Mizuguchi on Lumines sales and Pok¨¦mon planes
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.