EasilySatisfied
Neo Member
Just get it off amazon Mr Comets, local warranty is overrated
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SingaporeGAF |OT| Home to Olympic gold
- Thread starter ElyrionX
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Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
So I'll be back to my Homeland for awhile! Haven't been back in ages.
What's a good place for Comic anime stuff in Singapore now?
What's a good place for Comic anime stuff in Singapore now?
SolidusDave
Member
uhm... certain websites are no longer blocked. Accident or changes for the better?
what!
SolidusDave
Member
nvm, back to normal now... Starhub fiber FYI.
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
Seems to be.
They change it I think but it maybe still blocked but now if you change your dns to Google you can access to those certain websites.
vonStirlitz
Unconfirmed Member
So, how does Singapore GAF feel about the TPP?
Seems to me that we are in a right pickle.
Basically, the Govt spent several years negotiating something that never came to fruition.
We have the potential withdrawal of the US from Asia, and we haven't really been impressing the PRC in recent years, but they will clearly fill the vacuum. I mean, witness what is going on in Manilla and KL.
And we have our homeboy LHL lecturing the US in recent years. Only, we now have a US president that hates being lectured to by technocrats.
I always thought that Singapore managed to achieve a lot by managing to dance with every girl at the ball and leave them wanting more, rather than getting pissy with us. But now, our main dance partner has left, and the other one is looking at us with angry eyes. Right?
Seems to me that we are in a right pickle.
Basically, the Govt spent several years negotiating something that never came to fruition.
We have the potential withdrawal of the US from Asia, and we haven't really been impressing the PRC in recent years, but they will clearly fill the vacuum. I mean, witness what is going on in Manilla and KL.
And we have our homeboy LHL lecturing the US in recent years. Only, we now have a US president that hates being lectured to by technocrats.
I always thought that Singapore managed to achieve a lot by managing to dance with every girl at the ball and leave them wanting more, rather than getting pissy with us. But now, our main dance partner has left, and the other one is looking at us with angry eyes. Right?
The US is not even the second most important trading partner for Singapore. Our most important export partners are Hong Kong plus China (~$67 billion), Malaysia (~27.4) and indonesia (~$25 Billion). I believe if you look as the rest of the nations in SEA, the important trading partners will mostly be asia. I believe the TPP will be of lower relevance with time. Singapore is also probably better off using the resources they acquired over the years to develop some alternative competitive advantage to maintain our relative position in SEA.
Also, this idea that we negotiated for years for the TPP is false. The TPP was never a Singaporean initiative, we are just one of the first signatories. Our input to the TPP is zero other than agreeing to be a member. The TPP is an american initiative, so it is too bad it didn't work out. The idea that we have any influence in the decisions of the US and China is just laughable. Our "lecturing", which really amounts to nothing more than an offhand statement or 2 reported in the local media is not something to be be concerned about.
Chaos2Frozen
Member
Correct me if I'm wrong because I probably am, but seeing as how almost everyone around us is currently stirring trouble, I think our reputation as a stable country in Asia would still be attractive to a lot of western countries.
I do think western countries will be of decreasing relevance to us as we go forward. South east asia will increasingly pivot their attention towards India and China, as that is where the centre of gravity of humanity is, not the west. Singapore should not be a partisan player, and just take advantage of whatever comes in my opinion. So I think if that is the direction the world is following, we should adapt to it and go along in that direction as well. I just feel that is is most important that we make Singapore an attractive location for investment by Chinese and in the future, indian companies, as they will be growing from strength to strength.
Chaos2Frozen
Member
Would China try to force their way with us? We all know how they can be when they really really want something...
clay_ghost
Member
Our stability will still set us apart from the others to China. Of course I think China won't be stupid and not take advantage of instability in the region to increase its influence, but having Singapore as a stable constant should also help.
There is absolutely no way we can do anything if china chooses to force their way with us.
