News: Raiden IV coming to Xbox 360, seriously

June 19, 2008, 01:29 AM

by joel, via Moss -
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raiden_iv_fami.jpgIt was mentioned here nearly a year and a half ago that Raiden IV would be released on Xbox 360, which was pretty surprising for all the reasons stated at that time. The routine leak of Famitsu pages has finally confirmed that the 360 version of Raiden IV is real and will be released in Japan on September 11th for 7140 yen. As evidenced by the price, this is a retail release, not XBLA. It has arcade mode, console mode with two new stages, score attack, boss rush, world ranking, replay functions and a model gallery. The article also discusses several display options – all virtually identical to the features in Raiden Fighters Aces, released back in March. This similarity has me very excited. Though roughly a mere 1500 people would know this (if the game’s Xbox Live leader board is any indication of sales), Raiden Fighters Aces is a tremendous package, probably the most full featured and presentation-minded arcade collection in some time. It’s not obvious how the confusing network of developers affected that game, or who specifically is involved in this one, but you could say the track record for Raiden on 360 is good, I guess.

So now an obvious game newsy type impulse would be to conclude that the 360 is the shooter system of this generation. With a pretty good selection already and Ketsui, DoDonPachi Dai Ou Jou Black Label, Otomedius and now Raiden IV on the way, that seems about right. It’s neat to know that as much as games change, shooters still end up on the least popular system in Japan. Somehow that makes me feel vaguely just a bit more comfortable with the state of the world.