xxx 3DO Box Art xxx

The word presentation is an after-thought to most of us. We build something – then we think, perhaps, about presenting it nicely.

Japanese construction ethos is different. To be fair in my opinion it’s driven by fear. This driver is also a myth . However, that myth seems to work and is buried perhaps in some truth.

That myth is fairly simple one. It is 'failure'. And it goes like this: If you don’t do your best, then you will fail. And with failure the best you can hope for is embarrassment.

We have the same thing in Europe and America. Yet we don't believe it quite as feverently as the Japanese seem too. Britian and Europe and America don't know failure - not really. World War 2 and the Japanese technology bubble, I believe, taught the Japanese failure - and to fear it.

So - what you find is that the little tiny insignificant priavtely owned Noodle shops tries its best. The same for the 5 star hotel. The staff are polite, prompt, and they try really hard. No ignorant couldn't careless atitude. Not like it is in England - Or to be fair it is significantly less noticeable in Japan. And this ethos stretches out to every faset. From the guys selling vacuums in Akihabra, who at least give the impression, they are giving 110% to the old lady selling 47 Ronin cups at the temple.

Push - push - push. There are two girls in a Veloce cafe in Gotanda, Tokyo that would show-up badly the workers in my local Starbucks. They can clear a queue, with a larger menu, in a quarter of the time but it isn't just that Veloce cafe - as it turned out it was all Veloce Cafes. But then the girls working at the Ebisu Starbucks were pretty good too. It's fear. Pride. Expectation. Perhaps more. Working and driving them to be better. To work harder. A good thing? For the customer maybe...

The point being that presentation and appearance is just as important as everything else in Japan. Its not so much of an after thought. The coffee, the game, the automobile, everything. All to varying degrees of cause.

So - For some Japanese, a good game will not be a good game if the packaging is rubbish or the manual is boring. Regardless of the game itself. It’s not true of every game – but more true of a lot of games.

So their box art is pretty good. An aquired taste maybe - but good none the less.

A quick walk around a Japanese game store, for me, does seem to prove this. Games you can't read - you can't understand - mesmorize you and make you want to buy them. "Can I get this? It looks fun." I didn't have clue what it was about, but if I said it once, I said half a dozen times. I rarely pick a game in Game or Gamestation.

The idea seems to be in Japanese development that it, whatever it is, it has too look good, feel good, be the same - yet perhaps different at the same time. And this does manifests itself most notably for us in their video game box art.

With that in mind enjoy some 10 year old minor format 3DO Box Art.

3DO Kid.

:Note: If you click on the picture and then click it again you can eventually get to a high resolution original. These are big so modem users beware!

Blue Forest Story.

Deep Blue Fleet.

Escape from Monster Manor.

Ghost Hunter Series: Mask of death.

Graduation Final.

Megadas.

Nobonagas' ambition.

Old Man Hunter: Mahjong.

Romance of the three Kingdoms IV.

Virtual Quest.