Despite the early success of Fight Night Round 3 with Live Marketplace, developers still hadn't been fully sold on the whole downloadable demo idea last E3. Not the case this year, the Hedgehog's got ears on a massive list of demos that'll be landing on Live next week. Fore sure are Ace Combat 6, Blue Dragon, and Mercenaries 2, quite possible are Devil May Cry 4, Tom Clancy's Endwar, and Halo 3 single player demo!!!

Also expect a massive bevy of new games for the Wii to appear at the show; including new ones from Sega, Capcom, and Konami. I guess having no obvious competition in Japan has those developers hifting priorities. Oh dear oh dear, poor Sony! They need big franchises like MGS and FF to hit the PS3 so people will buy them.

Problem is a new rumor states that Square-Enix is actually holding back FFXII until the PS3's install base reaches a more profitable level, classic Catch 22! Finally Ubisoft will be showing off a new Prince of Persia title in limited form next week. Expect to be mesmerized all over again!
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Reports from Japan suggest that a demo of Sakagutchi-san's Xbox 360 based RPG will be released in a couple of weeks time...

It's already the most popular Xbox 360 titles ever in Japan, but it seems that Microsoft isn't letting expectations drops ahead Blue Dragon's release in the West this August. In a report from Japan's Famitsu, an "International Demo" of Hironobu Sakaguchi's RPG will be released over Xbox Live Marketplace from July 20th.
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Microsoft Game Studios today announced that the highly anticipated role-playing game (RPG) "Blue Dragon" will go on sale throughout Europe on 24th August for the estimated retail price of £44.99. Rated 12+ "Blue Dragon" will usher in the next generation of RPG exclusively on the Xbox 360, with a combination of realistic environments, anime-styled characters, unique battles and a deep, compelling storyline.
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Microsoft Game Studios today announced that the highly anticipated role-playing game (RPG) "Blue Dragon" will ship to retailers throughout North America on August 28 for the estimated retail price of $59.99.
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IGN:

Summer is said to be the worst time for gamers. The "summer drought," however, is a myth. Eyeballing the release calendar for summer (June 21-September 21) shows that there are several dozen games bound for stores in the next few months. And better still, many of these are quality titles. Don't expect to save your pennies this year -- summer is going to be big on Xbox 360. Just take a peek at our list of some of the biggest games on the horizon.
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Gamerscore doesn't get into the nuts and bolts of marketing, especially when it comes to things like awards, but this one is pretty cool.

They just learned that the Xbox team in Japan won a Gold Lion for the Blue Dragon 'Big Shadow' outdoor advertising at the Cannes Advertising Awards. This is one of the most prestigious award shows in advertising, so they're pretty proud of the team's creativity.
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"...The game has been rated "T" for Alcohol Reference, Crude Humor, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes. I suppose Hee Haw would be slapped with a "T" as well for that sort of content..."

Follow the link to read more.
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Microsoft has released a version of Blue Dragon with English subtitles ... in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Singapore. That's not exactly helpful for US and European Xbox 360 owners who are yearning for the role-playing game from Mistwalker.

According to Siliconera, this release of the game features Japanese and Korean voice acting alongside English and Chinese subtitles. And though you might be thinking of importing the title, Joystiq should warn you that it's region locked, requiring a console from the area. They're not quite sure how Microsoft has defined (and subsequently locked) the regions, but Siliconera suggests that a Japanese Xbox 360 would work.

If you can wait, Blue Dragon will arrive in August for the US and September for Europe.
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Mistwalker president and Blue Dragon producer Hironobu Sakaguchi expressed interest in online RPGs back at the Game Developers Conference. It appears that he decided to get a bit more specific on the matter at a press conference held today in South Korea in anticipation of Blue Dragon's 5/24 Hangul release.

According to Japan's Gpara.com, Sakaguchi had this to say when asked about a sequel to Blue Dragon: "We're in talks with Microsoft about development of a sequel. Specifics aren't finalized, but there's a possibility that it will be produced as an online title."
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During the Blue Dragon meeting at GDC it was revealed that the first downloadable content for the game was going to be a random dungeon creator. Today, Microsoft announced that this content update would be ready to go live on April 27th. The download will cost 300 Microsoft points, which is $3.75.
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May through August are normally not a strong months for game releases. Well, it looks like that won't be the case this year for Xbox 360 owners.