I think it is unrealistic to think that the Americans will come to our aid against a force like China. Against a much weaker foe, maybe but china, it's just not going to happen. Better to make a strong ally of China now.
The problem is I think our stability is an advantage yes, but it is not necessarily a sustainable one. Betting that other countries around us will fail I think is a dangerous game to play. We need to develop some kind of comparative advantage by investing the resources that the nation has acquired during the good years to protect our position.
clay_ghost
Member
i think we pissed China off lol....
So how is the music scene in Singapore? I'm from California and my band is on tour in the Philippines and our bass player'should friend is from here and said he has a ton of connections and has toured Singapore a lot and wants to get us sponsors and fly us out there. I never even thought about touring there beforez but the thought is exciting me.
Hard to say really. The esplanade has performers from all sorts of different genres, but I think the people here tend to stick to pop music. you also need to be aware that singaporeans tend to avoid emotional outbursts publicly, so you will not get much of an response from the audience beyond clapping. Many performers have complained about this, but that is just cultural.
SolidusDave
Member
Kinda hijacking this: From what I've seen&heard is that there is virtually no rock/metal scene here. This came as a surprise to me as I thought such a big city must have a big scene and that it would be convenient for bands on international tours to drop by. Nope.
No metal concerts... and I would be happy to know if there even are any metal clubs around here...
vonStirlitz
Unconfirmed Member
The music scene here in Singapore is small, but lively.
The scene isn't too developed due to a lack of infrastructure, as there are few dedicated venues and no big publishers, and the music going public is fractured owing to a lot of different cultural tastes and divergence among different ethnic, social and age groups that have different musical reference points.
As a result, there is no coherent Singaporean music scene, and most of the big events are gigs by overseas bands. Sadly, a lot of live music is provided by Filipino cover bands, and although they are really talented, it is derivative cover music, and squeezes out a lot of the economy and space for local groups.
However, there is a high level of quality among local bands.
In terms of rock and metal, one of the biggest names is the Observatory, who have a dark post-rock sound and have given rise to all sort of side projects. There is also a tiny, but really lively, thrash/screamo/punk scene, with small gigs in random places. You really have to seek it out though.
Electropop is also big. Some fantastic local groups like R!ot in Magenta, .gif and the analog girl. They are all really high quality and often outshine overseas groups.
There is also a good indie scene, which probably arises from Singapore's massive hipster community, such as Charlie Lim and Tomgirl.
As for other stuff, there are some big or growing Chinese singers, the biggest name being Stephanie Sun who is huge in China. There is also a fantastic sixties heritage of rock and roll and ye-ye bands.
Huge vinyl community, with lots of good shops. Also some good festivals and they generally have some of the best talent out there.. In fact, I'm off to Neon Lights today and looking forward to seeing George Clinton, Sigur Ros, BadBadNotGood and Jose Gonzales among others. And we had Foals here yesterday.
The scene isn't too developed due to a lack of infrastructure, as there are few dedicated venues and no big publishers, and the music going public is fractured owing to a lot of different cultural tastes and divergence among different ethnic, social and age groups that have different musical reference points.
As a result, there is no coherent Singaporean music scene, and most of the big events are gigs by overseas bands. Sadly, a lot of live music is provided by Filipino cover bands, and although they are really talented, it is derivative cover music, and squeezes out a lot of the economy and space for local groups.
However, there is a high level of quality among local bands.
In terms of rock and metal, one of the biggest names is the Observatory, who have a dark post-rock sound and have given rise to all sort of side projects. There is also a tiny, but really lively, thrash/screamo/punk scene, with small gigs in random places. You really have to seek it out though.
Electropop is also big. Some fantastic local groups like R!ot in Magenta, .gif and the analog girl. They are all really high quality and often outshine overseas groups.
There is also a good indie scene, which probably arises from Singapore's massive hipster community, such as Charlie Lim and Tomgirl.
