Passes for the 2017 Game Developers Conference are going fast, and today organizers are excited to higlight a few of the conference's excellent Japanese-language talks!

These talks are worth checking out because they feature prominent Japanese game makers sharing advice and answering questions with attendees in both Japanese and (via translation) English. 

Notably, Square Enix veteran and Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata will deliver a talk on "'Final Fantasy': A Challenger Once Again" in which he'll discuss what last year's Final Fantasy XV set out to achieve, and the multi-faceted approach that was taken.

Make time to check out this talk, because it's a rare opportunity to hear -- directly from the game's director -- about the challenges taken on by the Final Fantasy XV team, and the challenges they will face moving forward.

Plus, in his GDC 2017 talk on "'Nioh': Reinventing the Samurai Action Genre", Team Ninja director Fumihiko Yasuda will detail the game's development and speak to the benefits and potential dangers of opening an interactive communications channel with prospective fans during game development.

Nioh was one of the longest in-development titles Team Ninja has created. The game has gone through a lot of changes since it was first announced 10 years ago, and during the last stretch of development and before its successful release, Team Ninja decided to publicly test their chosen direction on a global audience.

By allowing players access to early stages of Nioh for a limited time, in the form of an Alpha and a Beta demo, they were able to gather useful information that help re-align their game development. Yasuda's talk goes through the key lessons learned from that exercise, the applications of collected data, the reception of the open communication with their fans, and implementation of the feedback gathered. So don't miss it! 

Of course, complete details on these and all other announced talks is available now in the online Session Scheduler. For more information on GDC 2017, visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.

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