The description then teases “The next PROJECT DIVA is coming in 2012″. If you’ve been questioning buying a PS Vita, this will certainly help a lot of Vocaloid and PjD fans make up their minds. Watch the video for yourself on the official channel, or watch below.

The model looks a lot like the one from the Sapporo and Singapore concerts…

 
Miku playing a PSP inside a PSP. PSPception? Image courtesy of salanos.

I’ll quickly go over some changes and features offered in the game, so those of you interested in buying a copy will know what you’re getting. Read the full story for more!

To start, it is probably important to say that the game play is, for the most part, unchanged from PjD 2nd. Don’t fix what isn’t broken right? Although I do think the difficulty was ramped up slightly on Hard difficulty compared to 2nd. Another major plus to note: The save data from 2nd can be imported to Extend. Any modules, room items, characters, and even money that you earned in 2nd will be imported into Extend. How nice is that?

Upon starting the game for the first time, you’re met with a new style start screen. I always love watching the character silhouettes dance around and do perform actions.

These title screens are always nice and colorful.

Those who have played 2nd will find that the menu layout is exactly the same. So navigation should be no trouble for PjD veterans. Those who do have difficulty can use the icons as a reference, or even use the English patch available from the Project Diva Wikispaces.

The menu layout is virtually unchanged in Extend.

The music selection screen deserves the most mention, as quite a few changes have been made to the controls here. To quickly change to a different character/module, you now use the Right shoulder button. PV modes for songs can now be quickly accessed using the triangle button, just like they used to be in the first game. The most handy feature of all though is the ability to automatically set the default characters for any song. Simply highlight a song on the screen, and press START to enable the Default Character mode. This is extremely handy for playing tracks that use two different characters at once. You can also see your scores for songs and difficulties without going back to the game statistics menu.

The song selection menu. Note how track scores are now visible.

A small but notable change has also been made to the result screen at the end of each song. The characters are now animated instead of seeing a static model. You’ll also see a percentage based on your overall score. You can even take a screenshot of your result screen by pressing the right shoulder button!

Scored a perfect on Melody.exe on my second try!

A final feature to mention is the ability to import the DLC from 2nd into Extend! Sega was kind enough to provide an option to make importing the DLC a painless process. If you want to know how, just check this reference on the Project Diva Wikispaces page.

Here you can see I’ve selected Teto after importing the DLC from 2nd.

As a fan, I highly recommend the game. It borrows only a few tracks from the previous games, while the rest are all new. In fact, a lot of them were very popular tracks, many of which you’d be familiar with. It’s almost as if the game was created to be a “greatest hits” collection of sorts. I’m sad that is has 10 less songs than 2nd (36 versus 46), but it was nice of them to make the DLC from 2nd compatible. There is also over 150 modules total across all characters to choose from!

I’m off to go play it a bit more and unlock the rest of the tracks+modules. So expect a few days of silence. =P

As I’m sure you’ve heard before, there will be a live concert in Singapore later tonight, approximately 16 hours from now. Those who cannot attend it in person can conveniently watch the live stream online as it happens! It’s not the same as actually being there, but it’s the next best thing. So those who want to watch it as it happens can head over here to buy your online viewing pass.

Those who can’t watch it tonight can still purchase a ticket and watch it anytime online for the next two weeks after the concert ends.

For those of you in Singapore, and all over the world… Have fun and enjoy the show!

The following locations will be showing the concert:

11/10 : Owings Mills, MD
Venue: Owings Mills 17
10100 Mill Run Circle Owings Mills, MD

11/10 : Boston,MA
Venue: Fenway 13
201 Brookline Ave Boston, MA

11/10 : Chicago,IL
Venue: River East 21
322 E Illinois St Chicago, IL

11/10 : Houston,TX
Venue: Houston Marq*E Stadium 22 plus IMAX
7620 Katy Fwy

11/10 : Los Angels,CA
Venue: Rave 18
6081 Center Dr, Los Angeles, CA

11/10 : New York,NY
Venue: Empire 25 with IMAX
234 W 42nd St New York, NY

11/10 : New York,NY
Venue: Union Square Stadium 14
850 Broadway New York, NY

11/10 : Orange County,CA
Venue: Orange Stadium Promenade 25
1701 W Katella Ave Orange, CA

11/10 : San Francisco,CA
Venue: Century 9 San Francisco Centre
835 Market St San Francisco, CA

11/10 : Seattle,WA
Venue: Pacific Place 11
600 Pine St Seattle, WA

Information obtained via Hatsune Miku on Facebook.

And now for the biggest software related story of Vocaloid since the release of VOCALOID2 over 4 years ago. Please check the full story, as there is quite a bit to cover on this.

VOCALOID3 is the highly anticipated successor to VOCALOID2, and launched on October 21st. With the new engine comes many new characters and several notable improvements and features.

The first feature that should be mentioned is the backwards compatibility with the VOCALOID2 voice banks. This Includes Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin and Len, Megurine Luka, etc. Vocaloids based on the VOCALOID2 engine will receive some small but noticeable changes.

