<gigantic flashing lights>IT'S ALMOST OUT!!!</gigantic flashing lights>
If you've been living under a rock or you're a PC gamer only then Heavy Rain is basically the spiritual sequel to Indigo Prophecy, that adventure game. Other than the fact that the game has weird controls and it's for the PS3 only there are women with wet shirts and a fetish for origami. You play as one of four distinctly different characters and you look for, surprise surprise, a serial killer with a fetish for origami. Sounds a little cliched, maybe, but I'm pretty damn sure it's going to be awesome. I know a few people that are planning on getting a PS3 just for this game.
And it's out on the 23rd of February. Why am I posting this now, you ask? Because some awesome packaging has been released. I know there's probably a billion threads like this here, but this one will be differenter! I think.
I mean, look at that link.

I have not seen the JP cover. Nobody knows what it is, right?

The US cover is so bad compared to the EU cover. I'll probably be getting it about when it comes out. It depends when I can access my PS3 next. I loved Indigo Prophecy, and I didn't even mind when it got crazy towards the end. Omikron was also pretty decent.

True, but I'm hopeful. After all the EU version of ICO shared the same cover as Japan while the US put some horrific abomination. That and the picture on Amazon.co.jp is of an advert which is used the EU box art. But I can't find it listed on the JP Playstation site at all =/. Meh, if they use the US cover, I'll just have to find a way of obtaining a scan of the EU cover.

Any word on a PC Release?

I think this is going to be a Sony exclusive.

Wait, what? I'm getting confused here. (It's morning, go figure.) So you want to buy the game twice even though the JP version might have the same cover as the EU version?

Apparently the americans are getting the euro cover as well.
I like the special edition cover but it'd better not be too much more expensive since the only thing of note is the DLC code. I mean the origami is cool and all but it's not really SPECIAL and the poster thing is just another thing that would be looked at once or twice and then remain in the box. If there was a soundtrack CD I'd be more tempted

Not exactly. Ok, I have a standard def. TV, which unlike the UK (and possibly the US) means my TV is not capable of both PAL (UK) and NTSC (JP/US) signals. In order to play an EU version of the game, I need either a hi-def. TV, or a standard def. TV capable of outputting PAL signals.
Japan being Japan, doesn't appear to sell standard def. TVs that can handle both signal types, and the hi-def. TVs are stupidly expensive if you want one larger than your thumb nail.
So if I want to play the game in English (and the Japanese version doesn't have English included) I will need to import the US version with that abomination of a cover. If I have to do that, I want to buy a version of the game with the decent cover so I don't have to have that horrible cover destroying my retinas.

TVs are stupidly expensive there? They're getting pretty cheap for reasonable quality 80cm ones here. Is there a japanese ebay that you might be able to find a bargain on?

Gotcha.

Everything here is stupidly expensive. There is no such thing as a bargain (except in extremely rare cases).

Hmm, do you want to buy a lot of things that are stupidly expensive? Might be worth a bit of math to see if you can come to australia on a shopping trip

I have the Fallout 3 poster I got from preordering it hanging on my wall right now. If I had access to the special edition of Heavy Rain, it would easily knock Max Payne of its spot (the only reason I have a Max Payne movie poster on my wall is because I like the games, and Mark Wahlberg would make a perfect Max Payne, provided they made the movie well, which they didn't.).