Startinging in May, a number of anticipated games will be hitting shelves. Hit the jump for titles and dates.
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If you're a bizarre anime-type, you'll be delighted to hear that San Francisco-based manga op Viz Media has acquired the rights to bring the Blue Dragon anime to North America and Europe. The license includes television, home video and non-videogame rights to the series that's just begun airing in The Land of The Rising Sun, and follows the story of young Shu who protects his land with the aid of his big navy ... » Read More

Akira Toriyama's anime series just made its debut in Japan on April 7, 2007 and a few days later Viz Media announces that they've picked up the rights to the anime and manga. Both will be released in North America and Europe, but a date has not been set. There is something else interesting in the Blue Dragon announcement, a potential release date for the Xbox 360. While there have been rumors about Blue Dragon possibly being bumped up, Viz Media says Microsoft plans to release the game in North America and Europe in August 2007.
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That's right, this blog header pretty much says it all! Xbox 360 owners in Singapore as well as other westernized countries can soon look forward to playing Sakaguchi's newest RPG masterpiece come May 22nd.
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CVG had the opportunity to interview Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. Check out his thoughts on how he'll try to top the world famous series:

Credited as the creator of Final Fantasy, which every stat-loving gamer has surely sampled in one form or another, Sakaguchi is now shaping a new series of RPGs under the label of his new non-Square studio, Mistwalker.

CVG recently caught up with the man to discuss the recently-announced English version of his stellar Xbox 360 offering Blue Dragon as well as Lost Odyssey.
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"At this point, there's little doubt that the PlayStation 2 was the clear winner of the last generation, beating out long-time champion Nintendo's GameCube and newcomer Microsoft's Xbox for the title. However, as we all know Microsoft is not a company to be easily deterred, and with their latest console, they look to claim the throne for themselves this time. Key to that plan, the Xbox 360 got a head start, plunging into the market a year before the other two consoles when all was said and done (the PS3, as you might remember, suffered delays, missing its mid-year launch in 2006). That fact alone, being the first next-gen console available to consumers, certainly seems to have helped the system, as even with only a handful of truly must-have games, it still managed to sell nearly ten million units last year.

However, now that the PS3 and Wii are both out on the market, this competition is really going to start heating up, and you better believe Microsoft is bringing it's "A" game. In the PS3 section of this feature, we extol some of the games heading to Sony's newest, but as great as those look, they are matched closely by the second wave of Xbox 360 titles. We got our first glimpse of this with the action shooter Gears of War late last year, followed shortly by the superhero sandbox title Crackdown, and soon we'll be strumming along in a port of the PS2 hit Guitar Hero II...and neither of the latter two games (Gears of War wasn't eligible of course) even made it on our list!"

Click for more
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GS: Will we see a playable demo on Xbox Live Marketplace?
HS: [in English] Yeah, we are making a playable demo--maybe for June or July.
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Yesterday we learned that Blue Dragon will hit the American stores somewhere in august this year. Today Blue Dragon developer Mistwalker announced the European releasedate of the game. Europe will have to wait a little longer, the game is set for a release in september, a month later. The game will be released in five different languages, which is also the reason for the small delay.
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Microsoft is having a hard time with its Xbox 360 in Japan. One of the small success numbers so far is Blue Dragon. Today the Japanese games magazine Famitsu announced that the game has sold over 150.000 copies in the land of the rising sun. With these figures, more than half of the Japanese Xbox 360 owners have bought the game.

The game is available in Japan since december, 7th. Blue Dragon is set for a release in Europa and US sometime this year, probably around the summer.
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Rough Translation (Sakaguchi Interview) from forum:
Blue Dragon has sold over 135,000 copies as of late.
Some rough translations of Sakaguchi part.

Blue Dragon

* It's "impressive" BD sold over 150k, considering 300k install base in japan
* he expected about 100k. though its sales is much slower, now he thinks it will be up to 200k around for LTD.
* He jokes that BD6 may be a 1m seller.

* DLC for shmup part, for those who find it difficult.
* DLC that enable to begin 2nd loop with 1st loop status.
* More to come.

* Now porting BD for other regions.
* 8 languages (English Chinese(2) Korean Spanish French German Italian)
* It will be not only subbed but totally dubbed. (some may depressed? heh)

Cry-On

* You'll see some of actual screenie in the near future.
* Manabu Kusunoki (Panzer Dragoon) is now assumed as main designer.
* Some of art design has been changed since last announcement.

Future Titles

* A.S.H will be come first, then Lost Odyssey and Cry-On.
* If there will be green light, he want to make BD sequel after these titles.
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