[As originally seen on Japanator]
This is the worst news I have ever had to report.
For three years, SCEJ’s Mainichi Issho has been a free app for the PS3, and as far as I’m concerned, one of the greatest things mankind has ever conceived. If you play it, you know that the “game” is largely made up of a daily news show, which awards you points for watching. You can then spend these points on cool, often gaming-related items to pimp out Toro’s room. Well, not anymore, because Sony’s kicking the poor little guy out of his house.
As reported by Andriasang, Mainichi Issho (moonspeak for Every Day Together) is being replaced by a new app called Weekly Toro Station, which as you may have guessed, will be updated weekly on Friday nights instead of every day. That’s all just lovely, except that in order to rebrand this, they’re throwing my boy out onto the street. Instead of his cozy room, Toro will now take up residence in a dirty, vacant lot somewhere outside.
Oh, but the good sh*tty news? You can put him up in a mansion if you want to shell out $8 a month to pay his rent. You’ll be able to transfer your Mainichi Issho game data to the new app regardless, and you can still watch the now-weekly news show and access the arcade and so on. But unless you pony up ¥800 and pay for the “Platinum Member” service, you’ll be missing out on many features, getting the Toro Station show at a later time, and poor Toro will be homeless, with all your collected items and goodies sitting outside in the vacant lot.
Toro gets evicted on November 11th, at which point Mainichi Issho will be fully replaced on PSN with the new Weekly Toro Station app. Long story short? What used to be a free, daily service is now weekly and costs $8 a month for the full experience. To nudge you in that direction, Sony is yanking people’s heart strings by tossing Toro out on his ass if you opt for the stripped-down, free version. Classy way to treat your own mascot, fellas. Catch some pics, a video of the sadness and more details after the jump.
Heartbreaking.
So what are you supposed to do with all the neat shit you had in Toro’s room now that he’s kicking it vagabond-style? Tape together some cardboard boxes for a makeshift wall, apparently:
Toro and Kuro will still put on the now-weekly news show, only now it’ll be from the sad lot outside:
But if you cough up the ¥800 a month, Platinum Membership will put the boys in this fancy mansion:
Which has a nice fireplace inside, making the news show look more like this:
Now, is it just me, or is that the same goddamned room we already had, but with a bigger window? Yes, it is. So essentially, Sony’s taking poor Toro’s home away from him and charging you $8 a month to keep the little guy off the street. The cruel bastards.
Anyway, I’m sure there are maybe five of you who care about Toro or Mainichi Issho, but the point here is that a cool idea, which has been completely free since the PS3 launched, now costs money every month. Thanks Sony!
Now, a small tribute to my own pimp-ass room, which Toro’s about to be kicked out of.
Mainichi Issho is still available for free on the Japanese PSN until November 11h if you’re curious what the fuss was about. Does anyone else play this? Let’s see some screencaps of your awesome room in the comments if you have them. Just hit the select button in the game to screencap, and use the PS3’s web browser to upload them or email them to yourself from your hard drive.