As for other stuff, there are some big or growing Chinese singers, the biggest name being Stephanie Sun who is huge in China. There is also a fantastic sixties heritage of rock and roll and ye-ye bands.
Huge vinyl community, with lots of good shops. Also some good festivals and they generally have some of the best talent out there.. In fact, I'm off to Neon Lights today and looking forward to seeing George Clinton, Sigur Ros, BadBadNotGood and Jose Gonzales among others. And we had Foals here yesterday.
vonStirlitz
Unconfirmed Member
Check my post above, but we do have metal. Metallica played here and GnR are playing next year.
As for metal clubs, check out Lithe House.
Chaos2Frozen
Member
Lol so true, it's one thing if it's people not familiar with us but I don't understand why our own entertainers still do it- It's just making things awkward.
Interesting...well my band is a 4 piece straight cover NES cover band, but the more rocking side of NES music. The response here has been pretty nuts and people have been overly excited when they have been watching us play. I hope he follows through and Flys us out for some shows. I always wanted to visit Singapore. I just wanna eat! I don't even know what Singapore food is like but I'm gonna crush every plate
Singapore has pretty good food, I think you will enjoy it.
Well there's lots of hardcore old school gamers here, that's for sure.
Chaos2Frozen
Member
You come to the right place.
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
Your band sounds quite awesome.
Chaos2Frozen
Member
Myanmar hopes to overtake Singapore economically in 20 years' time: Suu Kyi
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news...ngapore-economically-in-20-years/3330330.html
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news...ngapore-economically-in-20-years/3330330.html
So where do you guys purchase your video games in Singapore? Or does everyone just purchase US?
After the closure of Gamescore back in June, I found myself at a loss as to where I should go locally for my gaming needs. I was close to the folks at Gamescore, so I was really sad to see them go. A quick search tells me that Gamewerks is pretty close to where I live, but they lack an online platform and only have a FB page which, thankfully, seems pretty updated. They also updated their list with Gravity Rush 2's release date and LE, while Play-e still only has a placeholder date on their site (it releases in JAN'17, just a month away!). I've asked cus serv in their chat and while they managed to give me the Jan release date (which I mentioned to them), they had no info on the LE and were therefore not taking pre-orders for that. Now, that befuddled me because Sony announced the LE (which is the same as the JP first press, yay!) along with the release date back in Oct.
A huge frustration of mine when shopping locally is the lack of release news! Aside from Sony and maybe Bandai Namco Asia, Maxsoft(?), hardly anybody announces anything! Who are the distributors in Singapore/Asia? What are our release dates? The language options? Any LEs? Should I give up on Asian LE releases? I know they tend to suck, but take Nier:Automata for example. The US black box edition is costly, doesn't ship to SG and lacks the Recollection novels from the JP black box. I would have gone for the JP black box had it not sold out while I was contemplating my purchase. I can't justify spending that much money on the US black box because all I want are the artbook and steelbook (I will purchase the Nier live BD and so, have no need for the CD). So when I saw that there is possibly a watered down LE for Asia, I went searching for info on it. I couldn't find much.
Play-Asia lists the LE, but has not put it up for pre-order. The original name is 尼爾：自動人形 (日英文限定版
which is its name in Chinese but that JP/Eng LE part just adds to my confusion. Neither Play-e nor Gamewerks have it listed. How the hell am I supposed to make my purchase like this? How do any of you?
After the closure of Gamescore back in June, I found myself at a loss as to where I should go locally for my gaming needs. I was close to the folks at Gamescore, so I was really sad to see them go. A quick search tells me that Gamewerks is pretty close to where I live, but they lack an online platform and only have a FB page which, thankfully, seems pretty updated. They also updated their list with Gravity Rush 2's release date and LE, while Play-e still only has a placeholder date on their site (it releases in JAN'17, just a month away!). I've asked cus serv in their chat and while they managed to give me the Jan release date (which I mentioned to them), they had no info on the LE and were therefore not taking pre-orders for that. Now, that befuddled me because Sony announced the LE (which is the same as the JP first press, yay!) along with the release date back in Oct.
