Blue Dragon: Xbox makes a dent in Japan?

[JKTrix]

People lined up for Blue Dragon in Japan. The game is definitely appealing to the japanese folks, and this is a pretty impressive line for just one store (though it is the biggest store in Akihabara). That's inside Yodabashi Akiba, which I did go to when I went to Japan.

No wonder they're already working on a sequel, a manga, and an anime. If Microsoft has a hit, they may as well milk it for what it's worth since nothing else will probably be this big for them.

I'm definitely looking forward to this myself, both from the little bit I played at Tokyo Game Show and because I'm a fan of the creative forces behind the game. I'm quite interested to find out what exactly took up 3 DVDs worth of space in this game.

Check out this video of some of the special attacks you can pull off. I managed to do the first one when I played it.

[XxSephirothxX]

I'm definitely looking forward to Blue Dragon, and I'm interested about the 3 disc bit too. Like someone said in chat--there's either a whole lot of content there, or Mistwalker is really bad/lazy at compressing stuff. I'm not really sure how much spinoffs like a manga series are Microsoft's doing and how much they are Mistwalker's. You're probably right, thought--Microsoft hasn't been able to make much headway in Japan at all, and this is their first big chance. It's not going to change much, though. They'll just sell a few more consoles.

[Dreddz]

Yeah, Blue Dragon is one of the big reasons why I got a 360, Ill definately be checking it out. The game isnt going to make a big impact in 360 sales in Japan though. Its only one game.

[Yamaneko]

Five hours of FMV of course. Japanese love their FMVs. I'm not really interested in the game.

[RiseToFall]

Considering the Gameboy Micro is outselling the 360 in Japan, I really don't think Blue Dragon will do much. CLICK HERE.

[JKTrix]

At least during the first week of the game's release, there should be a noticeable spike in the 360's sales in Japan. If you didn't click the first image, there were a *lot* of people lined up in that one store to get the game. 360 has been selling between 3-7,000 units across Japan each week. If there are that many people in that one store, there could be a lot more than 7,000 units sold across Japan.

I don't think anyone thinks the momentum will continue for long, much less after a month. We'll see when the sales figures are released (Joystiq posts them on Fridays)

[Fatal Impurity]

This RPG sounds interesting.....especially with the return of sakaguchi to game making! (hurrah!) and loads of other creative talent on the mistwalker team....

[edczxcvbnm]

The space probably comes from having the FMVs in 720P and why not use a lower compression in general? You can get more out of the system if less processing power is used for decompressing everything. I changed discs playing Xenosaga and I changed discs all the time during the PSX era. I see zero problem with this.

[JKTrix]

I don't think anyone mentioned having an issue having to switch discs. It has to be more than just FMVs (that looked like they were done in real-time, like Xenosaga, and not pre-rendered like FF) that takes up 3 discs. Perhaps it's the programming involved and all the voice acting? Or maybe they are all pre-recorded videos, who knows. The FMVs look exactly the same as the rest of the game.

If this game includes the Japanese voices in the US release, that's more icing on the cake for me.

[edczxcvbnm]

When I was talking about compression I was not talking about the videos. I was talking about textures and things that are normally compressed to save space. I highly doubt voice work is the cause of 3 discs. Look at GTA: San Andreas. How many hours of voice work/music was in the game? I rest my case on the music/voice aspect of it

EDIT: Unless they are using uncompressed 7.1 surround sound...then maybe.

[Mirage]

Well, I guess it's nice that the 360 might get a bit more sales in Japan. However, I can't say I was too impressed by the trailers I saw at Gamebrink. I might have bought it if I already had a 360, but it's definitely not a "killer app" for me.

[JKTrix]

Well, the game is really selling on the name power. Even if people didn't know that the creator of Final Fantasy made this game with music from the Final Fantasy Music Guy, the mere fact that it has Akira Toriyama's distinct art style is probably the driving force behind the game's sales. Dragonball is still hugely popular in Japan (there've been over 20 Dragonball games in Japan in the last 4 years alone, apparrently), and Dragon Quest is the most popular RPG series, if not the most popular game franchise over there.

Still, the other names together with Toriyama are pretty powerful. The last time Sakaguchi, Uematsu and Toriyama came together, we got Chrono Trigger.

Famitsu gave the game a very good score (37/40: 9/9/9/10), Microsoft has been marketing the hell out of it, and from the 15 minutes I spent with it it actually feels really good to play. This is Japan's killer app.

[Mirage]

Well, I always really hated Toriyama's designs.

[JKTrix]

Well, here are the Japanese hardware sales from last week. Xbox 360 sales increased 772%! (lol)

Here are the actual game sales from that week. It looks like it was really bad timing on Microsoft's part. As popular as Toriyama is, the fact that the game is on 360 is still a huge deterrent to most gamers. So, when you go up against Gundam (which was highly, highly anticipated--this is the game I saw the most people playing in Japan arcades) you're bound to get smacked down. Though it's pretty impressive that they still managed to sell 80,000 games, garnering both the game and the system 4th place in sales behind some heavy hitters.

So perhaps MS does finally make a 'dent' in the Japanese market. Hopefully they will continue to push to have good games there...so we can get 'em here

[Madame Adequate]

Well, I always really hated Toriyama's designs.

...

I thought I was all alone