kitsunebi

The Dengeki PlayStation letter variants covering specific genres of games don't really deserve their own listings and can truly be considered special editions of the main title. It could be argued that Dengeki PlayStation D (the one with the demo disc) should be a separate title, since the magazine is of secondary importance to the disc, meaning it is quite short and very different from a typical issue of Dengeki PlayStation. And as I said earlier, it could also be argued that Dengeki PS2 or Dengeki PlayStation Girl's Style could be listed separately (or later special issues like Dengeki PlayStation 3 or Dengeki PSP, for that matter). But in this particular case, I stand by my decision to list them all together. There is a difference between the prominently displayed numbering system of Dengeki PlayStation and the tiny publishing info that most mags use. One is meant to be seen and one is there simply because of legal requirements, but is made as small as possible so as not to interfere with what the publisher actually wants to be seen. Therefore, I consider the Dengeki PlayStation numbering system to be a more important one to adhere to than a mag where the numbering system isn't meant to be noticed. Here's a better example of where it might make sense to list things separately. This is from the magazine MegaStore, which as I mentioned before, I'm unable to list at the moment while I wait for Philly to figure out how to handle magazines with "adults-only" cover images. As such, I'll just show the cover logos. Here's an issue of the regular mag: original logo: current logo: And now here are some special edition issues of MegaStore. Glancing at these on a newsstand, would you make the connection that they were the same magazine? And a couple of others where the name "MegaStore" (メガストア） is at least part of the title: This is the crap I have to deal with. Not as successful as they used to be in the 16/32-bit era, but sure, they still do pretty well here. Books, magazines, and comics are a part of everyone's lives to a much greater degree than they are in America, in my opinion, and the internet is less of a factor in decreasing sales. While the USA currently publishes Game Informer and...er...that's pretty much it (aside from a couple of UK reprints like PC Gamer and the Official Xbox Magazine), Japan still has Famitsu, Dengeki PlayStation, Dengeki Nintendo, and Nintendo Dream as their main videogame publications. There are also a few titles aimed specifically at young children, several titles aimed specifically at girls, a few titles about mobile app games, and 7 or 8 titles about adult PC games. Not too shabby in this day and age.

It would be unlikely to have any specials that I was unsure of which primary mag they were a part of. I would either know, or I would have no idea they were part of a primary mag at all. With a large enough cover scan I can confirm a mag's parentage, but since the Japanese Internet is designed primarily to be mobile/bandwidth friendly, it's unusual to find anything larger than thumbnail size, which makes reading the fine print impossible. It's also perhaps a bit unfair to think of things in "primary mag" and "secondary mag" order. I use the term "special edition" since that's what the direct translation is of these things, but the way they're marketed and sold to the public is as completely separate titles. This is why any reference to the parent mag is usually so small and unnoticeable, since they aren't trying to convey that it has any connections to the parent mag. I tried to touch upon my thoughts on why this is in my original post - I believe it to mostly be a case of politics between the publisher and the newsstands to insure that new publishing ventures get a chance to prove their worth before leaping headfirst into launching new titles. And how does one decide what is primary and what is secondary? If I were to sort things in the order you describe, Dengeki PlayStation Vol.1-4 would be listed with the Dengeki PC Engine issues, and the first issue in the Dengeki PlayStation database would be volume 5. That doesn't seem right to me, since Dengeki PlayStation Vol.1-4, despite having been published as special editions of Dengeki PC Engine, have nothing to do with Dengeki PC Engine, aside from the word Dengeki, which just about every mag from that publisher shares. They were clearly released with the intent of launching a new, completely unrelated magazine. Perhaps there's a lot of red tape or expensive legal fees when officially establishing a new publication title, so publishers are hesitant to do so until they have a proven success? Let's say the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue was published on a monthly basis, and from front-to-back was nothing but pictures of girls in bikinis. Now let's say that the Sports Illustrated logo was nowhere to be found anywhere on the cover, and instead the logo on the mag, and what it is universally known as, is Girls in Bikinis. Remember, there's no such thing as a subscription, so no one is going to get one of these in the mail just because they subscribed to Sports Illustrated. No, they can only be found at the newsstand, where to all but the most attentive eye, the mag is simply called Girls in Bikinis. Why would anyone who didn't see the tiny print in the corner of the cover linking it to Sports Illustrated have any inkling that the two were related? They wouldn't, which is the publisher's intent. It's being marketed as a completely separate mag for all intents and purposes. I suppose the opinion of which is primary and which is secondary might depend upon which ones were successful enough to be turned into separate mags, but setting up a system based on exceptions just proves how overly complicated this is.

Well, you've all made a lot of fine points and given me much to think about. Thanks for the feedback! ... I guess the benefit of being the only person who cares about and/or is working on adding new titles to the database is that I pretty much have carte blanche in regards to how I choose to do it. And to that end, I guess I'll add Dengeki Gamecube next and ignore the official numbering. According to the tiny print publishing info, Dengeki Gamecube is a direct continuation of Dengeki GB Advance, and so following the final issue of Dengeki GB Advance (issue 8) comes the first issue of Dengeki Gamecube (issue 9). Unfortunately, there are only 52 issues of Dengeki Gamecube, which should bring the total number to 60, and yet the final issue is #75 according to the tiny print. That means that there are 15 extra issues somewhere in there - the mother@#$#ing special edition has struck again. The problem is - I haven't a clue what the missing issues are. They certainly don't have "Dengeki Gamecube" in the title, so it's pretty much impossible to find out. So since there's no way I can number everything according to the publisher's official numbering system, I'll just have to use arbitrary numbers starting at 1 for every monthly issue of the regular issues of Dengeki Gamecube. If I ever discover what those 15 special edition issues are called, I'll likely add them as a separate title(s). If anybody has any issues of Dengeki Gamecube that have in-house ads for their other mags being published at the time, let me know if you see anything that gives you a clue as to what those special editions are called. Thx, yer a pal.