Microsoft Outline New Titles In Japan News

Following a less-than-stellar debut in Japan on December 10th, Microsoft has outlined further support for the Xbox 360 in the territory with a raft of announcements including confirmation of several new titles tailored to the Japanese audience.

From Namco Bandai, Culdcept Saga will be the latest in the Culdcept franchise, which began on the Dreamcast, Saturn, PSone, and PlayStation2. A cross between a board game and a card-trading game, Culdcept Saga will feature Xbox Live functionality with the title's official website ready to reveal all on April 14th.

An exclusive Xbox 360 shooter called Project Sylph was also announced at the conference, though whether this is the next-gen title currently in development by cult Japanese developers Treasure, who worked on the Mega CD shooter Silpheed, is unclear. Game Arts, who've worked closely with Treasure in the past, are the official developers of the game, but a continuation of that relationship isn't beyond the realms of possibility.

Valkyrie Profile and Radiata Stories developer tri-Ace confirmed work on an untitled action-RPG, which will be published by Microsoft Game Studios, and the third first-party RPG for the Xbox 360 following Lost Planet and Lost Odyssey.

Speaking about Lost Odyssey, it was announced that a twenty minute long demo of the game will be available in-between summer and autumn 2006, although for now we don't know whether it will be released outside of Japan.

Further support for Xbox Live Arcade from Japanese publishers was also announced at the conference with Konami, Hudson, Namco, SNK, and D3 all following Capcom onto the platform. Exactly which titles will be released is currently unknown other than classics Pac-Man and Galaga, which were confirmed at the event.

We'll have more news on all of these titles in the future...