Category: Games

A poster on 5ch’s “Hardware/Industry” (Geha) board started a thread hoping to cash in by turning the popular character Chiikawa into a video game, asking others to help figure out a suitable genre and developer. Replies were split on how to capture the original’s “poison” — some pitched a Mystery Dungeon-style roguelike or an MMO, others wanted a Pikmin-style game where the characters are treated as expendable, and others imagined a FromSoftware- or Capcom-style action game with brutally unfair deaths. Suggested developers included Furyu, Nintendo, and Bandai, and some replies pointed out that a game called “Chiikawa Pocket” already exists.

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

Chiikawa is a character created by Nagano, and a hugely popular IP with a steady stream of merchandise and collaborations. The thread began as a playful thought experiment — not a live-action adaptation, but a hypothetical video game — and opinions diverged over how to translate the original’s signature blend of “cuteness” and “unreasonably brutal death” into gameplay. The popularity of Pikmin-style expendable-character concepts and roguelite pitches reflects the source material’s habit of putting its characters through terrible ordeals. At the same time, some replies pointed to the practical hurdles of actually pulling off such a project — negotiating rights with Nagano, coordinating with developers and sponsors — offering a glimpse of real-world game production difficulties even in what was ultimately a fantasy thread. As noted in the thread itself, a mobile game called “Chiikawa Pocket” is, in fact, already available.

※This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “Geha”) thread “I’m thinking of turning Chiikawa into a video game — help me figure out the right genre and developer.”

In a 5ch thread about PS6, posters pointed out that heavyweight titles like TES6, Fallout, Forza, Diablo, StarCraft, OD, and PHYSINT are all shaping up to launch on other platforms rather than as PS6 exclusives — sparking a debate over what the point of a next-gen console even is. PHYSINT, from Hideji Kojima [director of Death Stranding, Metal Gear Solid], is reportedly caught up in the end of Kojima Productions’ partnership with Sony. The thread split sharply between posters who see a new console as inevitable given slowing PS5 sales, and those who argue that with studio closures piling up, there’s no guarantee a new machine would even be profitable.

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

As of September 2026, PS6 has not been officially announced, and the way the thread treats the titles listed is based on speculation, not any official statement. TES6, Fallout, Forza, Diablo, and StarCraft all belong to Microsoft’s Bethesda or Activision Blizzard stable, or were always built around PC/Xbox release — none of them were ever expected to be PS6 exclusives to begin with. PHYSINT was being developed by Kojima Productions, led by Hideo Kojima [director of Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding], but reports of Sony ending its partnership with the studio have surfaced, making whether development even continues a key open question going forward. The thread split between a camp arguing that “launching a next-gen console is unavoidable as a business matter,” pointing to slowing sales in the PS5’s late lifecycle, and a camp countering that “there’s no guarantee a new machine would even be profitable,” citing the wave of major studio closures — ultimately, both positions come down to differing readings of Sony’s management judgment. One thing readers may easily misunderstand: the thread title’s claim that “none of them are coming out [on PS6]” doesn’t mean exclusivity deals have collapsed — these titles were multiplatform releases from the start.

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry [“Geha”]) thread “PS6: “TES6, Fallout, Forza, Diablo, StarCraft, OD, PHYSINT — none of them are coming out!”“

A few translator’s notes: “Anonymous” renders 名無しさん必死だな, a stock joke username on this board roughly meaning “Anonymous, desperate as ever.” “Trashstation” (ゴミステ) is a longstanding derogatory nickname for PlayStation used by critics on this board. “Totoki” refers to Sony Group President/COO Hiroki Totoki. Several items in post #4 (Space Baldy, BBA20, Hairy Arms, Busu Online) are sarcastic nicknames for PlayStation titles/characters mocked on the board; I’ve kept them as close transliterations since I can’t independently confirm which specific games each one refers to.

