Wednesday, September 20, 2006 2:07 AM
by
johnporcaro
TGS 2006 Xbox Media Briefing
We just wrapped up the press briefing. Takashi Sensui, General Manager of Xbox in Japan, kicked off the week’s activities by hosting a press briefing for more than 600 global media and business partners.
This week, we’ll be showcasing more Japanese content, by Japanese developers, for Japanese gamers, than we’ve ever shown before. We'll be showing games that will boost the Xbox 360 software library in Japan to nearly 110 games by holiday - 70 of those created by Japanese developers. Many game titles, including Blue Dragon from Hironobu Sakaguchi, will be playable for the first time in the Microsoft booth. We’ll highlight spectacular Xbox 360 games including Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Dead or Alive: Xtreme 2 and the newly announced Trusty Bell, plus a bunch of anticipated Xbox Live Arcade titles. And for next year, we’ll announce a pipeline of great games that include the epic role-playing game Infinite Undiscovery.
To get a blow-by-blow of the media briefing, check out "live-blogging"coverage by Brian Ashcroft at Kotaku, and ongoing coverage by Christopher Grant from Joystiq, who is also rumored to be around. I didn't see either of them, since the place was packed with journalists. I was running around in the back snapping some pictures, which I'll share with you here.
The theme of the show was "Do! Do! Do!" Do Choice. Do Live. Do Games. At the show, we announced a few things:
The HD DVD drive will be available in Japan on November 22 for ¥19,800 yen (¥20,790 after tax). You'll have to wait a bit to find out when/how much outside of Japan.
The news of the show, of course, was the announcement that the Xbox 360 will support 1080p. It's true for movies with the HD DVD drive, and it will be true for games designed for 1080p. This is done through software that will come with the fall update. Shane Kim did some calls to the press, and he included Kotaku and Joystiq.
We showed gameplay and videos of Blue Dragon, produced by Hironobu Sakaguchi exclusively for the Xbox 360. It goes on sale December 7 for ¥6,800. On the same day we will also begin sales of the Xbox 360 Core System Blue Dragon Premium Pack to commemorate the launch of Blue Dragon, for ¥28,381. The Bundle will be available for a limited time only. The Xbox 360 Core System will be launched in Japan on November 2nd.
On stage Peter Moore intorudced the creator of Pac-Man, Bandai-Namco’s Toru Iwatani. He announced the first ever Pac-Man World Championships. The new Xbox Live Arcade Challenge Program will host the Pac-Man World Championships in early 2007. The top 10 players in the world for Pac-Man on Xbox Live Arcade will compete for the title in New York City.
Iwatani-san recently decided to retire from game development, but he will begin teaching game development at Tokyo Polytechnic University, a move that will certainly bring a whole new generation of game developers to our industry. To help insure that students of game development have the best tools in their hands, we also announced that four Japanese universities, including the one Iwatani-san will teach at, Tokyo Polytechnic, will adopt out new XNA Game Studio Express. The toolset will be integrated into the game development curriculum, including labs and games related research.
Speaking of Xbox Live Arcade, we announced more titles in development, including “Gyruss”, “Yie Ar Kung Fu” ,“Rush ‘n Attack” and Super Contra (Konami); “Dig Dug” “Ms Pac-Man” and Rally-X (Namco); Lumines Live! (Q Entertainment) and Fatal Fury (SNK; Japan ONLY). They'll arrive between now and early 2007, as part of the Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays program.
Xbox.com will be posting their coverage of the event shortly at www.xbox.com/tokyogameshow, and Major Nelson just posted the audio from the event.
More information in the press release.