtokyo0206.jpg

Audio Solutions

Left: Storm and its many virtual instruments and effects

Right: Spark LE running on Mac OS X with Roland USB hardware

If you are one of those users who have been searching for a Macintosh surround sound solution, yet found the USB Emagic EMI 2|6 a tad too high, you may be interested in the new UA-3D². Edirol’s UA-5 is also an interesting USB device. Unlike the UA-3 model, you get a 24-bit/96 kHz AD/DA converter and XLR type connectors.

The Edirol drivers support ASIO 2.0 and Sound Manager audio applications. Speaking of the driver, the Edirol staff said they are rock solid and provide low latency. Mac OS X compatibility was, however, still in beta testing. I’m going to recommend Edirol to users once they get on board with Mac OS X and provide a better Mac software bundle for their audio interfaces. Before leaving Edirol’s booth, I watched a demo of Storm. If you’ve seen Propellerhead Software’s Reason, then you will have a good idea of what Storm is. The developer of Storm, Arturia, announced support for Mac OS X at NAMM 2002. If you’re a game developer in need of a complete audio studio, check out either Reason or Storm.

One vendor I was surprised to see was M-Audio (A division of Midiman). This company markets various audio and MIDI interfaces. Their Audiophile 2496 card is one heck of a bargain if you need a high quality PCI audio card. Although far from perfect, M-Audio should also be applauded for their Mac OS X drivers. Now, if only Echo Audio would follow suit with their audio cards. (I’m planning on getting either an Audiophile 2496 or Echo Audio’s MIA card for my music studio.) Before I leave the world of audio, I’ll put in a little plug for the music sequencing instrument called “Live” by Ableton. Apple should bundle a light version with each Mac—it’s that cool.

The Third Dimension

The Macintosh 3D market is a funny thing. For such a niche field, there seems to be an abundance of players and saviors, as my past editorial pointed out. Despite recent troubles, Alias|Wavefront had an impressive showing and was giving away Maya Personal Learning Edition to attendees. Maxon’s Cinema 4D line and Strata3D (still no Mac OS X version) were also being demonstrated. I felt that the Cinema 4D people were very knowledgeable and did the best job of localizing their presentations. NewTek’s LightWave booth featured the Star Ship Trooper all-CG film and some unattended workstations. (Or was the staff hiding from me?) Anyhow, it was a far cry from a year ago when their demos almost made me switch from Strata.

The 3D application that made the largest impact was Shade 3D by the developer I introduced earlier, Expression Tools. Shade Professional, and now Shade Personal, are shipping in English. (You can download a demo from their website.) If they manage to find distributors in North America and Europe, I expect them to give serious competition to the 3D vendors from above as well as Electric Image and form-Z. Apart from Maya, Shade and the CAD program VectorWorks, the 3D world was a tad boring this year. Perhaps if Pixologic, Eovia or Hash showed up, things would get more interesting. Finally, the Japanese distributor, Image One, that handles Electric Image, form-Z and Cleaner5 was demonstrating Vue d’Esprit 4 by e-on Software. This was my first glimpse at the program, and after the demo, I learned two things:

• I couldn’t pronounce the name.
• The rendering was better than Bryce.

How to Catch a Japanese Otaku

mwtokyo0207.jpg Microsoft Companion Girls

Microsoft asks“Where would you like to go with them today?”

If you’ve never been to an expo in Japan, be warned-the companion girls may drive you crazy. Depending on who you are, that may be good or bad. What is a companion girl exactly? They are sometimes called “event girls,” but for the most part, the Japanese refer to them as companion. They come from all walks of life: professional models, race queens (ie. the girls who hold the umbrellas), students, and I will stop there. Often wearing flashy and tight matching skirts, their role is to entice Japanese otaku to their company’s booth so that product literature can be handed out. If you have the courage (or if your wife is on the other side of the show), you can even ask them to pose with you (or for you). This of course has nothing to do with the Mac, but even at a Mac show, you should be prepared to meet the hordes of companion girls. One last point about companion girls; Apple doesn’t employ them at their booth. You will however find them at other US-based companies such as Adobe, Microsoft and Symantec-who in my wife’s opinion had the most busty girls at the show. (Editor’s note: I can confirm that they were. Log your complaints to http://www.symantec.com/feedback/.)

Back to Business

Now that I managed to wake you up, I will cover some of the vendors who attended the show, and some that didn’t. With a much smaller presence than I can ever remember, Metrowerks’ booth (or should I say counter?) was easy to miss. The two reps were nice but didn’t seem prepared to answer my questions on CodeWarrior 8. (Perhaps because the tech rep was from the embedded systems group.) I did learn that it would be released around May. As for CodeWarrior Learning Edition, it seems that there are no plans to upgrade it to Mac OS X. Adobe and Macromedia seemed to be outdoing each other for the “I can make my presentation feel like a Japanese college classroom the most” award. What I mean is that these companies tend to approach the show from a “we speak, you listen” mentality. Believe it or not, they could use some pointers from Microsoft, which did a good job of spoon-feeding as well as letting users play around with Mac Office X.

Filemaker seems to truly understand the needs of the Japanese market. Although everyone I know uses Microsoft Access-J, Filemaker’s support for iMode should be a big hit with Japanese mobile ASPs. iMode is NTT DoCoMo’s mobile internet access system, which has over 27 million (as of Oct 4, 2001) subscribers, increasing by about 40,000 per day. Their demonstration showed how easy it is to move a database between various platforms (Mac, iMode, PDA, etc).

