Mizuguchi on Lumines sales and Pokémon planes

By Tom Bramwell Published 12 October, 2005

We bought lots, us.

Tetsuya Mizuguchi's updated his Japanese blog with some interesting stats. Apparently, despite a ten-month delay and countless imports, his musical puzzler Lumines has already sold 180,000 units in Europe. Well done you lot! That's on top of 300,000 or so in North America since March and a rather disappointing 70,000 in Japan since last December.

Just as interesting though is the latest update to his English-lanugage blog, including discussion of the Tokyo Game Show and an interesting tale of his experience flying from Tokyo to Paris on a Pokémon plane. Complete with pictures. Wireless LAN access meant he was able to beam photos of the wings to a fellow developer while flying over Russia.

Wireless LANs on planes, eh? We've seen it ourselves on Japan Airlines. Not as expensive as you'd think either. If you fancy finding out what Pikachu looks like stuck to a wingtip, or whether pokéballs add anything to the sight of a jet engine, or indeed whether 31,000 feet helps circumvent the banality of instant messaging exchanges, we suggest checking out the update.

Tetsuya Mizuguchi is currently collaborating with Phantagram on Xbox 360 title Ninety-Nine Nights, and working on Every Extend Extra, a fusion of puzzler and shoot-'em-up for Sony's PSP.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (8) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Dr_Actually #1 6 years ago

    "...a rather disappointing 70,000 in Japan since last December."

    The Japanese videogames consumer actually has awful taste in games by en large

    Discuss.

  • Sid-Nice #2 6 years ago

    The Western videogames consumer actually has awful taste in games by en large.

    Javelin.

  • justMe #3 6 years ago

    The Japanese videogames consumer actually knows what hardware to buy when it comes to inovative puzzle games, therefor chosing to buy the best (and cheapest) setup: DS+Meteos. ;)

  • Inquisitor #4 6 years ago

    The Japanese consumer often has awful taste, yes (endless RPG's and dating games etc). They are also more cautious of western style games than we are of Japanese games and seem to be far more likely to buy what I'd call 'unnecessary' hardware/software (like getting two different forms of game because they come in different colours or getting different kinds of game boy advances). But I also think that they are more willing to by innovative or unusual titles than western gamers.

  • Machetazo #5 6 years ago

    Bah! The article title didn't contain a typo after all! :p The absurd conversation about the pokemon "plan-e-s" was amusing enough though. :)

  • justMe #6 6 years ago

    @bengali: No, I don't visit Gamefaqs.

  • Zuiyo #7 6 years ago

    The article DID contain a typo: "lanugages".

  • Repsode #8 6 years ago

    Yikes! Only 70,000 in Japan!. I knew psp games sales are bad out there but I couldn't beleive that figure.