Tag: Japan tsunami »

Over 2 weeks later and it's still almost impossible to comprehend the terrible disasters that have befallen Japan. However it's been heartwarming to see just how much people have rallied around the stricken country. The games industry has been no different, understandably so considering video games' fantastic history within the country. SEGA did its bit offering a price cut to its Sonic the Hedgehog iOS titles as well as Football Manager Handheld 2011, while vowing to donate all the proceeds to the Red Cross disaster relief efforts in Japan.

Today, SEGA announced just how much was raised: an impressive total of over $250,000, all of which will be donated directly to the Red Cross in order to help the Japanese people.

It's fantastic news and will no doubt help many who are still suffering.

If you didn't get a chance to participate in this drive, you've still got plenty of time to donate something towards the cause. There's Play For Japan which enables you to either contribute directly or bid on various auctions for some great rare gaming memorablia. SEGA employees themselves have provided some great bits and pieces available on eBay at the moment.

Do take a look and don't forget to donate what you can to help the poor people of Japan.

To contribute to the Japan Tsunami relief effort, ChatTime has announced that it is temporally making all calls to Japan free until the end of March. Both AT&T and Verizon have announced that they are also allowing free calls to the country, but ChatTime is an app that can be used not only by people in the U.S. but people in countries all over the world.

For those unfamiliar with the app, ChatTime is a third-party calling app for the iPhone that allows you to call international numbers at a considerably cheaper rate. Rather than using VoIP, the app uses carrier networks, providing connection quality on par with your own carrier.

"[Our app] does this by making a local call instead of an international one, and then passing it through a private high speed network to the country of origin, where it makes another local call," the company told 148Apps in an e-mail. "In countries that incoming calls are free, the outbound call can be converted to an incoming one in order to prevent minute usage."

It's definitely nice to see more people reaching out to help Japan right now.