Flash Kicks, PCBs and Squid Romance – Culture Collection #4

For the second week running we’re opening Culture Collection with talk of anniversaries. This time the short-lived but still wonderful Sega Dreamcast is turning 17; if it lived in the UK, it’d be old enough to give blood and get a warning from the police, but somehow I can’t see either of these things happening. The Dreamcast above has been lovingly customised by just_awful (who runs the brilliant little blog Ribbon Black, which I highly recommend you check out; his designs for fake games are definitely worth your attention!) and given a bright pink overhaul. It genuinely looks like it could be an official variant!

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With this anniversary in mind, I felt it was appropriate to share this picture from the RETRO.HK show in Hong Kong, taken by dave_van_damm, of this rare Dreamcast ‘Katana’ development unit. It’s a hefty piece of kit, certainly not something that was ever meant to make its way into the hands of the public! However, the real star of the show was the ‘Nintendo PlayStation’ prototype, the only relic left from a canned joint project between Nintendo and Sony to create a CD add-on for the SNES, which would later go on to shape the original PlayStation. There are likely very few of these units in existence, making it a real holy grail for console collectors; if you ask me, it belongs in a museum!

The Dreamcast was something of a last hurrah for Sega, abandoned before it was given a chance to grow. If you’re still cut up by this particular story of gaming demise, not to worry; Japanese punk clothing label Hardcore Chocolate have the piece of apparel for you! Featuring Sega’s very own ‘Hard Girls‘, humanised versions of all your favourite classic Sega systems, this shirt proudly makes sure that everyone around you knows that you think ‘Sega’s not dead’! It isn’t in our hearts, at least…

Actually, Japanese clothing labels have been on fire this month when it comes to creating great gaming-themed apparel. This pair of Street Fighter trousers designed by Punk Drunkers are modelled after those worn by the all-American soldier with the physics-defying haircut, Guile. Whilst they aren’t guaranteed to improve your Flash Kicking and Sonic Boom-throwing abilities, but they’re exactly what you need if you’re looking to add some fighting game flair to your outfits! You can buy them for yourself here; be sure to check out some of their other Street Fighter apparel whilst you’re over there.

I’m envious of anyone who gets ahold of one of these custom Famicom cartridge labels from EDITMODE, sporting their slogan ‘Good life needs good t-shirts’. As far as I can gather they’ll be packaged with orders from their online store, so maybe now’s a good time to treat yourself to something from their Splatoon range.

おくせんまん的な何か(その1) pic.twitter.com/49axnnC6Ex

— YS (@YS_progressive) November 29, 2015

Now on the topic of the Famicom, it’s become no strange thing to hear of people making music using the classic system; only last week we covered RIKI’s “8BIT MUSIC POWER” album that requires an original Famicom system to be listened to. However, something a tad more uncommon is hearing someone playing ALONGSIDE a piece of classic hardware! Now I’m not saying that YS_progressive‘s guitar skills, backed up by the 8-bit sounds of Mega Man 2 are a sign that the missing fourth member of your band is a Famicom, but it’s still quite an impressive spectacle to see it used in such an obscure musical manner.

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From this week forward I’ll be featuring a piece of reading material every week for your perusal amongst the various cultural items in this feature. This week I highly recommend checking out this opinion piece providing some insight into the thoughts and reasoning behind game localisation, courtesy of our friends at SourceGaming. With numerous recent controversies arising due to changes and cuts to high-profile titles in the localisation process, it’s interesting to read some thoughts from people who have undertaken their own translation work on the processes involved and why changes are sometimes necessary for different markets. A second part is on the way soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that one too!