Square Enix brought in Google’s Gemini AI to handle quality testing on its remaster of Torneko’s Great Adventure, a Dragon Quest spin-off, but reception has been poor since launch, with bugs turning up even on the official website. On 5ch’s Hardware/Industry board (Gehazai), posters questioned the whole premise of AI-driven automated debugging, with some pointing to Monster Hunter Wilds as an earlier case where AI use reportedly led to insufficient testing. Others called for outsourcing to Chunsoft or a proper remake of the older titles, while still others took issue with a development setup that seems to depend on AI in the first place — the discussion never settled on a single takeaway.

Square Enix automates game quality testing with Gemini — AI watches the screen and operates the controller itself to run checks

And apparently even the official website is buggy

RIP to all the paying customers turned unpaid debuggers who can’t even get a refund…

Source: itmedia.co.jp / Original article here

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

In July 2026, Square Enix told ITmedia about a system in which Gemini watches the game screen and automatically operates the controller to run QA checks, and the Torneko remaster drew attention as a real-world example of that approach. That said, theories floated in the thread — that this was ‘new-hire training,’ or that the AI was never properly ‘trained/directed’ — remain speculation; Square Enix has not officially confirmed that development was actually left to AI. The disagreement centered on whether to fault the use of AI itself or a botched QA process: alongside concrete bug reports, like a broken UI aspect ratio, there were plenty of posts that oversimplified the cause as simply ‘blame the AI.’ Since the Torneko series’ SFC and PS entries still command a devoted fanbase, comparisons to those earlier games make for fertile ground for harsh criticism.

*This article was compiled and summarized from the 5ch Hardware/Industry (Gehazai) board thread ‘[Square Enix] Here’s the verdict on the unpopular Torneko remaster →.’

A post on 5ch’s hardware industry board (Gehazoku) sparked discussion after noting that GTA6 had slipped to No. 29 on US Amazon’s preorder chart, while the remake of *The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time* claimed the top spot. GTA6 had previously announced changes to how it handles its packaged (disc) edition ahead of launch, and many in the thread pointed to that as a likely factor behind its weak ranking. At the same time, some argued that “Western users actually want physical media more than people assume,” which clashed with the common image of overseas markets as digital-download-first. Since GTA6 also carries high expectations for its PC version, opinions were split on whether the ranking alone can capture its true popularity.

lol

Source: x.com / Original post here

Background and Key Points

US Amazon’s best-seller and preorder rankings are tallied before launch, so they don’t necessarily reflect actual sales figures or real-world popularity. GTA6 had already signaled plans to scale back its disc edition ahead of release, which may have hurt its standing given how persistent physical-media demand still is in the North American market. Rockstar titles have also traditionally seen strong demand on PC, meaning console-only rankings don’t fully capture real-world performance. Meanwhile, the *Legend of Zelda* series has seen a major surge in overseas support since *Breath of the Wild*, so it’s not especially surprising that a remake would rank highly too. In the thread, many found it “surprising” that overseas users lean toward physical media, but this may say more about the specifics of this particular ranking than about any broader market trend.

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry board, Gehazoku) thread “[Bad news for Sony fans] Overseas gamer: “GTA6 ranked 29th on the overseas Amazon charts lol, Ocarina of Time is #1 lol”.”

Level-5’s Nintendo Direct footage has been flooded with dislikes on YouTube. The trigger was the discovery that part of the video was actually AI-generated fake footage — and on 5ch, users pointed out the irony, since the company had previously stated it didn’t “use AI that much in its games.” With reports that the studio is simultaneously developing as many as 14 titles, some questioned whether its development structure can even keep up. The thread ended up tangled between two separate arguments — whether using AI is acceptable at all, and whether hiding AI-generated content and passing it off as real is acceptable — with the anti-AI camp and the pro-AI camp clashing throughout.

Background and Key Points of This Topic

Level-5 is an unlisted game company known for series like Yo-kai Watch, Inazuma Eleven, and Professor Layton, led by president Akihiro Hino. What drew the bulk of the criticism in the thread wasn’t the use of AI itself, but the fact that AI-generated footage was presented as if it were ordinary development footage — conflating that with the broader “is using AI acceptable” debate tends to muddy the real point. At the same time, the thread mixed in tangential threads of discussion, such as comparisons to the Winny case in debates over Japanese IT policy and comparisons of AI regulation across countries, which belong to a separate context from this specific incident. The report that the company is developing as many as 14 titles simultaneously also fueled speculation about how finished the footage really was, but that remains speculation within the thread rather than an officially confirmed fact.

