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I came back with 8 computer magazines from Tokyo last night. I visited famous Akihabara district 4 times (!) to check products and so on, because it’s only half an hour from my home and close to my favourite district of book shops.

I thought it’s my duty to make a small report what’s going on in Japanese computer market, whether anyone would be interested in or not. Please bear in mind, however, that I am not sure how much information about Japanese computer and games is available outside Japan, particularly in the US, and I don’t check IT news much in UK. You may know most of following information.

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1. The popular/latest products

As usual, Japan is good at making products smaller. The newest MP3 player’s size is 61x47x19 mm, weigh only 34g (HyperHyde Exrouge MDM-H205R from IO Data), for example. It is not surprising to find that most PC companies produced very small size full spec machines (I found some machines with Pentium4 and DVD-RW) now, mostly in the thicker notebook size computers. They are particularly popular in Japan, as the space is so limited especially in the metropolitan. Since Japanese people are not keen on DIY, the lack of expansion slots are not a problem, and also it’s suitable for the second machine.

It was amazing to find there are so many bare bone kits available and many articles about them and DIY PCs. The kits are available from $120, and you need to get CPU, memory, and hard drive separately. Still, it can be a lot cheaper than building the same spec machine from scratch and easier for the first time DIYer, I think.

CPU: The Northwood core Pentium4 became the main article in some magazines. AMD is also popular in Japan, though I felt not as much as in UK. Most of big companies now sell machines with Pentium4 from top to bottom, and you could only see PenIII on notebooks or self build machines. It was a culture shock for me as I’ve been in UK where PenIII is still the main stream here (I think).

Other components: DVD-R/RW is the hottest selling media, and there is even DVD-RAM in the most shops, though it’s still very expensive. The low to middle end machines come with CD-RW+DVD, and high end with DVD-RW. As for the hard drive, minimum is 40GB and moving towards 80GB at the moment.

For some reason, TV capture boards are selling very well there. This may relate to the popularity of ADSL, as if ADSL is the only way to use Internet. Very strange to me. Digital camera is also very popular, and there are even waterproof cameras, suitable for skiing and diving.

I’ll be back with a small price list and a little bit of gaming news. If you want to ask something, please let me know, though I can’t promise I can answer.

Thank you for reading.

Seems like you travel a lot. Is this apart of your job or was it a vacation?

Welcome back, Minerva! I hope the rest of your visit home went well.

So how much does a DVD-RW cost? In the US, they're running about $500 for an internal (presumably IDE) 2.4x8x DVD-RW.

Originally posted by josh
Seems like you travel a lot. Is this apart of your job or was it a vacation?

IIRC, she said she was going on vacation to Japan last month sometime, back when I had bronchitis.

Oh yeah Minerva! How are your lungs? I know you said that you react to smoke too

2. Components price (roughly at the beginning of Febrary; based on Weekly Ascii)

Currently Japanese Yen is very weak ($1=Y132, £1=Y192!!), so it is probably much cheaper buying in the US, though low VAT in Japan (5%) helps a bit.

CPU: Prices of both Pentium4 and AthlonXP are down significantly past few weeks.

Memory: Memory prices had gone up day by day, though it seems to have settled down at the end of January, as I found the price did come down when I bought mine (on the 7th Feb).

CD-RW: Internal 24x10x40 is around Y12,000, External (USB port) is between Y20,000-25,000.

DVD-R = Y8,000
DVD-RW = Y54,000-85,000
DVD-RAM = Y38,000-50,000

I was about to type the list of CPU and memory prices. But, who would be interested in? If there are requests, I will.

Hello, guys.

@josh: I went home for my sister's wedding. I also went skiing and ate a lot of nice food, so, as Sandy said, it's 3 weeks holiday.

@HLD: In addition to the above list, the DVD-RW from Pioneer (DVR-A03-J) is about Y55,000.

@Sandy: My lungs are fine, but I've suffered from sore throat and eyes (typical allergy reaction), with my hands got itchy.

Hiya Kawaii-chan !

Glad to hear you're enjoying your trip to hometown. I really envy your skiing story

So when you can test run your new PC ? Perhaps you should replay BG. BG2, BG2 : TOB & IWD to give your new machine a real kick before it really adept to your style of computing

PS : I'm locking Weasel in my wine cellar so he can't rampaging uncontrollably these days

Originally posted by KidD01
PS : I'm locking Weasel in my wine cellar so he can't rampaging uncontrollably these days

LOL What has he done this time to be locked in your cellar?

I have to build my computer (I presume you've read my post in the tech support forum), but there are so many things to do first... I've got WinXP Japanese edition as well, so I must change hard drive configuration in order to dual boot.

Originally posted by Minerva


LOL What has he done this time to be locked in your cellar?

I have to build my computer (I presume you've read my post in the tech support forum), but there are so many things to do first... I've got WinXP Japanese edition as well, so I must change hard drive configuration in order to dual boot.

Weasel ? Nahh I'm just trying to tame him a bit

Well Happy PC parts hunting and PC building then

I've just got a CDRW 4x4x24 from a friend so I'm gonna less spamming these days. Perhaps I'm doing some test on the CDRW and may be I try to make the best of it while it's mine

3. Games etc.

Believe or not, I’ve never played games in Japan, regardless the format, so my gaming knowledge is less than you expect. Followings are something caught my eyes, and some of you may have known already.

Zwei!!: Action RPG with typical Japanese Anime look characters (a girl, a boy and a pet). It looks cute than gorgeous/handsome, yet there are lots of magic and battles. It’s been in the top 3 in the popular games list for a few weeks in Japan, and I think it’s actually harder than it looks.

Phantasy Star Online: It’s not my spelling mistake. This was originally created for Dreamcast, and recently was released for Windows. Online RPG (can be played off line as normal RPG), staged in the near future.

Technomage: RPG with puzzles. Again, it’s a comic like game, and you can either use sword and magic, or solve puzzles to go through the quests. I heard it’s not too difficult.

Rasetsu: Officially it’s a strategy game, but I got an impression of RPG. Another game staged in the future.

I don’t know if any of them would be released in English. You may be right to think what is the point for me to post these in GB…

There's a rumour that nVIDIA's chips are currently oversupplied. Hence the large number of new video cards have suddenly been come on sale past few weeks, even though the next generation chip is already talked about...