Ever the eccentric, Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi went on stage at a video game conference and tried to tell the audience that video games are NOT the most important thing in the world.

We couldn't believe it either.

Standing barefoot in front of London Nottingham's GameCity conference, the obviously brain-damaged Takahashi alleged that "it would be impossible for us to be here... if the world was not peaceful." He tried to convince the crowd that real world suffering and problems were occasionally more pressing than games. "If you're suffering from poverty and disease, could you worry about collecting coins? I don't think so," he argued, unconvincingly.

Takahashi also implied, rather laughably, that things like recycling and being friendly were just as important as beating Halo 3 on Legendary for the third time. "I'm not trying to be the next Al Gore but I'm not sure if we could afford to have video games in ten or twenty year's time," the fearmongering designer said, adding that white is black and up is actually down.

After the confusing opening, Takahashi showed off a demo of Nobi Nobi Boy, thankfully distracting the audience from the problems of the real world once again.

Hoping that the Japanese have a better sense of humor than their American counterparts, EA has released a trailer featuring the previously-discussed "Big Super Happy Fun Fun Land" section of The Simpsons Game, which parodies Japanese culture as well as (apparently) Japanese video games.

Pardon the parentheticals, but the only game we see spoofed in this trailer is Katamari Damacy. Yes, we see Mr. Sparkle; We see the anime-inspired cutscene; We (unfortunately) hear the high-pitched "engrish"; But where are the games? Are we missing something obvious?

Take a look for yourselves after the break, and please enlighten us.

While at the Tokyo Game Show, 1UP was able to confirm with director Jun Morikawa that Beautiful Katamari would not be arriving on the PlayStation 3. But, fans of rolling take heart! Morikawa says that the series will "definitely be making its way to the console soon," just not in the Beautiful Katamari state.

So, will this be the Katamari that evolves the series at least a little bit past the roots established in the 2004 original? Well, what does your heart tell you? Because ours is walking away, shaking its head and laughing, which we can't imagine is a good sign.

[Via PS3F]

Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi will give a keynote address at this year's GameCity festival in Nottingham, England. According to GI.biz, Takahashi will also be showing off his upcoming title Nobi Nobi Boy.

Takahashi's keynote will take place Saturday, October 27. Festival participants include Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Freestyle Games, Travellers Tales, Free Radical Design, Mode 7 and Frontier; more details are expected shortly. The second annual GameCity festival will be held October 24 through 28 at Nottingham Trent University.

Should PS3 fans be sad about the loss of Katamari Damacy on their system? Not necessarily. Keita Takahashi – creator of the famed rolling series, ostensibly on a break from playground design – has just debuted a new game for the PS3: Nobi Nobi Boy. Considering "nobi" means "stretch" in Japanese, we can probably expect a game that does for stretching what Katamari did for rolling.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

Well, the title seemed sort of clever at the time. "The B[ack]log" represents one gamer's fight against that seemingly insurmountable and entirely self-inflicted obstacle, the ever-sprawling backlog of games that are either unfinished, unplayed or unloved. That's the "Backlog" part. After surgically inserting some brackets, it becomes "B[ack]log," a reference to both the blog format and the unique sound emitted whenever I view the stack of games I keep adding to every month. And every week, I hope to subtract at least one and ramble about it for a few paragraphs... if you don't mind. A review this is not.

It seems simultaneously appropriate and depressing then, that the first game to be ejected and examined (and then ejected again) is one primarily concerned with hoarding as much stuff as you possibly can -- We Love Katamari for the PlayStation 2.

The Prince of All Cosmos sporting his Katamari music player, found by Flickr user nuzz -- "not my doing, but hilarious," he writes. We didn't fare too much better in our admittedly brief search, but we did stumble upon an iRoll button with a similar image. It's green like Xbox, but that's probably just a coincidence. Check out the highlights for the weekend:

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While we fear the series has run its course -- and rolled up the shark -- seemingly Xbox 360 exclusive and XBLA downloadable title Beautiful Katamari wins us over for today's video pick. The extended gameplay clip looks nearly the same as what we remember from the PS2 until the camera keeps pulling back and the Prince rolls up countries and continents. That's a big katamari, full of so many dreams and so much stuff.

See the video after the break.

[Update: We shouldn't have doubted you, Ross! Gamespot has stated that the information in the article was indeed "total crap". Original post follows.]

As the extreme and possibly insane cynic might ask, "Isn't there already a colossal ball of junk on Xbox Live Arcade?" To that we answer, "No sir, but there soon will be. Although, Feeding Frenzy was a bit rubbish, wasn't it?" The destined arrival of Bandai Namco's next Katamari game on Xbox Live Arcade is announced in a rather blasé manner by the first sentence in Gamespot's hands-on preview of the title: "The big, huge Katamari ball of junk just keeps on rolling, this time with a new installment called Beautiful Katamari slated to hit Xbox Live Arcade in October."

