In an effort to "get with the times," Bandai Namco announced they'll be grudgingly moving into the realm of digital distribution with their upcoming Bandai Channel project. A streaming video service that will be rolling out in Japan in October, the idea behind it is to have a centralized distribution system behind their streaming video service -- meaning they take care of distribution for all different territories.

The service will launch in America, Europe and Asia next year, and my guess is they'll be drawing on some of the expertise from Bandai Entertainment here in the U.S. of A., who managed to do a rapid turnaround and broadcasting of Kurokami within 24 hours of the Japanese airing of the episodes, and who has already kicked off a fairly successful YouTube channel.

This likely goes hand-in-hand with their claim from April that they'll be streaming Gundam in 10 languages starting by the end of the year.

The reasoning for this centralized system has to be for a higher level of control over the files getting out there -- I'm sure the whole kerfuffle with FUNimation and One Piece had to jade some of the Japanese companies. They can't simply about-face and say they're giving up digital distribution, but they can have tighter control over who actually distributes the video. But hey, it's not so bad -- that means it's not the fault of the U.S. companies if the shows get leaked now!

So who's ready to hear "Let the purge begin" in Spanish?