Famitsu, the only source of video game information and culture in Japan (Internet? What internet?), ran a feature on American Otakus in their Sept. 25 issue. Amongst the interesting factoids their intrepid reporters discovered while talking with over 800 nerdy gaijin:

1. Kids love Final Fantasy
2. Solid Snake, still a big deal
3. Cowboy Bebop is jazzy good anime!
4. Orange ninjas with whiskers are popular

But, for the sake of the Unity Blog, the relevant information is that Capcom was picked as the number 3 Favorite Game Company or Creator, just behind SquareEnix and Nintendo (good company!) and ahead of Konami, Kojima and, oddly, Miyamoto. Yay! It's good to know that dudes dressed like Sailor Moon are totally into us.

Thanks to Kotaku for pointing out this piece on Umaguruma.com

As you've undoubtedly heard by now, Disney purchased Marvel this week, joining together two of my favorite content creators on the planet. Unsurprisingly, a lot of people immediately began making jokes on Twitter about the future, with lots of internetters chiming in with "Marvel VS Disney VS Capcom" jokes. Some of them were even funny!

Working in the same groove, art and graphics site Worth1000 (get it?) challenged their users to imagine the end results of this powerhouse merger. There are some pretty clever mash-up images on there, but I love the total ridiculousness of Hugh Jackman in short pants and mouse ears, along with the subtle detail of only having two claws, since Mickey only has four fingers. Check out all the entries here.

Seth and I unfortunately have to stay back in Cali (and enjoy our three-day weekend, muhahahaha!), but Team Capcom is already sweating up a storm in Seattle, prepping for tomorrow's unslaught of nerddom at PAX. Remember to flash your Capcom Unity VISA card for extra savings and the occasional free sweaty hug from Francis.

From Left to Right: new dude Joveth, no longer new dude Shawn and even newer dude Gosei prep the invites for the Resident Evil 5 party on Saturday night

Unpacking the goods and assembling the Capcom booth

Darrin, like a hidden Sasquatch, and Young, putting together the Capcom Store. Mmm... Femme Fatale TE Sticks...

Hi, it's your friends from Capcom Unity! Did you know that's just a bit over a year since Capcom Unity 2.0 went live? True story! Seth, Christian, Tom and I -- and now Shawn and Joveth -- have been so nose to the grindstone that we totally forgot that the post-Wordpress version of Unity exited the Beta stage in early August of 2008. At that point, we had just switched over from the Unity 1.0 Frankensteinien mish-mash of off the shelf blogging and forum software to the improved, slightly broken 2.0, which integrated site-wide IDs, email, forums, personal blogging and media hosting, groups and so much more.

Despite getting older, we've managed to actually become sexier. In the last six months, we've added a Twitter box to the site, become proactive on Facebook, integrated instantaneous translation support for seven different languages, added The Awesome box to let you know what stories we like/are important, launched Auctions and Raffles to give you something to do with your Unity points, branched out to being a part of the IGN community and added many, many behind the scenes tweaks to (hopefully) improve your overall experience. Oh yeah, we've also added two full-time Team Unity members, Shawn and Joveth. We're slowly growing into an unstoppable army of internet dorks dedicated to helping you celebrate all things Capcomish. More information from the management, after the jump, so please follow along!

The last 24 hours alone have seen yet another signficant pile o' improvements to Your Unity Experience (TM pending). Here's what we've just bequeathed you, just in case you haven't noticed:

1. Auctions now appearing on the front page. Yay!
2. Rejiggered The Awesome sidebar on the left to look sharper, give you more details when you mouse-over a story graphic.
3. Added a "Connect to Unity" box on the upper ight side that currently features links to our Twitter feed, the Capcom Facebook page, the Unity blog RSS feed (a game's journalist's best friend) and the Ask Capcom forum. We'll continue to add to this as nerds create more places to stalk ex-girlfriends online.
4. More stories on the blog page = less scrolling for you!

What's on the drawing board for the next year? Here are a few of the skunkworks projects that are slowly coming together:

1. Integrated chat feature. We're talking with a major software developer about integrating your Capcom Unity ID with their chat software so that you will be able to instantly yak it up with other Unity folks the second you hit the site.
2. Streaming video. Yeah, all of our trailers are neat, but imagine if the Whiteboard actually streamed video? Or if we hosted game nights where we showed off new titles early. Or instant video feeds from Capcom events like CAPTIVATE and E3. My favorite possibility is picture-in-picture video streaming for Play Against Capcom Fridays, so everyone in Internetland can hear me swear as I lose to you guys in SFIV. 
3. The official Capcom Podcast is in the works, a joint effort of dedicated worker bees in Japan like Ben Judd and the Capcom Unity staff.
4. Adding tabs to the Twitter box to loop in individual Capcom product Twitter feeds like @Claire_Darkside and @DarkVoidGame alongside the almighty @CapcomUnity feed.

Stick around, we're just getting started. And Happy Birthday to all of us in the Unity posse. I hope there will be cake.

Tokyo Game Show is coming up hard, and Capcom's getting ready to show off several new game, as well as debut features for some games we've been teasing you about for the last few months. Since most of you reading this will not be in Tokyo, the mothership in Osaka has taken the 21st Century step of bringing you a "virtual theater," The Capcom TGS 2009 Click Theater, which currently features some -- but not all! -- of the games that will be featured in Capcom's booth beginning on Thursday, September 24 at 10 AM JST.

Currently, Capcom's TGS 2009 Click Theater is featuring Lost Planet 2, the ultra-cute Okamiden, Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles, new DS title Ghost Trick and the DS Mega Man Battle Network remake. Keep in mind, some of these games have only been announced for Japan, and there are also a number of games that are mysteriously absent from this list. More to come!