The weather was hot and sunny in Tokyo on Wednesday, probably making more than a few attendees of the Xbox 360 media briefing wish they were relaxing in one of the city's many parks with an ice tea or cold beer rather than hanging out in the Cerulean Tower Hotel's underground ballroom where the event took place. However, the 200 or so journalists who turned out were rewarded with a dynamic and in-depth presentation. This briefing served both to introduce the new Xbox 360 games and peripherals that will be shown at the Tokyo Game Show and to fire an opening shot in Microsoft's bid to "relaunch" the Xbox 360 in Japan.

The event kicked off on schedule, opening with a video projected on a wide screen at the front of the ballroom. The video pummeled the spectators with a blast of load music and visuals that juxtaposed images of a martial artist with those of the Xbox 360 hardware and software. Though the martial artist appeared to kick the Xbox a couple of times, the overall impression was one of speed and power.

When the video finished, Microsoft Japan's Xbox czar, Takashi Sensui (pictured above), welcomed attendees. His voice rising and falling rhythmically, he seemed to stutter or stumble over his own words as he delivered the opening comments. Not to say that he seemed unsure of himself; rather, he appeared to become quite emotional as he discussed the Xbox and its community of users. "The first thing I want to say is that since its launch last year, the user base of the Xbox 360, which we can say constitutes a single global community, has been steadily and greatly increasing. Microsoft is on target to ship 10 million units worldwide by the end of this year." He hoped this might indicate Microsoft is doing something right, even if Japan sales have been a bit sluggish so far.


Swanky.Speaking of which, Sensui did not directly mention the Xbox 360's hitherto spotty Japan-side performance. Rather, he focused on the future. "The [Xbox 360] is approaching a turning point in its growth in the Japanese market. From now on, evolution in next-generation games will require qualitative changes." The kinds of changes he meant are outlined in Microsoft's new marketing campaign for the system. This campaign consists of three components, as suggested by the advertising slogan: "do! do! do!" The three "do's" are "do! Game," "do! Choice," and "do! Live," and it's on these three pillars that Microsoft hopes to build a foundation for success in Japan.

Sensui said the Xbox will have "the strongest lineup in history...Over 100 titles, including those for Live Arcade are planned for Japan." Regarding the "choice" aspect, Sensui touted the Xbox's personalization features, both in terms of hardware configurations and online profiles. "[The Xbox] offers flexibility found in no other console," he said. As for Xbox Live, he remarked that it was building a "brighter, more social environment" for gamers.

Corporate vice president of interactive entertainment business, entertainment, and devices division Peter Moore also stepped in to talk a little more about Microsoft's Japan strategy. Key to this will be "redefining the way Japanese gamers think about games" and producing more content "by Japanese developers for Japanese gamers." This will include 50 titles that will be exclusively for Japan, though he did not mention how these are divided up between Live Arcade and retail games. He also stressed that of the 110 titles to be released in Japan, fully 70 will be produced by Japanese developers. He further emphasized that Microsoft's strategy is global in scope, with the Xbox 360 slated to roll out in India later this week and in South Africa next week. Moore also introduced five new Xbox Live Arcade titles: Yie Ar Kung Fu, Gyruss, Rush 'n Attack, Ms. Pac Man, and New Rally X. Yie Ar Kung Fu will be exclusive to Japan.


MS gets the ballroom in the basement.It was in this context that Peter Moore announced the first-ever World Pac-Man Championships. The championship will pit the top 10 Xbox Live players against each other sometime in 2007. Details, such as the venue and date, are still TBA. During Moore's presentation, Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani made a surprise visit. When asked about his thoughts on his creation, Iwatani said, "I hope that Pac-Man will become a new communication tool that transcends generations."

Some video presentations of upcoming third-party games were also shown. First off, the DOA Extreme 2 trailer treated attendees to a titillating display of prancing female characters from Tecmo's Dead or Alive franchise. Following the five or so minutes of bouncing and jiggling, Sensui simply said "I have nothing further to add," to the amusement of the audience.

Footage of Lost Planet and a first look at Trusty Bell, an animelike Japanese role-playing game, were also shown. Infinite Undiscovery also got a brief plug but unfortunately no visuals. However, the centerpiece of the game videos was live demos of Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, ...

THQ's World Wrestling Entertainment line of games is one of the company's staple franchises year in and year out, but it has also been the source of a number of lawsuits. The company is currently fighting a trademark-infringement case brought against it by the wrestler formerly known as The Ultimate Warrior and another from the WWE itself, which is seeking to have its game license agreement nullified.

Another legal tangle surrounding the popular series has sprung up, as last month a New York musician named Michael Tumbarello, formerly knows as "Vada," filed a civil suit against the publisher, charging that it used one of his songs in last year's SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006 without permission. Tumbarello claims that his performance of a song titled "King of the Mat" appears in the game in its entirety, and that THQ neither asked for nor was given permission to include the cut.