The first improvement of VOCALOID3 is smoother transitions between low and high tones, and vise versa. The second is that pronunciations of certain sounds like “s” and “w” will sound less electronic, and more natural. The software interface has also been revamped for easier use.

A quick VOCALOID3 remake of a Hatsune Miku classic.

The sad news of this release is that the older first generation releases such as Kaito and Meiko cannot be used within VOCALOID3. This is likely a strategy of Crypton to try and phase out the older software completely. I, however, trust the fans will still continue to produce work based on those characters.

Of course, a new engine launch is nothing without new characters to go along with it, right? There are currently four new characters to choose from for use with the VOCALOID3 engine, with more to come later. So lets have a quick look.

Gumi V3 Edition (Append?)

The first release is a character we are all familiar with. “Gumi” Megpoid is a Vocaloid created by INTERNET Co.,Ltd. This release is somewhat unusual, as she now has 4 new voice styles to choose from, much like how Miku and the Kagamine twins received an Append release. Except this time each voice is sold separately, each with their own box art. You can choose to buy them in a bundle, but it is still 4 different sets of software. She now has Adult, Power, Whisper, and Sweet added to her voice bank collection. And of course, being made for the VOCALOID3 engine, she can make full use of the included features.

This is a demo of Gumi’s “Adult” voice with the VOCALOID3 release.

SeeU

A character no doubt produced by SBS Artech to please the massive Nekomimi (cat-girl) loving fanbase, SeeU is also capable of singing in both Korean and Japanese. This makes for a rather interesting mix, as the Korean language is able to imitate a fair bit of English with the provided phonetics and sounds. Her overall reception so far has been mixed, as there has been some controversy over some of the earlier demo videos. But overall feed back after the release has been fairly good for the most part. And despite all of the criticism, she has had the most attention of any VOCALOID3 character thus far.

A SeeU demo song titled “Umbrella”.

Mew (simple, right?)

Mew is a departure from  your average Vocaloid series, as she is a release made by YAMAHA themselves as a “professional” product. There isn’t much that can be said about the character herself, as she almost didn’t even have one. Yamaha changed their minds after seeing the success of Crypton using character avatar art with their releases.

There isn’t too much to say other than it takes after the previous YAMAHA Vocaloid named VY1, in the fact she sounds demanding, yet young. Speaking of which…

A demo song with Mew titled “Line”.

VY1V3 (Mizki V3)

Simply named VY1V3, it is a VOCALOID3 update and recreation of the older VY1 release created by YAMAHA. This series is more bizarre in the fact that there is no character or avatar for the user to “attach” the voice to. This lead to many fans of the product to design their own fan made character, and such examples can be seen here and here.

Mizki is intended to be used as a professional voice bank product, and the production quality reflects that. The product still continues to struggle somewhat in sales, but still does very well by Vocal Synthesis product standards.

A popular demo song by VY1V3 titled “サイバーサンダーサイダー”.

And that’s a wrap!

This was a long post, I’m tired now. >_>”

While there is at least another 8 more Vocaloids in production for the VOCALOID3 engine, it will still be a bit more time before we learn enough about them to confirm anything for certain. So for now, this has been my report on the new release.

So what do you guys think of the new engine and characters?

For those who didn’t attend the conference at Anime Expo 2011, here’s a quick rundown of what happened. During the conference, the Crypton Producer Wataru Sasaki asked the audience if we were interested in seeing the release of an English Miku. Almost none of us raised our hands, but you honestly can’t blame us. We were simply being cautiously skeptical until we saw any real demos to make a decision.

Well, us as fans can rest assured. This demo not only shows her sounding just as cute as her Japanese voice banks, but actual distinguishable English words! Please read the full story, as this post is a bit large.

Here are the Lyrics to the song played:

Show me something I’ve never seen

Like a river gleaming in the sun

Or the sea and sky kissing on the horizon

When I look out of my window

All I ever see is cloudy grey skies

And when you look into your mirror

How d’you think you’re ever gonna see me

Look into my eyes

And here is Kaito’s demo. Keep in mind his in an earlier stage than Miku’s, so there is still a lot of work to be done:

There is wonder in most everything I see

Not a cloud in the sky

Got the sun in my eyes

And I wont be surprised if it’s a dream

Crypton announced Miku’s English release for Spring 2012. Kaito’s Append release may be around the same date, or later. As for his English version, I’m not too sure if it will be included in the Append or sold seperately.

Information gathered via my visit to AX2011, and vocaloidotaku.net.

Thankfully someone added a version with subtitles to youtube, so go check it out and judge for yourself. This is what happens with bad or no research.

Most likely one of the best fan productions this year. Very high quality PV. Enjoy!

Her voice will be sampled by the seiyuu Asakawa Yuu. VC03 is supposed to support both English and Japanese. As of now its unknown if both English and Japanese will be featured in the same package or if they will be released seperately.

For the full character illustration art by KEI and her full profile check out the official Crypton Megurine Luka page.

Via Canned Dogs

Head over to Crypton’s official blog to listen to the samples.