[Gamasutra rounds up recent reports on the Japanese games industry from local news site Andriasang.com, a leading destination for English-language news on Japan's game industry.]
In our latest round-up of Japanese game industry news not previously reported on Gamasutra, we look at the release of Silicon Studio's Orochi 3 engine, high
Pokemon Black and White 2 preorders, and the most profitable
Final Fantasy ever.
Silicon Studio ships Orochi 3 game engine
3D Dot Game Heroes developer and game tools maker Silicon Studio has released the latest version of its game engine. Orochi 3 went on sale today, and will be demonstrated at the Game Tools and Middleware Forum in Osaka tomorrow, and in Tokyo on July 4.
The all-in-one game engine is compatible with 64-bit environments and Direct 11 technology. It's designed for automatic porting to PlayStation 3, PS Vita, Xbox 360, and Windows. Orochi 3 also features 12 libraries (e.g. grpahics, physics simulation) and more than 40 development tools.
Final Fantasy XI is the most profitable Final Fantasy ever
Square Enix has revealed that its long-running MMORPG
Final Fantasy XI is the most profitable entry in the RPG franchise's nearly 25-year history. That's no surprise considering it's a subscription-based MMO that's already a decade old.
The publisher also announced that it's releasing the fifth expansion disc for the game, titled
Adoulin no Makyou, some time next year with new areas, jobs, and story content.
Pokemon Black and White 2 tops one million through preorders
Preorders for
Pokemon Black and White 2 in Japan reached 1.16 million copies before the game went on sale earlier this week. The original
Black and
White games also collected over one million reservations, and that went on to sell around 15 million copies.
Sales figures for the Nintendo DS sequel's first two days in stores should be made available on Wednesday. Gamasutra will make sure to share that data once it's released.
[This story was written with permission using material from Andriasang.com, a leading destination for English-language news on Japan's game industry.]