PS3 Fanboy

Other than doubling the sales of the PS3 in Japan, Hot Shots Golf 5 teed up to hit the one millionth PS3 sold in Japan the other day. While selling one million consoles in Japan should have been simple beyond belief, Sony should still revel in the feeling while they can. Will the game make a splash on US shores when it hits in a matter of months? Perhaps, perhaps not. As far as Hot Shots Golf 5 goes, it's one of the best-selling PS3 games in Japan to date and we're not surprised. It is, after all, their most popular domestic franchise developed internally. The question now is, will Japan sell 2 million PS3's by the end of the year?

It's hard to admit this, but we're still playing the Japan PS Store Minna no Golf 5 demo -- that's Everybody's Golf 5 or Hot Shots Golf 5 depending on what you want to call it. Despite its numerous monikers, the game's a hit in Japan, where reports indicate the title has sold over 150,000 copies over the course of its first day on shelves, which is half of all the preordered copies. That's a popular, cutesy golf game. Across Japan, stores are calling in sick with a case of the "sold outs" and this just makes us more anxious to get our grubby mitts on the full game.

If you haven't been following Hot Shots Golf 5 news, it's got a decent number of characters to choose from and a very interesting online mode that we're dying to try. It's not that revolutionary, per se, but we'd really like to play golf against a group of other golfers online. It seems like ... you know ... something you could do in real life, but not seem as cute. Or sweat as much.

Japan loves making crazy ads ... and Sony's Minna no Golf 5 gets the same quirky treatment. This latest campaign from Sony takes place in a spa, and there are balls everywhere. Is this some not-so-covert attempt at terrifying innuendo? Or, are our American minds simply reading far too much into this?

See also:
Awfully disturbing Ape Escape ad

Clap Hanz president Masashi Muramori recently sat down for an interview about his beloved Hot Shots franchise. The interview covered many topics, from the possibility of new sports to explore, previous games' success and of course, the PS3's anticipated Hot Shots Golf 5. We'll summarize that portion of the interview for you, but if you're interested in any other information, feel free to check it out.

• The demo is a good indicator as to the graphical quality of the final product. New courses under development will improve effects and environmental design.
• Muramori also said there are "almost no limitations on the PS3's ability to create visually rich and fully interactive environments," stressing he would like to take advantage of that on every course.
• The Japanese version will tout 15 playable golfers, 7 caddies and 6 courses. No word on whether the numbers will go up or down for the rest of the world.
• The new shot mechanic (playable in the demo) is meant to bring about a more realistic and fluid swing to the game. Muramori admits it's more difficult to master, but when you do, the shots will be more powerful and travel farther.
• Online features will be based on what was available with Hot Shots Golf Fore, but built up exponentially. More features are going to be announced at E3, so we'll announce them at that time, too!
• At this time, Muramori doesn't have any plans to put Sixaxis controls into the game. You won't have to swing that controller around just yet.

The final point Muramori answers is the possibility of downloadable content. This is the type of game that's perfect for extra stuff down the road. New courses, characters, outfits for characters, special online tournaments ... there are so many potential reasons to add on to the game after release. Muramori understands this and is very excited and ready to explore them. More announcements regarding this will come with E3, also. We can't wait! The demo was, and still is, incredibly fun.

Since it's almost impossible to find anything on the GameFront website, we're attributing this piece of news to user collie9877 over at the PS3Forums. In a fairly surprising twist, Japanese specialty retailers are really gearing up for the release of Minno no Golf 5, pre-ordering around 300,000 copies. Does that mean Japan will get a boost in console sales this July? Who knows. Let's discuss further.

The bit on GameFront is pretty vague: does this mean 300,000 people have pre-ordered the game? Have retailers ordered that many copies of the game to ship to their stores? If the latter, that sounds like a small number for an entire country. But whichever case it may be, moving that many games over a month before the release is a pretty strong candidate for a million-selling game. We downloaded the demo, we enjoy it, too. Hopefully this game helps out the dismal PS3 library in Japan and gets a quick release in the rest of the world, too.

[via PS3Forums]

Golf games are relatively simple. Line up your shot, charge your power meter and slam that funky white crater-ball as far as possible. Then you get to the green... and you have to putt. Not only do the dynamics of the game ostensibly shift, but the complexity and threshold of skill are both increased exponentially. Putting requires an avid desire to sink the shot in one go, often making you consider the wind speed, the tilt of the ground, the distance to the hole, the power behind your putt ... there's a lot more to consider, basically. Check out the trailer for a nifty putting montage courtesy of Hot Shots Golf 5, if not for a tutorial on how to get your act together whilst putting.

A demo of the newest cutesy, moderately challenging golf title, Hot Shots Golf 5 was recently released on the Japanese PS-Store. If you're pretty slick, you can snag it yourself as well. The size isn't that large -- about 230MB, and from the gameplay video, it looks pretty nice. Nice in the "not realistic but very smooth and without jaggy, sort of anime style with pretty foliage effects" way.

[Thanks, Rivithed!]