‘Let’s Play With Hatsune Miku!’ Event Now Open at Greenland Amusement Park in Kumamoto, Japan

 Posted by at 4:31 pm  Events, Hatsune Miku, Merchandise  3 Responses »
Mar 162013
 

It seems even amusement parks are not safe from Miku’s charm, as the Mitsui Greenland theme park in Kumamoto, Japan has opened its doors for an event titled “Let’s Play With Hatsune Miku! (初音ミクとあそぼうっ！)”.

The event started yesterday on the 16th of March, and is scheduled to run until May 6th. 初音ミクとあそぼうっ！ is free to all visitors, but entry to the theme park itself still costs 500 yen. The entry fee also provides a stamp rally card for a chance to earn one of three different keychains.

Miku-themed activities and services include a merchandise shop, an art gallery that displays a number of nendoroids, GRAPHIGs, figures, and a life-sized Deep Sea Girl statue located in the front foyer. Also featured is a large wall-sized print of the beautiful image pictured above, illustrated by rco wada.

Images by hobbylog. Click here for more.

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And in case you need a little help getting around the park (or just want to have a little fun), there is a Miku-themed train for you to ride that plays what sounds like Alice in Musicland by OSTER-Project. Thank you to Virtual-Emotions for the additional info.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myf1UPQEMsY]

The First Week’s Sales Results Are in For Project Diva F on PS3

 Posted by at 6:34 am  Hatsune Miku, Videogames  11 Responses »
Mar 152013
 

 

On March 7th, Project Diva F for the PS3 was launched within Japan. So how well did the game do in its first week of sales? You can say it did well enough with all factors considered, but still a bit below positive projections.

Looking at the sales reports on dengeki, we can see that Project Diva F on the PlayStation 3 managed to take the #1 spot in game sales in its first week with 117,000 units, beating out the 109,000 units of “Soul Sacrifice” for the PlayStation Vita that launched on the same day.

These are fairly modest sales numbers for a new launch during a slow release week, and actually puts the sales below the 154,000 units of Project Diva ƒ for the PS Vita in its first week on the market. Despite the fact that there are far more PS3 owners than Vita owners by comparison, PjD F still sold far less units. It is quite possible that the sales of the Vita version have cannibalized the PS3 version’s sales.

The estimates do not include sales of the Capital Letter DLC pack (costing a whopping 3000 yen) for PjD ƒ on Vita, which was designed to upgrade the game to include all the new content offered on its PS3 counterpart. So without a more in-depth analysis of the sales figures, it’s starting to look like Project Diva F may be off to a shaky start.

Demand For Hatsune Miku Domino’s Pizza “Exceeded By 10 Times”

 Posted by at 4:59 pm  Hatsune Miku, Merchandise  6 Responses »
Mar 132013
 

Just one week following the launch of the Miku x Domino’s promotional campaign, a couple of the company executives (pictured above) agreed to sit down for an interview to comment on the success of the campaign. The word “successful” doesn’t even begin to describe the level of feedback incurred by the promotion.

The most important question of the interview was on the popularity of the campaign, and which regions showed the most activity. Mr. Karasawa commented that the campaign caused an increase in demand much higher than they anticipated, as much as 10X in some regions (with Akihabara ranking the highest, unsurprisingly). The company has had to quickly ramp up Miku pizza box production to meet the demand.

The next question highlight was on Domino’s decision to use Hatsune Miku in their promotion. Mr. Karasawa commented to say that the most popular demographic of their company within Japan has always been young adults in their late teens and early twenties. Over the past decade, the number of orders being placed online has skyrocketed.

Based on these observations, Hatsune Miku seemed like the perfect choice for appealing to their target demographic. Perhaps too perfect, as the company just can’t seem to keep up with the demand.

The company had also intentionally planned to have the promotion ready in time for Miku Day (3/9). On that day, there was a special coupon usable within the Miku Domino’s app that gave you 34% off of your order. Combined with the 5% discount of ordering online, this gave a total of 39% off the entire purchase.

The pizza boxes and app weren’t the only special aspect of the promotion, as Domino’s had also equipped a few of their delivery scooters with Miku-themed decor. Only a few of these were produced, so you’d be pretty lucky to see one of these rolling up to deliver your order. I wonder if the company would consider selling them once the promotion ends?

Rant on Hatsune Miku’s English Voice Bank Development: What Are These Producers Doing?

 Posted by at 11:47 pm  English Miku, Other  7 Responses »
Mar 102013
 

I know I’m not the only one who has been following the news of English Miku’s development since nearly day 1. I was just one out of 39,389 other people who also cast their vote for the English Miku campaign by liking Hatsune Miku’s Facebook page after the announcement at the 2010 New York Comic Con.

So I know I can’t be the only one who has noticed that something very wrong has been going on since the release of English Miku’s first public beta demo at NYCC2011. Since that first demo, the vocals we’ve been hearing in newer songs using English Miku’s beta voice bank seem to be getting progressively worse.

Or are they?

Please read the full story. Continue reading »

Crypton’s ‘Who is Hatsune Miku?’ Page Confirms English Hatsune Miku Release for Summer 2013 – UPDATED

 Posted by at 9:17 pm  English Miku, Hatsune Miku  5 Responses »
Mar 082013
 


Click to see image of the original page before the 3/11/2013 update.

Updated 3/11/2013: It looks like someone at Crypton may have leaked the information too soon. The page has been altered to remove a lot of the new information, including the new release date. The Japanese blog bunkaextend managed to catch the quote. Hightrancesea from Vocaloidism also captured a screenshot of the page before the removal.

During the recent visit to Singapore by Crypton’s CEO, Hiroyuki Itoh, there was some slightly confusing and conflicting information regarding the release schedule for Hatsune Miku’s English voice bank release. The information slide shown during his presentation said Spring 2013, while Danny Choo’s translation of Itoh’s words were “Summer 2013”.

The words spoken by Itoh are now confirmed with Crypton’s recent update to their ‘Who is Hatsune Miku?’ information page, the first major update since early 2011. The page now has fresh new facts and information on the popularity and achievements of Miku’s software, and the success of marketing and live concert events. Also mentioned is the plans for a new Summer 2013 launch for Hatsune Miku’s English voice bank, a bit later than the previously announced Spring 2013 launch at the 2012 New York Comic Con.

In a direct excerpt from the page: “We are proud to announce that Hatsune Miku English Version is to be released in summer 2013, and we are also planning collaborations with popular labels and artists. Wouldn’t you also like to feature Hatsune Miku as your band’s vocalist and discover new possibilities in the world of music?”.

Other than the announcement by Itoh from his Singapore visit, Crypton has not yet made any public announcement of the new plans. I expect we will be hearing the new announcement very soon.

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