japan

Japan loves Dragon Quest. The country's obsession with the age-old RPG series has rarely ever waned, and it remains an absolute sales juggernaut across the nation. Indeed, Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake has sold stupidly well upon its Japanese debut, shifting a colossal 822,000 copies. We don't...

We knew that it would only be a matter of time, but it seems it's finally official. According to Famitsu, Pokémon Scarlet & Violet has become Japan's best-selling Pokémon game of all time. According to the Japanese outlet, ScaVi has shifted an impressive 8.3 million copies domestically to date...

The first sales figures for PS5 Pro in Japan are in (thanks, Gematsu), and it's a very healthy start for the beefed-up console. In its launch week, the machine has sold 78,086 units, which is far and away the best-selling hardware for that period. This is a pretty impressive number, especially...

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake launches worldwide today across all major console formats, and while it's been met with an enthusiastic reception from fans, it's unlikely that its release will trigger the same scenes which accompanied the launch of the original Famicom version in Japan. The game...

Tencent Games subsidiary LightSpeed Studios has announced the establishment of LightSpeed Japan Studio, a new game development studio that operates across two locations in Tokyo and Osaka, focused on the development of original AAA action games. It is led by Capcom veteran Hideaki Itsuno...

LightSpeed Studios, the team behind PUBG Mobile and survival RPG Undawn, has opened a new game studio in Japan led by former Capcom star Hideaki Itsuno (as reported by GamesIndustry.biz). Itsuno left Capcom in August after over 30 years working on hit games like Devil May Cry and Dragon's...

A concert celebrating the 30th anniversary of Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals (known as Estpolis Denki II in Japan) is indeed scheduled to take place in Japan next year. Here are the key details: 1. Date and Time: February 8, 2025, at 2:00 PM Japan Standard Time 2. Venue: Ota Civic Hall Aprico...

A content creator named Ben Riou-Pollard recently went viral on TikTok for an unusual and heartwarming story involving a lost Pokémon Emerald cartridge. Here's what happened: 1. Ben found a battered Pokémon Emerald cartridge at a local car boot sale. 2. After unsuccessfully trying to find the...

Daedalic Entertainment is excited to announce that Shadow Tactics: Aiko's Choice, the standalone expansion to the critically acclaimed Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, will finally be available for PlayStation and Xbox players on December 6th, 2024! After a successful PC launch three years...

The closure of Sony's Japan Studio 'wasn't necessarily a surprise' to former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden. He explained that the studio had been struggling for a while, unable to produce a major hit game, leading to a "legacy malaise" where the team forgot what it felt like to have a successful...

The Sega Saturn is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and as part of the celebrations, Sega is reissuing the soundtrack for the cult classic action game Burning Rangers. The 2-CD set will be supervised by Naofumi Hataya, one of the game's original composers, and will include a...

For a brief moment yesterday, it appeared that Tomonobu Itagaki's game studio had been dissolved. But fear not, the Devil's Third creator still has his dev team, albeit under a slightly different name (thanks, Gematsu). A company dissolution notice was published in Japan's government gazette...

Palworld is now available on PS5 in Japan. The game successfully launched on Sony's console last week in most regions, but it was indefinitely delayed in the country, likely due to complications surrounding Nintendo's ongoing lawsuit. Developer Pocket Pair has confirmed its game is now...

Inevitably, pre-orders for the limited edition 30th Anniversary PS5 Pro are being flogged for a huge markup on auction sites like eBay. But in Japan specifically Sony is fighting back by requiring 30 hours of PS5 and PS4 playtime since 14th February, 2014. If you haven't logged that amount of...

Introduction: This is a recreation of the debug menu used in the development of Gyakuten Saiban 1 (Japan) which is found partly intact in a 2005 PC port and mostly functional in a 2008 PC port of the game. After having decompiled a significant amount of code from the GBA versions of Gyakuten...

The latest weekly Japanese gaming charts have arrived, and it seems Sony is still struggling in its homeland. The good news is that Astro Bot is holding fairly steady in the physical software chart, currently in third place. The less good news is that it's only managed 28,521 copies to date; the...

Street Fighter II is a fantastic video game, but even the most ardent fan would be hard-pressed to argue that it offers a balanced view on cultural stereotypes – but hey! – it was made in the '90s, and having an Indian yogi with shrunken skulls around his neck was almost acceptable back then...

Edia's 'Tenshi No Uta Collection' was released yesterday on the Nintendo Switch eShop in Japan, as planned. As stated below, this new compilation release is the latest in the company's ongoing Telenet Revive series and contains the first two Tenshi no Uta games — Tenshi no Uta and Tenshi no Uta...

The latest chart data is here courtesy of Famitsu, and to be honest, it's been a bit of a quiet week. At the top, we've got Touhou Danmaku Kagura: Phantasia Lost for the Switch with a total of 16,631 sales during its debut week, while the PS5's Astro Bot nabs second place with a total of...

Cosmo Machia has announced via a new trailer that the expanded version of the arcade shoot 'em up TriggerHeart Exelica, Triggerheart Exelica Enhanced, will be coming to Switch in Japan in early 2025 (thanks Gematsu for the spot!). Cosmo Machia previously reissued the original 2006 arcade game...