Tumbarello's suit says the musician notified THQ of his grievance in January of this year and demanded the publisher stop distributing the game to no avail. Now Tumbarello is seeking damages of no less than $3 million for copyright infringement, no less than $3 million each for misappropriation of property, violation of New York civil rights law, and one other charge referenced but not actually specified in the suit.

THQ representatives had not returned a request for comment as of press time. Attempts to contact Tumbarello's lawyer for clarification on the last charge were unsuccessful.

News via Gamespot ...

News via Gamespot

The days leading up to the Tokyo Game show have already seen the Xbox 360 Media Briefing, an event that set out Microsoft's next-generation console strategy in bold strokes. Yesterday, a far more low-key, but no less important event took place. The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan held a professional luncheon with two of the game industry's most knowledgeable experts: Enterbrain president Hirokazu Hamamura and KBC Securities research director Hiroshi Kamide.

Both are widely quoted individuals whose opinions carry significant weight among their respective constituencies--Enterbrain publishes the widely-read weekly game magazine Famitsu, while Kamide covers the game sector for KBC and is often quoted in newspaper and magazine articles read in Japan as well as the West.

The luncheon was held in an area of Tokyo which straddles the Marunouchi business district and celebrated Ginza area. This neighborhood is eccentric to say the least. Amid the buttoned-down, suited masses shuffling to work, one finds a series of bizarre cow sculptures, apparently placed as part of an art-in-the-street campaign. A Shinto shrine guarded by two stone foxes grace the front of the glass and concrete pillar that is the Yurakucho Denki Building, where the FCCJ's offices are housed. Further underlining the contrast between the two districts--or perhaps offering an attempt at harmonizing the two areas--are the lush green grounds of the Imperial Palace, located just a block or two from the venue.

About 25 guests, including journalists from The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg wire service and London's Guardian newspaper, feasted on sautéed salmon or more blue-collar roast beef sandwiches in the club dining room. Wolf Blass Bilyara Chrdonnay and Mommessin Cotes-du-Rhone wines were also supplied, possibly to encourage guests to freely speak their mind about the upcoming battle royale in the Japan game industry.

After the gastronomic activities concluded, it was time for a photo op. A number of bright studio-sized lights were focused on the two men to facilitate the taking of snaps. And then, with a few words of introduction from Birga Becker, moderator for the event, the gloves came off and the talk began.

While much territory was covered, the core of the conversation dealt with a topic on most gamers' minds--the three-way competition between Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony.

Hamamura fired the opening shots, opening with a slide presentation and speech that incorporated some of the vast raw data and projections the Enterbrain organization puts into its yearly gaming white paper.

He gave an overview of the Japanese game market, which is currently booming, thanks to traction from the Nintendo DS.

"With ten million units sold to date, this is the fastest growing console in the Japanese market," he said. "No console has ever exceeded 19 million units, but I think the DS will." The success of the DS may be due to more to an overall and evolutionally trend than Nintendo's genius.

Just as small, agile mammals replaced the enormous dinosaurs, Hamamura's figures show handhelds have been steadily devouring market share over the last four years. This share grew from 25 percent in 2002 to about 45 percent in 2005--before jumping to over 60 percent as of July 2006. But this sort of thing has happened before in Japan.

"You can compare this with the emergence of mobile phones," he said. "Mobiles have been growing while fixed phones have not. The shift has been from one phone per household to one phone per person." He also stressed that much of the DS's success has been due to word of mouth--players finding a fun game and telling their friends about it. Due to these factors, Hamamura said "I expect the DS to exceed 20 million, or maybe even 30 million in [worldwide] sales."

Hamamura then proceeded to dissect each of the next-generation consoles. He had a lot of praise for each, beginning with the Nintendo Wii, which he called a "sure bet" for the end of this year.

Hamamura believes the Wii will build on the word-of-mouth effect enjoyed by the DS to eventually reach ten million units over its lifetime. Showing a graph of project sales curves for the current Nintendo consoles, he said: "The growth pattern will be very similar to what we've seen with the GameBoy Advance." That is to say, moderately paced, stable growth in sales.

"They will at least sell double the number they sold with the GameCube." He also pointed out that Wii's advertising campaign focuses on the players interacting with the hardware, not spectacular graphics.

Moving on, Hamamura then lavished praise on the PlayStation 3, outlining its features and "unparalleled graphics." However, he was not sure that these would guarantee it instant success. "In a poll we ran, 50 percent of the respondents said they wanted a PS3. But when asked if they could afford to buy one, most said they would wait for a price drop. ... In the case of the PlayStation 2, the DVD player was a very attractive feature. But I don't think the Blu-ray feature in the PS3 is as attractive now as DVD was then."

Hamamura feels that growth ...

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Following on from yesterday's revelation that Microsoft plans to launch its HD-DVD drive add-on in Japan this November, Sony has offered a reaction.

