Last fall, the Tales Studio died. Things were bleak. But chin up, Tales fans. There's a new Tales game in the pipeline.

The latest issue of Japanese magazine Jump has a teaser for the "next" Tales game. The article states, "Next Tales of..." and calls this a "next generation Tales".

There's not much info, though. The game's platform is TBA—ditto for its release date and price. All we know is that Namco Bandai Games is making it and that it's a role-playing game. At this point, that's all we need to know.

Tales [VIP]

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In geek districts like Tokyo's Akihabara and Osaka's Den-Den Town, maids in frilly dresses serve food and drink. Maids call their patrons "master" (ご主人様). But not all girls want to wear frilly drinks. Not all of them want to call patrons "master".

Sometimes they'd rather wear ice cream hats and hit people with plastic swords.

This is "10sion" (tension), a "gal cafe". Like maid cafes, it is staffed with young females and serves cute food. But unlike maid cafes, this spot isn't located in Tokyo's geek district. It's in schoolgirl's shopping heaven, Shibuya.

Shibuya is ground zero for "gal culture", which is spearheaded by fashionable young women often wearing cutting edge—or even outrageous—threads. For decades now, trend after trend has originated in Shibuya.

Those who want to meet maids, head to Akihabara. Those who want to meet geisha, go to Kyoto. But those who want to see gals, come to Shibuya. That's the concept behind 10sion.

To keep things "real", the staff doesn't use honorifics like maids. In fact, 10sion bans them. Instead, girls speak their typical informal—yet colorful—slang with customers. Gal slang is incredibly interesting and often clever, and it sometimes even enters the general lexicon.

At 10sion, there's cute food and colorful drinks, as well as silly games. The staffers are all Shibuya gals—one, Emika Kanda, is even a well-known model, who last year gave her baby boy a One Piece inspired name. She wasn't the first to do that!

Sure, the place is overpriced, with expensive food and drink. Online, many seem to think this is a "clip-joint" or just a "girl's bar", which is somewhat like a hostess bar. Because 10sion appears so keen to promote gal culture and offer a glimpse at gal life, it doesn't seem to be a girl's bar (even though it could be argued that girl's bars do that inadvertently, anyway).

The cafe is actually targeting visitors (male and female) to Shibuya, who are interested in experiencing gal culture. The cafe even has free gal workshops, such as "Experience Gal Make-Up", to help bring patrons up to speed. Come for the free make up clinics, stay for the plastic swords and ice cream hats.

Check out more pics of 10sion over at Japanese website ModelPress.

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Because, you'll pass out. While you might be keen to play another Kid Icarus: Uprising, game designer Masahiro Sakurai isn't keen to make one.

"If by 'lasting universe' you mean to ask if there's a sequel, the answer is no," Sakurai flatly told IGN. "We pushed a lot into the game in order to let people have this short yet deep experience, but the novelty of that would likely grow thin in the next game."

Sakurai brought back Nintendo's on ice Kid Icarus series with Uprising.

"For now," Sakurai continued, "my thought is that perhaps we'll see someone else besides me make another Kid Icarus in another 25 years." I'm sure that can be arranged.

No Sequel for Kid Icarus Uprising [IGN via Eurogamer]

It has been over a month since Kingdom Hearts 3D was released, and with no news on Final Fantasy XIII Versus other than the standard "stay tuned," Weekly Famitsu asked director Tetsuya Nomura in an interview if Kingdom Hearts 3 was on the horizon.

His response? "I'll leave that to everyone's imagination." Adding, "It might turn out to be a real curveball."

… Any more of a curveball than that answer?

ファミ通.com [ファミ通.com]

Optimus Prime? Lucky guy. The same goes for Spider-Man and Ultraman. All three won the Chinese lottery. Ditto for several bigheaded Pandas.

It's not that these lotto winners are shy. Rather, they're actually worried about keeping things relatively low-key after their winnings are made public in order not to draw unwanted attention.

As website China Whisper previously pointed out, these mask winners are being "street smart" because their winners can be up to tens of millions of US dollars. Fears of unwanted celebrity or even kidnapping exist, and winners generally think it's better to be safe than sorry.

According to Chinese news reports, some winners don't even tell their own family members and continue living their lives as normal.

While you obviously cannot cash as six-foot cardboard check, you can enjoy the masked winners in the above gallery.

20 Photos of Chinese Lottery Winners Wearing Silly Masks [Haohao Report]

Coming to the PS Vita this winter from developer Marvelous AQL, Soul Sacrifice is a dark fantasy action game (with an emphasis on the "dark"), that focuses on power, and the costs to obtain it.