*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “[Bad News] Level-5 Direct’s Dislikes Turn Into Something Outrageous….”

A debate has broken out on 5ch’s “Hardware & Industry” (Geha) board over how to convert the PS5 Pro’s performance into GPU-equivalent terms. It started with the claim that the PS5 Pro is on par with an RTX 5070 (currently selling for around ¥140,000). Thread posters pushed back with more modest estimates, calling it “really more like an RTX 2060–3060 class” or “at best an RTX 3070 once you factor in optimization.” The sticking points were whether a simple FLOPS comparison even makes sense, the technical gap between the PS5 Pro’s PSSR upscaling and NVIDIA’s DLSS, and whether the CPU is the real bottleneck — with some also questioning whether comparing products across different generations and architectures is valid at all.

Background and Key Points of This Debate

The PS5 Pro pairs a custom AMD GPU (based on the RDNA2 generation) with a Zen 2 8-core CPU, and includes its own upscaling feature, PSSR, along with ray tracing support. But because its architecture differs from NVIDIA’s RTX series, there are technical limits to comparing the two using raw TFLOPS figures alone. The thread split over whether to judge performance by theoretical compute figures or by real-world performance that factors in comparisons with DLSS and FSR, with some also pointing to a weak CPU as a likely bottleneck. The fact that the entire GPU market, including the RTX 5070, has seen sharp price increases over the past few months has further complicated the comparison. One point readers can easily misread is that phrases like “equivalent to X” tend to gloss over differences in generation and architecture — and even within the thread, no clear consensus was reached.

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware & Industry / Geha) thread “[Great News] PS5 Pro Turns Out to Be RTX 5070 (¥140,000) Level😁“.

It’s become a hot topic on 5ch’s Hardware/Industry (“geha”) board that Square Enix and other publishers are increasingly releasing titles simultaneously (multi-platform) on Nintendo’s new home console, the Switch 2. Threads pointed to Resident Evil 9 hitting the series’ fastest-ever sales after going multi-platform on Switch 2, and to Square Enix’s financial results reportedly improving since its pivot toward Switch, with many posters calling multi-platform releases “just obvious business sense.” Others noted, however, that some titles are skipping physical PS5 releases and that PS5’s retail shelf presence seems to be shrinking, sparking debate over where each platform stands going forward.

Background and Key Points of the Debate

The Switch 2 is Nintendo’s new home console released in 2026, and like its predecessor, it has seen publishers embrace a strategy of releasing many third-party titles simultaneously (multi-platform) across systems. Posters pointed to Resident Evil 9, said to have hit the series’ fastest-ever sales after going multi-platform on Switch 2, along with reports that Square Enix’s own earnings have been strong, as evidence in favor of the multi-platform approach. Meanwhile, the PS5 continues to be marketed as a home console, but some titles have skipped physical releases on it, which posters linked to a perceived shrinking of its retail presence. Opinion in the thread split over whether going multi-platform is simply sound economic sense or amounts to sidelining a particular platform, with some praising the cost-effectiveness and outsized promotional reach of Nintendo Direct, while others questioned what purpose PS5 versions still serve. Note that the sales comparisons and Nintendo Direct viewership figures cited in the thread are unverified numbers from the discussion itself and may differ from official figures.

*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “geha”) thread “Square Enix: “Going multi-platform on Switch 2 was a great move. It really delivered wonderful results.”.”

Multiple pieces of new information were announced at BlizzCon 2026. Reveals included a new hero joining ‘Heroes of the Storm,’ a Netflix anime series based on ‘Diablo’ currently in production, and a new ‘StarCraft’ open-world shooter slated for spring 2030 — on top of that, ‘Diablo IV’ is set to add a new class, the Amazon, in the first half of next year. On the thread, the fact that Microsoft had stripped the PS5 logo from its promotional materials touched off an argument between Xbox fans and PlayStation fans over whether this signals an Xbox exclusive or is just an omission in labeling.