The news sticks to yesterday's word from Newsweek's N'Gai Croal that Beautiful Katamari would be an Xbox 360 exclusive, and neatly contradicts previous XBLA portfolio manager Ross Erickson's "total crap - not happening". Something obviously changed in the months since then, an observation not befitting of the Katamari franchise, it seems. Gamespot's Brad Shoemaker labels the game as "more of the same," noting the presence of new levels, high-definition graphics, 4-player online gameplay and, perhaps most importantly, an original soundtrack. Despite losing momentum in terms of moving the series forward, we suspect there's still plenty to heart about Katamari -- especially if the price is right.

Striking a blow to symmetrical ball-rolling controls everywhere, Newsweek's N'Gai Croal reports that Beautiful Katamari's royal rainbow will extend only to the Xbox 360. He explains that an exclusivity deal is already "very close to fruition" and is likely to be announced formally at July's Min-E3 event in Santa Monica. The trail of digital crumbs leading to the deal seems especially obvious in retrospect, with Ridge Racer 6, Ace Combat 6, Eternal Sonata and Pac-Man: Championship Edition all indicating quite the chummy relationship between Namco Bandai and Microsoft.

With the Katamari franchise not being nearly as unstoppable as its clutter-collecting cosmic prince, PlayStation 3 alarmists shouldn't view this as the end of their fragile and constantly beeping world. That being said, seeing a distinctly, almost obviously "Japanese" game picking up Microsoft's system alone certainly points to interesting times ahead. It also makes completing the level that much harder.

[Thanks, Matthew]

We dug through doc18's Flickr album yet again for this Katamari mockup -- take note of Master Chief stuck in the upper right, looking very put out by his situation. Check out the highlights for today:

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No sooner does Japanese cell phone giant DoCoMo announce a new line of phones with tilt-sensitive controls then the game announcements come pouring in. Well, trickling in, at least. Bandai/Namco's You Are Gundam and Katamari Damacy will both take advantage of the phone's unique motion-sensitivity: the former by letting asking players to "[wave] the phone vigorously to match the character's movements;" and the latter by letting you move the eponymous sticky ball by tilting the phone.

While we're excited about the idea of new control schemes for cell phones, we're a little wary about the particular implementation being used here. DoCoMo's 904i series uses GestureTek's EyeMobile system to calculate tilt based on digital camera images, unlike the Wii and PS3 controllers, which use internal gyroscopes. An IGN review of EyeMobile-compatible 3D Tilt-a-World warns that the system fails "if your movements are too sudden for the game to translate" and that the setup requires "a well-lit area so the camera can get a good 'fix' on an image." Not to mention the inherent problem of keeping the phone steady on a bumpy subway ride.

Read - Katamari Damacy Mobile
Read - You Are Gundam

Namco of Japan has just opened the official Beautiful Katamari Damacy website. Unfortunately for English-speaking monoglots, it's filled with incomprehensible squiggly characters. There are still pictures to look at, though, and even a few screenshots of the game tucked behind the links (more in the gallery below).

Beautiful Katamari looks just like previous Katamari games with improved graphics and a few extras here and there. Both Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game have been announced (without a release date) and a Wii incarnation is rumored to be in the works -- Jun Moriwaki, director of Beautiful Katamari told 1UP that "the Wii is also one of our platform choices .... However, the controller for Wii is quite unique so being able to overcome the different issues will be the key."

Though series creator Keita Takahashi never intended to roll his Katamari into a deflated mass of has-been ingenuity, according to the latest Famitsu scoop, Namco Bandai is content to do so without him. As rumored, the Japanese publisher will revisit the katamari concept for a fourth time, now on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Director Jun Moriwaki has also expressed interest in adapting the series for DS and PC (using a keyboard), but remains reluctant about a Wii version. Moriwaki explained that Wii's controller presents certain difficulties that the dev team has yet to overcome. Update: 1UP has posted Moriwaki's comments about a possible Wii version: "The Wii is also one of our platform choices... However, the controller for Wii is quite unique so being able to overcome the different issues will be the key."

Dubbed Beautiful Katamari Damacy, this new version won't reinvent the sticky ball, but will super-size it. Famitsu reportedly displays a katamari growing to 10,000-km proportions (Earth is just 2,742 km larger). Beautiful will also introduce online play, likely featuring co-op and competitive modes. Famitsu reports that the game is roughly 50% complete, but still without a release date in Japan.

After the cake presentation yesterday, we decided to show off this Katamari cake Thomas Mannino showed us. Enjoy the video, be hungry, and check out the highlights for today:

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