Asynchronous Play Was Invented By Sega

Asynchronous play has been advertised as a totally new idea by Microsoft, allowing gamers to gain experience or money for use in a much larger console based game by playing a small, portable casual game, for example. Fantastic idea! If only you could do something similar in World of Warcraft, then maybe you could have something of a life as well. However, all of this starts to sound a little familiar, and if you're someone who ever owned the Dreamcast and Sonic Adventure or Power Stone, you'll know that the little Visual Memory Units (VMU) were used in exactly the same way. As if there were any more evidence needed to show Sega were way ahead of themselves with the Dreamcast.

In other news, I noticed a post on Kotaku by Brian Ashcraft about how foreigners react to other foreigners in Japan. His interpretation is right on the money and sounded freakishly like myself when I was living there! Even if you've never lived in a foreign country, it's an interesting insight into how a homogeneous society like Japan can affect your view of your surroundings.