Sega may not be into making consoles anymore, but look! Zippo has gone and picked up the slack for them. Sort of. Check these out - Zippo has rolled out two new designs for us gamers: the old Sega consoles now bring a different kind of heat into your lifestyle.

It's been 13 years in the making, but now it's finally here. Yes, the 1996 Sega Saturn/ PS1/ 3DO original, Konami produced, Kojima-created Policenauts has finally completed its English localization process. Again, FINALLY.

 Waiting for Sega releases in Europe? January has a lot of goodies in the bag for everyone. Condemned 2 (Xbox 360, PS3), Superstar Tennis, Viking: Battle of Asgard (Xbox 360, PS3), and NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams are all coming soon. See the detailed version to find out when these will drop and what else is inbound.

After running into the montage of Legend of Zelda commercials Skullkid700 put together which has been popular recently, we felt the urge to look back and enjoy other amusing Japanese video game TV spots that can only come from the ingenious Japanese minds. With all the laughs these ads give, it's only fair to share to you guys so nobody misses out on the great stuff they watch in the land of the rising sun. If you're ready for hilarious commercials, brace for impact and check the videos out at the full article!

There's an interesting survey conducted by small online research firm WhatJapanThinks regarding the preferred consoles by Japanese kids. The population consisted of around 1,165 elementary school students and the results are quite intriguing and interesting:

• Nintendo DS 82.2%
• Nintendo Gameboy Advance 39.8%
• Sony PlayStation 1, 2 or 3 37.4%
• Nintendo Wii 35.3%
• Nintendo Gamecube 31.4%
• Nintendo Gameboy, Gameboy Micro 19.8%
• Nintendo 64 15.2%
• Nintendo Super Famicom (SNES) 15.1%
• Nintendo Famicom (NES) 11.9%
• Sony PlayStation Portable 10.5%
• Microsoft Xbox 5.8%
• Sega Saturn 5.1%
• Sega Dreamcast 4.8%
• Other 16.4%

Take note that this survey is not reflective of the whole Japanese market and is just true on a certain market segment. Nonetheless, like we said, the results are quite interesting.

Ah, Castlevania. That's one gaming franchise that never ceases to shine. It's always good getting more news about the epic game series, and when it's coming from Castlevania's Koji Igarashi himself, it's all the more better. 1up managed to sneak in an interview with Igarashi, or IGA, and they talked about their current Castlevania project Dracula X Chronicles, as well as possible futures for Castlevania in other consoles.

PSP's Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles - based on a much earlier Rondo of Blood - is just about finished, with the US version already approved while they're still waiting to get approval for the Europe and Japanese versions.

As for the Symphony of the Night added into Dracula X Chronicles, IGA said that some content was changed in the PSP version compared to the downloadable SotN from PlayStation Network and Xbox Live: voice acting was improved (yes!), and they made drastic improvements to Maria's sprite compared to the Sega Saturn version. Michiru Yamane, music composer for the Castlevania series, composed a new song for the SotN credit track.

As for future Castlevanias, one of the things that is definite is that we'll have another title for the DS, and they're also thinking about the possibility of some whip-cracking action on the Wii, but there's a small problem. According to IGA,

As for a Wii version, I still think people would be exhausted if they had to swing it as a whip the entire time, but I am coming around to the idea -- I like the concept in theory, but I'd just have to make sure it could be done without players getting all tired.

Cracking whips around all day does sound a tad tiring and painful in the long run.

The Castlevania team, in the meantime, are thinking whether to go "traditional" and release games for the Xbox 360 and PS3. As to what "traditional" means to them, it doesn't necessarily mean the old-school 2D gaming. Said IGA,

Those are two steps for us, actually. Step 1 is figuring out the gameplay and step 2 is the graphics. We are still discussing step 1, so until we have the gameplay figured out I won't be able to say whether or not it will be 2D or 3D.

Those who want new downloadable Castlevania games won't have much hope to hold on to, however. IGA said that prices of downloadable games are quite too low to support the things that they want to do in the game, and will also result in low-fidelity games.

That's definitely so much info to chew on! But you can bet we'll have more as updates come our way. Stay tuned!