A huge frustration of mine when shopping locally is the lack of release news! Aside from Sony and maybe Bandai Namco Asia, Maxsoft(?), hardly anybody announces anything! Who are the distributors in Singapore/Asia? What are our release dates? The language options? Any LEs? Should I give up on Asian LE releases? I know they tend to suck, but take Nier:Automata for example. The US black box edition is costly, doesn't ship to SG and lacks the Recollection novels from the JP black box. I would have gone for the JP black box had it not sold out while I was contemplating my purchase. I can't justify spending that much money on the US black box because all I want are the artbook and steelbook (I will purchase the Nier live BD and so, have no need for the CD). So when I saw that there is possibly a watered down LE for Asia, I went searching for info on it. I couldn't find much.
Play-Asia lists the LE, but has not put it up for pre-order. The original name is 尼爾：自動人形 (日英文限定版
which is its name in Chinese but that JP/Eng LE part just adds to my confusion. Neither Play-e nor Gamewerks have it listed. How the hell am I supposed to make my purchase like this? How do any of you?Chaos2Frozen
Member
Recently all the game stores go under one name, it used to be called "Funzcenter" but now they're called "PlayE".
I very rarely walk in to pick up a physical copy anymore because I'm running out of space at home and I'm switching to digital, but when I do want to pick up a physic copy it'll be from one of their branches.
I very rarely walk in to pick up a physical copy anymore because I'm running out of space at home and I'm switching to digital, but when I do want to pick up a physic copy it'll be from one of their branches.
I don't really buy physical games much anymore, unless they are for portables. Since Vita and 3DS games are pretty cheap and don't really have much to worry about in terms of bonuses and shit, I just buy them at TOG or whatever other local store that's convenient in malls.
I feel that between digital being so easy to buy these days, and the wider mainstream market growing, there really isn't much justification for local retail stores to carry expensive LEs especially for Japanese games. That audience has also mostly moved on to buying on the internet or just grown out of collecting big expensive boxes because there's no space for them and the LE offerings and franchises these days just aren't as exciting or strong as they were 10-15 years ago.
There was a time where I would buy stuff from QiShan because they were super cheap and had delivery and stuff, but after all the surviving stores islandwide got eaten by the Play-E monster, I just didn't feel like bothering anymore.
I feel that between digital being so easy to buy these days, and the wider mainstream market growing, there really isn't much justification for local retail stores to carry expensive LEs especially for Japanese games. That audience has also mostly moved on to buying on the internet or just grown out of collecting big expensive boxes because there's no space for them and the LE offerings and franchises these days just aren't as exciting or strong as they were 10-15 years ago.
There was a time where I would buy stuff from QiShan because they were super cheap and had delivery and stuff, but after all the surviving stores islandwide got eaten by the Play-E monster, I just didn't feel like bothering anymore.
Templar Wizard
Member
PlayE so fucking expensive lah! they try t sell me 3ds charger in a bag for 25$
I used to go to Funz Centre at AMK a lot and I was quite chummy with the owner and he was quite reliable when it came to all these LEs and special editions. We used to talk a lot about the local games industry. I don't play as much games anymore these days and when I do, I go digital, so I've sadly lost touch with him. I have no idea whether he is behind this whole PlayE thing or not though.
Physical games take up so much space that I started selling off huge chunks of my collection on Carousell recently. I will be moving in Jan and can't imagine taking all this stuff with me into my new place.
Physical games take up so much space that I started selling off huge chunks of my collection on Carousell recently. I will be moving in Jan and can't imagine taking all this stuff with me into my new place.
