Team Ninja's Tomonobu Itagaki has once again professed his love for Xbox. He may have teased PS3 owners with Ninja Gaiden Sigma, but Ninja Gaiden 2 will be exclusive to Xbox 360. Other games confirmed at the event include Beautiful Katamari, Rez, Ikaruga, Infinite Undiscovery, Last Remnant and more.
The Xbox 360 continues to struggle in Japan (the console sold just over 11K units in August according to Famitsu), but that certainly hasn't stopped Microsoft from pushing on in the land of the rising sun. At an Xbox 360 Briefing in Tokyo in advance of the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) later this month, Microsoft unveiled a slew of titles from Japanese gamemakers, highlighted by Tecmo and Team Ninja's Ninja Gaiden 2, which will in fact be exclusive to the Xbox 360. The game is expected some time in 2008.
Microsoft also announced that Hironobu Sakaguchi's (creator of Final Fantasy) Lost Odyssey will be available on December 6 of this year in Japan and will release globally early next year (February 2008 for North America and Europe). Square Enix also showed more support for Xbox 360 when reps took the stage to discuss two new titles: Infinite Undiscovery and Last Remnant.
Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation and Beautiful Katamari from Namco Bandai were announced as well.
In addition to its retail titles, Microsoft focused on the success of its Xbox Live Arcade service, claiming that Japanese developers "have long embraced and championed Xbox Live Arcade." A number of new titles for Arcade were announced including Every Extend Extra Extreme (Q Entertainment), EXIT (Taito), the GameCube and Dreamcast classic Ikaruga (Treasure Co.), OMEGA FIVE (Hudson Entertainment), Rez (Q Entertainment), Triggerheart Exelica (Warashi), Braid (Number None Inc.), Castlecrashers (The Behemoth), and Schizoid (Torpex Games LLC), which is the first Xbox Live Arcade game to be created with XNA Game Studio.
"Gamers around the world can look forward to the greatest holiday lineup in video game history," said Don Mattrick, senior vp of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, who recently replaced Peter Moore. "We continue to evolve our strong relationships with Japan's best and most innovative developers, and we're looking forward to delivering exclusive high-definition titles for consumers worldwide, this year and beyond."
As with past shows, for this year's TGS Microsoft also said that it would once again offer its "Bring it Home" content on Xbox Live so that gamers around the world can download the newest videos, trailers, demos and other content that will be on display at the show. "TGS Bring It Home" programming starts on September 13.
by James Brightman
source:gamedaily.com
