Video Game Noob
 

Ok, I haven't picked up a joypad since Golden Eye on the N64.

Now I have a cold and am considering getting an X Box or PS3.

I really want to play Resident Evil/Bio Hazard 5 and Street Fighter 4, but if I buy it in Japan will I be able to play it in English???

Also, I noticed you can get both these games for both X Box & PS3, so I wonder which is best?

Also, I noticed there were a few different X Box's, I don't plan to do all that much gaming, wonder which one is best for me??

Thanks in advance for any help.

As far as I know, the games on the PS3 are not region-coded, so you could buy a PS3 and buy games in English from the US. I do not know if the XBox is region-free or not.

Well, why don't you just buy your games from where you live? Anyway, if you're really a video game noob, go to this site: Pete's Game Room Forum

A lot of people can help you there.

Here is a compatability guide for the Xbox 360:

Xbox360

The PS3 is quite a grey area in terms of compatability, most of the time they are compatible but some PSone/PS2/Bluray/DVD's etc, are sometimes not.

What console you get depends on what games you want.

Xbox 360 has stuff like Halo:

YouTube - Halo 3 Trailer

Call of Duty:

YouTube - Call of Duty 5: World at War Trailer - Weapons Showcase

PS3 has stuff like Metal Gear Solid:

YouTube - METAL GEAR SOLID 4　Theatrical Trailer 2008 extra

Little Big Planet:

YouTube - PS3 LittleBigPlanet Trailer - Official


The Xbox 360 is a lot cheaper, it's currently cheaper than the Wii around here now, for the basic version, so if you are a casual gamer than maybe you wouldn't want to spend that much.

The Arcade version of the Xbox is the basic version, but it doesn't have a hard drive. You can buy one seperately if you want it. The Premium version comes with pretty much everything you need, including the hard drive.

Cool, thanks for the link, i'll check that out.

Yeah, yeah, that's the point, I live in Japan so I wanna know if generally the games are bilingual.

Just like a real arcade the Arcade Version of the X-box means you can't save games. So if you unlike characters in SFIV, you will lose them once the game is turned off.

Cool, nice one Miss Misa. THat's a big help.

If I ONLY plan to play SF4 and Resident Evil 5 do you think I require an HD for the X Box?

Ahh, ok. In that case it's probably not suitable for Resident Evil then.

Thanks MMM

SF IV is bilingual in the US, but I don't believe it is in Japan. I bought Metal Gear Solid for the PS2 in Japan a few years back, and it was a pain in the rear playing in Japanese. Modding the PS1 and Dreamcast was pretty easy. PS2 was hard, and the new machines are even harder (I won't say "impossible", but you know what I mean).

You need it to save the game, so yes basically. Unless you are going to play through the whole thing without saving :p

I'm not sure whether Japanese versions have English on them. I know most English games don't have Japanese language, they normally have French/German etc, European languages. Some English games do on occasion, like Lost Oddesy has Japanese voice over and subs and stuff. But obviously if they are compatible you can buy the English games and use them, so that's why I mentioned it :)

Are you talking about a Hard Drive or High Definition? I read that as High Def but others seem to have seen the other - I hate acronyms.

Either way, In my opinion, both are nessessary. I mean, your paying alot of money for the console, whats a couple more notes to get the full experience?

The arcade version of the 360 comes with a memory card so you can save game progress and unlockable characters etc.

If you don't use x-box live, you won't need a hard drive but you'll need it if you plan to pay for for downloadable content. You also don't get backward compatability without a hard drive, but you're better off skipping the hard drive, and using the money to buy an original x-box for this anyway.

Ok, I found out SF4 does have bilingual settings. Does anyone on here know if Bio Hazard is also bilingual? And I just read that Biohazard is censored in Japan, is that true?

I can`t comment on whether it`s censored - we haven`t actually bought it - but the demo does have English... Not to mention that everyone speaks in English as in every Biohazard, so any story points would all be presented in English. I think that even if menus weren`t in English it wouldn`t be all that hard to get through even with the simplest Japanese.

With SF 4, you can change the voices in the fights and cut scenes but just remember that you can't change the menu or subtitle language etc. (Or atleast i can't)

I don't know if Biohazard is bilingual and, I'm not so sure if Biohazard is censored in Japan but Fallout 3 is (Although only for Nuclear Material, Perhaps that is what you were thinking of?)

Fallout 3 Censored in Japan for Nuclear Material - Shacknews - PC Games, PlayStation, Xbox 360 and Wii video game news, previews and downloads

The newer 360 arcade units have 256 megs of flash based memory internally, this was done to support the new interface.

Generaly the 360 games that aren't region free are the Asian ones meaning Hong Kong/China not Japan

PS3 is region free doesn't matter

Some of the Asian games for both consoles are Chinese/English.

play-asia.com will tell you as such.

In terms of Resident Evil / Biohazzard it would appear the voices can be set to english but more then likely the text in is Japanese

I can't tell you which one is better as I have both and like them for different reasons.

Feel free to PM me if you have other questions.

Sorry to bombard you guys with so many questions but, i'm going to HK next week. Should I just wait till i'm there and buy an Asian Xbox and try and find cheap games in HK?

If I lived in Japan I would not buy my Xbox in HK. I would get it at a place in Japan with a warranty. I had to replace an Xbox360 and was thankful of the warranty. Also, I am not sure that Japanese games (or US games, for that matter) work on HK machines...something to investigate.

I don't know about Japan, but in the US Microsoft gives an three year warranty for RROD (3 red lights, which is do to hardware failure) and one year for other problems. Because of this, it's not really something you should spend the extra money on a store warranty.

the reason why Microsoft offers such a currently is because the xbox experiences a higher failure rate then other consoles.

Slight correction, they gave a 3 year warranty. That expired last year.

It's the standard one year now.

Buy your games in HK, buy your console where you live in case you need to ship it in for repairs.

No, it's for all Xbox's meaning it starts at the time of purchase. The first generation consoles have expired this year thus a lot of people lost that warranty. I make it practice to know everything about contracts and warranty in case someone tries to pull one over on me.

Pg 5 of the warranty book (English)

one year express warranty on console (three years for three lights flashing red) Note it also states that you HAVE to be the original purchaser, and have the receipt.

I recently Got my xbox this December which was an Arcade (came built with 256 mg). Personally right now I find the arcade the best buy (it's cheaper then a wii in the US) when you can get an 20gb harddrive for 30.

I stand corrected solemnclockwork

I though it just applied to the launch units.