In Soul Sacrifice, the player takes the part of a lowly servant. Imprisoned and waiting to be sacrificed by a powerful mage, the servant finds a mysterious "Golam Book." In the book are descriptions of battles between mages and ferocious monsters. By reading these stories, the servant is able to enter the Book and actually experience the battles within.

Inside the world of the Book, the servant is able to use powerful spells, but the servant must make a sacrifice in order to harness this power. The sacrifice can be anything from mundane objects like stones or wood, to parts of the servant's own body. The greater the spell, the greater the sacrifice necessary to use it. Too much magic, and the servant will either die, or lose their humanity altogether and become one of the monsters they fight. The game will allow for co-op play of up to 4 players.

As previously reported, producer Keiji Inafune describes Soul Sacrifice as a "true fantasy" that mixes real world truths together with the key concepts of "sacrifice" and "cost" into a magical world. Says Inafune, "If you are able to play without looking away from the ‘truth,' I promise a rush like you have never experienced before."

While the idea is engaging and the concept art is fascinating, I kind of draw the line at pulling my own spine out through my mouth to use as a sword… Maybe it's just me.

稲船敬二氏が手掛ける新作共闘アクション『SOUL SACRIFICE（ソウル・サクリファイス）』、PS Vitaでこの冬登場！ [ファミ通.com]

It's only May. I know. But I sincerely doubt 2012 will produce freakier 3DS box art than what this Kobito Dukan game unleashed.

As odd as this is, I quite like it. Ditto for Kobito Dukan, which kicks sand in the face of stereotypical Japanese cuteness—in a delightfully freaky way.

Read more about Kobito Dukan here.

キミの近くにもきっといる！？ [Gamer]

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Many Japanese game companies have crappy looking offices. Worse yet, they're dull. Nondescript. But as far as Japanese social gaming giant DeNA goes, these digs aren't half bad.

Heck, there are iPads on the walls. On the walls! The offices have their fair share of meeting and conference rooms, but also a chic cafe and a gaming corner. There are also English conversation classes—which are pretty cool, too.

There is also memorabilia of the Baystars, the Japanese baseball team DeNA owns. With its social games, DeNA has become incredibly successful in the past few years. These offices, no doubt, reflect that. They're nice. Not as nice as Level-5's offices (which are INSANELY nice). Still, nice.

Check out the lay of the corporate land in the above gallery.

株式会社ディー・エヌ・エー が引っ越したらしいので行ってきた！ [941 Blog]

From robotic vocal chords to robotic lips, Japan has made a variety of robotic body parts over the years. But one body part has always been noticeably overlooked: robot ass.

Not anymore! Enter Shiri. In Japanese, "shiri" (尻) means "buttocks", and this robot is a "buttocks humanoid that represents emotions with visual and tactual transformation of the muscles."

The goal of Shiri is supposed to express the "various emotions with organic movement of the artificial muscles". That's fancy talk for butt movement.

Shiri is above to tense up like butts are supposed to, and it is able to detect your touch, stroke, and, um, slap.

The project is the work of research Nobuhiro Takahashi and the University of Electro-Communications. Takahashi is also working on "self-hugging" rigs as well as some sort of kissing simulator

The above video, courtesy of sister site Gizmodo Japan, gives a breakdown of Shiri. Skip ahead to 2:30 for the hot butt slapping action. Boy, sometimes science sure is cheeky.

本物のおしりのようにぴくぴくと艶かしく形を変えるおしりロボット [Gizmodo Japan]

From robotic vocal chords to robotic lips, Japan has made a variety of robotic body parts over the years. But one body part has always been noticeably overlooked: robot ass.

Not anymore! Enter Shiri. In Japanese, "shiri" (尻) means "buttocks", and this robot is a "buttocks humanoid that represents emotions with visual and tactual transformation of the muscles."

The goal of Shiri is supposed to express the "various emotions with organic movement of the artificial muscles". That's fancy talk for butt movement.

Shiri is above to tense up like butts are supposed to, and it is able to detect your touch, stroke, and, um, slap.

The project is the work of research Nobuhiro Takahashi and the University of Electro-Communications. Takahashi is also working on "self-hugging" rigs as well as some sort of kissing simulator

The above video, courtesy of sister site Gizmodo Japan, gives a breakdown of Shiri. Skip ahead to 2:30 for the hot butt slapping action. Boy, sometimes science sure is cheeky.

本物のおしりのようにぴくぴくと艶かしく形を変えるおしりロボット [Gizmodo Japan]