Two names that were curiously missing from the show were Epson and Canon. Both imaging heavyweights always have a large booth at Macworld. I would expect Lexmark or even HP to skip a show during hard times, but not them. The show seemed smaller without the bitter rivalry of Epson and Canon, an observation echoed by long-time resident of Japan and member of RINGO (Tokyo Mac Users Group), Richard—a great Mac user who allowed me to use his iMac during the show to upload a report.

Final Thoughts

mwtokyo0208.jpg Aminaturon

Aminaturon is cute and fun to play game

It is strange that I struggled with the question of whether I should attend or not. In the end, I was very pleased that I went. Although there weren’t any surprising products or news during the show, the opportunity to network with people in the industry made the trip very worthwhile. For example, I was finally able to meet Richard Kerris of Apple (Developer Technologies, Worldwide Developer Relations) who I met online through my editorial “Looking at the Macintosh 3D Market.” I’m also grateful to Richard Hernandez for setting up the game developer dinner party. I’m looking forward to attending more of these ‘events’ to help foster a stronger community spirit!

Overall, the best of the show for me was hidden in the user-group corner. With a single iMac and a stack of CD-Rs with his latest arcade 2D shoot’em-up game, Mr. Nita, a Japanese lone-wolf developer, was truly fascinating to meet. His game, “Animaturon” cost only 1,000 yen (about $14) and runs on most low-end machines. Although the requirements to run the game are modest, Mr. Nada’s programming skill has really pushed the Macintosh hardware. What surprised me the most was that he began development at the beginning of February! In addition, his design diary (document) was the best I’ve ever seen. It resembled something right out of Walt Disney with its many detailed cartoonish diagrams. With a little more polish, Animaturon could have passed for an Ambrosia Software title—yep, it was cute and had fun gameplay. I mentioned that his game reminded me of the fast 2D blitters of the 16-bit generation consoles. He confessed to being a big MegaDrive (Genesis) fan and had a goal of bringing fast-pace retro style games to the Mac using his custom “gShot” game engine. Sounds good to me!

Before I sign-off, I should thank my wife Miwa for helping me cover the show and for lasting as long as she did despite suffering from the flu and a fever! She enjoyed meeting the Apple staff and Mac game developers, especially the president of MacPlay. She affectionately said to me, “He sounds just like Steve Austin from the WWF.” Might it have something to do with MacPlay’s address—Dallas, Texas?

Show Awards

mwtokyo0209.jpg Playing Pop-Pop

Worse Pop-Pop player at the show: Carlos Camacho

mwtokyo0210.jpg Bluetooth

Biggest unexpected announcement: Bluetooth

mwtokyo0211.jpg G3 Server

Mac most likely to be purchased by our forum regulars: G3 Beer Server

mwtokyo0212.jpg eMate

Best “Blast from the past: Apple eMate

mwtokyo0213.jpg Best Companion Girl

Best companion girl of the show: Roxio (the “Toast” people)

mwtokyo0214.jpg Ultra-hen girl

Most annoying (and tacky) companion girl of the show:

Symantec (for shame, for shame)

mwtokyo0215.jpg VR Man

Best “Otaku” of the show: Mr. VR Man

mwtokyo0216.jpg DJs at Filemaker

Presentators most likely to be mistaken for DJs: Filemaker Inc.

mwtokyo0217.jpg Clone of Carlos

Advertisement that most resembled our Editor-in-chief: Apple Inc.

mwtokyo0218.jpg The iTour

“Only in Japan” award:The iTour people

Gallery

mwtokyo0219.jpg Filemaker and iMode

Mac OS X Game Corner: Great to see Apple putting support behind gaming on the Mac

mwtokyo0220.jpg Is there life beyond EVN?

Left: Luke Smart of ATMOS Software talks about the meaning of the universe

Right: Carlos stands in awe

mwtokyo0221.jpg Developer’s Party

Left: Dafydd Williams of ATMOS Software

Center: Miwa

battling a fever

Right: And editor who’s drank too much

mwtokyo0222.jpg Apple Car

Left: Possible color for the next iMac?

Right: Carlos pondering which mode of transportation to take to the show

mwtokyo0223.jpg Sick Miwa

Background: Something rarer than a Chupacabra

Bottom: Fever taking hold of Miwa

mwtokyo0224.jpg Looking at iDG

Background: iDevGames at the Apple booth

Foreground: An Otaku

mwtokyo0225.jpg Metrowerks’ Crew

Left/Center: Ms. Kimura and Mr. Watarai of Metrowerks

Right: Someone who’s been in too many pictures

mwtokyo0226.jpg Alias-Wavefront and Strata

Left: Maya dazzles the crowd with features and price tag

Right: Strata 3D Pro creating FLASH movies

mwtokyo0227.jpg Rich Hernandez of Apple

Left: Richard Hernandez of Apple (The man with a gameplan)

Right: Someone talking about uDevGames 2002 contest

mwtokyo0228.jpg Richard Kerris of Apple

Left: Rich Kerris of Apple

Camerawoman: A very patient wife, Miwa

¹ Allows access to gamepads, joysticks, etc.

² The UA-3D lacks multiple outputs.

macworld,tokyo,2002,report