The latest game in the Star Ocean series, スターオーシャン 4 THE LAST HOPE / Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope, will be an Xbox360 exclusive to be released in 2009, it has been announced.
The announcement was made at the Xbox 360 RPG Premiere 2008, along with some other announcements; the event seems to be a last ditch effort by Microsoft to rescue the Xbox360 in Japan before the bevy of upcoming PS3 big name titles eclipse it completely.
As with Tales of Vesperia, it is likely a delayed and enhanced PS3 is all but inevitable, at least if the valuable Star Ocean franchise is not to suffer damage. Via Famitsu – see a single screenshot there.
It seems some big money has been changing hands behind the scenes for these nonsensical JRPG exclusives to keep happening. What will it take to make Microsoft give up trying to make headway in the Japanese market?
Same opinion. I hope that with the ridiculous sales of So4 and Tales of Vesparia, Microsoft and their filthy accomplices will let we gamers play those fantastic titles.
As for the blockhead who looks down on So3, I hope I won’t come across him in the street!
If you ask me, Microsoft’s battle for Japan was lost the minute they announced Gears of War 2 would not be coming out in the Japanese market. Believe it or not, Gears of War was actually a sleeper hit in Japan with many retailers reporting they could not keep the game on the shelves.
Being passed over for a GoW 2 release is but one of many ways that western developers have shot themselves in the foot in the Japanese market. The latest of which being the Bowdlerization of the Japanese release of Fallout 3 (as you can expect, the quest where you can nuke a whole town was removed as was any depiction of a mushroom cloud. Nuka-cola also had it’s name changed.)These actions have been viewed as personal slights by the small but dedicated cadre of fans who prefer western titles. Western developers will continue to lose ground in Japan if they alienate their customers like that.
After the crap SO3 was…..Xbox can HAVE it
bzzt..wrong. SO3 was an amazing game. Maybe you didn’t like it but that just means it wasn’t to your tastes. What did you think was so bad about it anyway?
I would cry but this series has been heading down hill so I couldn’t care less.
Have they already fixed the ‘red light of death’ that terrors many of the console and render them broken? To make an exclusive game with that kind of problem is impossible.
I think they are just cycling through warranty stock…