Microsoft's Blue Dragon debuts for Xbox 360

Blue Dragon, one of two eagerly awaited role-playing games for Microsoft's Xbox 360 games console, made its worldwide debut in Japan on Thursday.

Around 200 people were waiting outside the Yodobashi Camera electronics store in Tokyo's Akihabara district to buy a copy of the game bundled with an Xbox 360 console when sales began at 9 a.m. Copies of the game alone are due on sale later in the day.

The first person in line, who didn't give his name, had been waiting since a little before 6 a.m. to purchase the game, he said.

Blue Dragon was commissioned for the Xbox 360 by Microsoft as part of its effort to attract more Japanese gamers to the platform and is at the center of the company's promotions for the year-end sales period.

The game was developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi of games studio Mistwalker. Sakaguchi is famous in Japanese gaming circles and perhaps best known as the creator of the Final Fantasy series, which has sold many millions of copies.

The game centers on a young boy called Shu and his friends. The characters have the power to control phantom shadows that mirror the actions of their masters. Through the shadows Shu and friends posses magical powers and super strength with which they battle evil.

The game costs ?7,140 (US$62) in Japan and the version bundled with an Xbox 360 Core System console costs ?29,800.

Microsoft commissioned several game studios to come up with Xbox 360 games after seeing the original Xbox do poorly in Japan. It got a cool response from consumers in part because of a lack of role-playing games, which are popular in Japan, and a concentration on the first-person shooter type games that go down well in the U.S. but not in Asia.

This time around the Xbox 360 appears to be creating more of a buzz. It beat its main rival, Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation 3, to store shelves by a year and so has been the only high-definition console available here until a month ago when the PlayStation 3 debuted.

The Xbox lead coupled with a more attractive line-up of games has given the console a boost. At September's Tokyo Game show gamers waited up to 2 hours and 40 minutes to catch a preview of Blue Dragon.

However, sales of the Xbox 360 still lag those of the PlayStation 2, which remains very popular in Japan, thanks in part to its low price. In the week of Nov. 13 to 19 there were 4,357 Xbox 360 consoles sold compared to 14,042 PlayStation 2 consoles, according to an estimate from Enterbrain Inc. The top selling console that week was the PlayStation 3, which sold 43,378 units after just going on sale on Nov. 11.

Speaking at a news conference ahead of September's Tokyo Game Show, Peter Moore, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, Entertainment and Devices Division, underlined the importance of these commissioned titles and said, "The more gamers get their hands on titles like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, the more optimistic I am about the progress we are making in Japan -- one of the most critical regions for our business."

Blue Dragon is destined for overseas markets but Microsoft Japan said launch dates have not yet been fixed.

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