Background and Key Points of This Topic

The backdrop here is that, ever since Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in 2023, how the company would handle its titles — including Diablo and StarCraft — has repeatedly come up in related 5ch threads. The ‘logo controversy’ driving this latest argument comes down to a split between those who see the missing PS5 logo on promotional materials as proof of an exclusive, and those who see it as simply an omission in labeling — no official announcement of exclusivity has actually been made. It’s also worth noting that predictions floated in the thread, like ‘PlayStation will be extinct by 2029,’ are purely speculation from an anonymous message board, with no official information backing them up.

※This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread ‘[Xbox] The Insanely Good Reveals at “BlizzCon 2026” [Switch 2].’

Genshin Impact’s anniversary livestream announced a free giveaway of a limited 5-star character and a Nintendo Switch version, sparking discussion on 5channel’s Hardware & Industry (Geha) board. The stream’s peak concurrent viewership was around 110,000, with some users noting that numbers have been diluted and sluggish since simulcasting began on X (formerly Twitter). Thread posters were split on whether the game’s open-world exploration freedom really makes it “a better Zelda,” while opinions also diverged on the main story quests (Archon Quests) — sparking further debate over whether a skip function is needed, and over “Star Rail-ification,” a term for the trend of power creep in character stats.

First-ever free giveaway of a limited 5-star character

Source: video.twimg.com / Original article here

Background and Key Points of Debate

Genshin Impact is an open-world RPG developed by China’s HoYoverse (formerly miHoYo), and because it shares character-building and gacha mechanics with the studio’s other title, Honkai: Star Rail, players have coined the term “Star Rail-ification” to describe trends like giving away outdated characters for free and the steady creep of power inflation. The thread’s disagreement centered on two main points. The first was whether the game’s open-world exploration freedom really earns it the label “a better Zelda” compared to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, with pushback citing the lack of physics-based puzzle mechanics as evidence against the comparison. The second was the evaluation of the main quest line (Archon Quests), with some demanding a skip function due to its length and tedium, against others arguing that, including the side stories, the writing deserves a high rating overall. The thread also noted that the livestream’s concurrent viewer numbers have become harder to compare directly since simulcasting on X began, as the audience is now split across platforms.

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware & Industry / Geha) thread “[Breaking] Genshin Impact Drops Massive Announcement at Anniversary Broadcast wwwwwwwwwwwww — Set to Dominate Trends“.

A thread titled “Japanese Game Companies, Remake Festival” appeared on 5ch’s “Anything Goes Live G” board, sparking discussion about how domestic publishers are leaning toward remakes and remasters instead of new titles. One poster noted that Switch 2’s weekly sales dropped from around 50,000 units to just over 20,000 after the price hike, fueling a broader discussion rooted in a sense of market stagnation. Posters pointed to soaring development costs turning new IPs into a gamble, citing SEGA’s Hatsune Miku and Like a Dragon (Yakuza) franchises, along with Pragmata — a new IP that actually became a hit — as rare success stories. But opinions split when some argued it’s the fans themselves who are really the ones asking for all these remakes.

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

Soaring game development costs aren’t unique to Japan — as one poster in the thread noted, remakes of old Call of Duty titles are selling well overseas too, reflecting a global trend of leaning on existing IPs. Pragmata, cited as a rare new-IP success story, was developed by Capcom and drew attention as one of the few brand-new IPs launched by a major publisher at a time when that’s become uncommon. That said, it’s worth noting that the Switch 2 weekly sales figures discussed in the thread (roughly 50,000 units before the price hike, down to just over 20,000 after) are based on individual posters’ impressions, not official Nintendo figures. The debate split between those who see fans themselves as the ones really driving demand for remakes, and those who blame publishers’ risk-aversion and rising development costs — suggesting this is a structural problem that can’t be pinned on any single cause.

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Anything Goes Live G) thread “[Sad News] Japan’s 🇯🇵 Game Companies, Remake Festival lmaoooooooooooooooooooooo.”