rumour
Ah, the video game rumour mill! There’s none better when it comes to excited fans and the thirst for knowledge.
With the current generation of consoles now starting to show their age and high-end PC users increasingly looking back as if to say “What the hell are you guys still doing back there?” news and rumour of the next wave of video game consoles is slowly heating up. While some gaming pundits maintain that we’re still years away from getting new Sony and Microsoft toys, others are, with a healthy dollop of optimism, hoping to see next-gen console gaming before the end of 2014.
While there are still next to no confirmed crumbs of information about the next crop of machines for gamers to stuff into their hungry mouths, Sony Corporation’s president and CEO Kazuo Hirai went on record yesterday to speak about the launch of the company’s new technology, hinting that gamers may have to wait until after Microsoft makes its move for details of the next Playstation.
Those of you fortunate enough to have been introduced to Studio Ghibli’s animated feature films will know that they’re of the highest quality and easily rival Disney’s own productions.
Back in my native UK, comparatively few people have met with Ghibli’s heart-warming animated creations, with some people, in fact, falling into the trap of thinking that anything foreign and “a bit manga” is probably not for them. Thanks to the UK’s relative reluctance to embrace the movies, it was not until I was 15 years old when, one rainy Sunday afternoon, My Neighbor Totoro was shown on cable TV that I first became aware of Hayao Miyazaki’s work. At the time, I had no idea what I was watching, but have been a huge fan ever since.
Over in the studio’s native Japan, however, Studio Ghibli has become something of a national treasure since its establishment in 1985, with the studio’s near-annual releases always eagerly awaited, and usually met with both an abundance of praise and mounds of cash.
For most Japanese, Ghibli characters like My Neighbor Totoro’s Satsuki and Mei, Spirited Away’s Chihiro, or broomstick-riding Kiki from the movie of the same name, form a part of their childhood or are attached to fond memories, perhaps even more-so than Mickey, Donald and pals are toWesterners.
So when one hawk-eyed Twitter user suggested that perhaps certain Ghibli characters have cropped up in more than movie without us realising it, internet users understandably paid attention…
Regular visitors to RocketNews24 will no doubt be aware that McDonald’s Japan has been making the headlines a lot since the beginning of the month. The removal of menus from its counters, worried rumours of the restaurant putting a stop to free cups of water; the fast food chain has received a lot of negative attention.
After tweets on the theme of “McDonald’s next bizarre business move” hit the thousands, tweet-gathering mega blog Togetter has put up a collection of some of the best thoughts and creative ideas from Japan’s internet users, with some little short of laugh-out-loud funny.
So, what do the people of Japan predict for Ronald and pals’ near future? Let’s find out!


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