You can probably guess how it goes.

Sent to Kotaku by SCEA's senior director for corporate communications David Karraker, it reads as follows:

"It's unfortunate that Microsoft's external HD-DVD drive will not enhance the experience at all for the gamer.

"Sony realises that to truly take gaming into the next generation requires a larger data format for both games and movies.

"PS3 uses the Blu-ray format for gaming, giving developers 50GB of high-definition storage on a single disc, while Microsoft's 9GB DVD gaming format is an obstacle for storing HD content.

"Furthermore, Microsoft's announced HD games patch is really just a compatibility feature - upscaling lower-resolution content does not make it Full HD (1080p), something that PS3 can do out of the box."

Microsoft's position, of course, is that it's wrong to charge consumers extra for a next-generation DVD format that only some of them will care about.

It's argued the point vigorously in the past, repeatedly asserting that HD-DVD will not be used for games, and has also pointed out that it views 720p as a better target standard for high-definition gaming.

For more from Sony, tune in at 2AM BST on Friday morning to hear what Ken Kutaragi has to say in his Tokyo Game Show keynote address, entitled "Next-Generation Entertainment Created by the PS3".

Perhaps he's going to play a video of their E3 conference. ...

Codemasters and Triumph Studios are getting excited about next summer's release of Overlord on PC and Xbox 360, in which you and your minions get to trawl through a fantasy world wiping things out and generally repressing people.

To this end they've been telling us about the degrees of corruption available to the fledgling Overlord. Obviously you can teach the local peasants a lesson and force them to bow before your might, but that isn't enough for some.

No, some Overlords will prefer to foster false hope in the blighters, driving off violent halflings who are causing them bother so they'll worship you as their lord and protector - and then putting the boot in.

For this they'll reward you with more than just cheers and exultation - they'll cower in your presence and cough up other goodies, as you walk tall among them forcing them to do your bidding and metaphorically stamping on their cats.

But, says Triumph's director Lennart Sas, it's not meant to be taken too seriously. "Our goal is not to shock with realistic blood and gore," he says, "but to create an entertaining world where people can explore what it's like to have absolute power but in an amusingly gross way, not sick and grotesque."

Indeed, you can even play it straight if you want. There'll be an unlockable achievement for finishing the game "100% Uncorrupted". This means not killing peasants, not harvesting souls from living creatures, not betraying the missus and not exterminating the occasional fantasy race. ...

Phew. It's all fine. The PlayStation 3 will be a roaring success after all.

That's because according to IGN, which has been rifling through the latest issue of Famitsu Weekly, Ridge Racer 7 will be among the games that appear alongside the console at its Japanese launch on 11th November.

Also on the list is everyone's favourite historical simulation of giant enemy crabs, Genji 2, while there's also something called SEGA Golf Club, Namco Bandai's Gundam: Target in Sight, and Konami's Mahjong Fight Club.

Presumably the first rule of Mahjong Fight Club is that you don't talk about it, which shouldn't be a problem since we don't cover Mahjong games. Although IGN notes that KOEI's Mahjong Taikai is listed as "November" as well, with Gran Turismo HD down as December.

Presumably there'll be other launch titles too. Tune in (very) late tonight for Ken Kutaragi's keynote address, when we might hear about some of them. ...

Microsoft's one-stop shop for everything Xbox Live, Major Nelson, has updated his blog with details of today's new Xbox Live Marketplace additions.

In short, there's not as much as yesterday, but you can see Fuzion Frenzy 2 in action for the first time, along with Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom (due out in Q2 2007), Team Fortress 2, and a montage of games running on Windows Vista.

On top of that, there's a Tokyo Game Show downloadable theme, and Japanese users can download a Table Tennis trailer, although obviously you needn't bother with that since you can already download a playable demo. Or, you know, buy it.

See elsewhere on the site for details of the TGS content that pitched up yesterday.

More Info ...

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After the success of the Ghost Case Ultra pack for Xbox 360 in clear version, Ghost Case comes back on 360 with 4 new colors: Blue, Liquid Metal, Pink and Green!

Heres more info about the Cases:

Overview of the product

This is the most complete 360 case on the market, with high quality plastic that gives the appearance of glass (nobody wants murky clouded plastic cases)!

This is the only case in the world that comes with a clear DVD drive lid, which actually lets you the DVD spinning while you play! Inside this amazing kit is also a clear fan tunnel, without this vital piece you wouldn't even be able to see your circuit board! This piece opens up the whole inside of your console so you can see everything going on inside (this also allows for your custom lighting kit to light up everything in the case)!

With this kit you really are getting a CLEAR Xbox 360

Specifications & extra information

COMPLETE kit includes:

* Complete Xbox 360 Case Replacement
* Includes Custom Dual Light Kit
* Clear DVD drive lid
* Clear dual Fan Tunnel
* Comes with Opening Tools
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