I am mostly moving to digital but for series that I really like, I still purchase physical and/or LE. I've managed the past 5 or 6 months because I've been either buying digital or buying JP releases straight off Amazon. TLG, GR2 and Nier are some of the games I would really like to have physically so I looked into buying them locally. I was planning to go JP with some of them but eh... like I said, the JP black box sold out so I tried looking into local options. Don't give a shit about the figure but I really want the novel, artbook and steelbook.
The lack of information about releases isn't something new though. I've always hated how our main avenue of finding out about releases is through stores and their suppliers. I guess I've gotten a little too used to how the Japanese have information on every little thing on their sites.
The lack of information about releases isn't something new though. I've always hated how our main avenue of finding out about releases is through stores and their suppliers. I guess I've gotten a little too used to how the Japanese have information on every little thing on their sites.
clay_ghost
Member
Like most, I gave up on local retails store after playe took over. Only will purchase when there is a sales event going on or I have some gifts cards for the mall. Let's hope the local Amazon does well in term or price or hope that it does not kill off the free shipping From US...
Not sure about this news but apparently Qisahn is leaving PLAYe?
The free shipping from Amazon is slow though... As someone who is buying JP Nier just to get the game 2 weeks earlier, I don't think I can wait that long... if it's a game on my backlog then sure.. but games I anticipate? I just can't..
Huh, interesting. Wonder what will come out of that.
As for Amazon Japan, there is no free shipping but it's really fast. My Garo movie blu-ray shipped on Friday, arrived today.
Yea Amazon Japan is fast. Usually next day delivery for me. Odd thing is DHL even delivers on Sundays sometimes.
He better hire better staff. Their customer service and attitude is fucking terrible.
PlayE might be expensive but nothing beats that famicom store in parkway parade in terms of highway robbery and deceitfulness.
Yup the Family-com stores are run by thugs. I remember seeing them selling Disney infinity toys at 1.5 to 2 times the standard retail price. Since building a gaming PC 2 years back, I've gone 90% digital. But in the rare occasion that I do buy physical, I'll head to Gamemartz Bishan or Ang Mo Kio PlayE.
Anyone knows what happened to the Aunty and Uncle who used to run Funzcentre? I've patronised their stall way back since they were located at broadway/near Jubilee, and hope they at least got a decent deal selling the biz to PlayE.
Anyone knows what happened to the Aunty and Uncle who used to run Funzcentre? I've patronised their stall way back since they were located at broadway/near Jubilee, and hope they at least got a decent deal selling the biz to PlayE.
Funzcentre uncle and auntie are behind PlayE, I believe. You don't see them anymore because they are operating out of their corporate office.
Ah - wouldn't be surprised if they were the brains behind the whole thing.
The uncle and aunty are fierce business folks back in those day.
They have everything that was "in" at that time.
Chaos2Frozen
Member
http://www.bbc.com/news/education-38173237
I can't imagine it being for all schools, but credit where credits due at least they're trying to move away from the spartan days that I'm sure we all experienced in some form or another lol
I can't imagine it being for all schools, but credit where credits due at least they're trying to move away from the spartan days that I'm sure we all experienced in some form or another lol
Used to buy EVERYTHING from his store back when he was actually manning the store and sending out emails by himself. The bigger his store got, the worse his (staff's) customer service got. Went fully digital back when PS+ started and never looked back.
BUT... I went back to the store a few weeks back to get something cause it was hard to find anywhere else, and his staff were actually pretty chill and well-informed. It's definitely improved. Reminded me of the good old days.
Oh, not that it matters to me (fully digital person) but hopefully his prices go back down with him leaving Play E.
Oh man. I found out about it a few days before it happened. I would have sold my kidneys for resale tickets, but found out that Uematsu wasn't there, so I kept my kidneys.
ChasingComets
Member
If you're a fan of Yoko Shimomura, there's the Kingdom Hearts tour coming for the first time next year in May as well. Last I checked tickets are still available, but I'm not sure for how much longer.
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