October 13, 2008

As Microsoft's John Schappert, corporate vice president and head of Live, software and studios, said at the start of the Tokyo Game Show this week, Japan is still an extremely important market for the Xbox 360. So it was little surprise, then, that Microsoft's booth at this year's show was one of the biggest, and even less of a shock that they dedicated the most space to two of the console's Japanese RPGs.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope and The Last Remnant were the major stars at the 360 area, with the two games taking up the most real estate. Each game had roughly 30 playable consoles, but even then the wait to play was more than an hour in most cases.

Other locally-made games to be highlighted at the booth included Street Fighter IV, Winning Eleven 2009 (otherwise known as Pro Evolution Soccer 2009), and Ninja Blade. While Japanese-made games were the big focus, Microsoft also showed off several big upcoming games from international developers. Fallout 3 and Saints Row 2 were on show, although both were behind closed doors and could only be accessed by those over 17 years of age. Ubisoft titles were also out in force, including Far Cry 2, Prince of Persia, Tom Clancy's EndWar, and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.