It would appear that in it’s ever futile bid to woo the Japanese gamer market Microsoft is once again trying to wow the Nipponese populace with shiny new RPG’s. Sure there have been a few released in the systems lifespan thus far (Eternal Sonata, Blue Dragon, etc.) and some were from big names in the JRPG community, but now M$ is firing the Big Guns.

That’s right folks, Square-Enix is finally ready to play for real on the white box, which should finally answer the age old question: is the Square name enough to drive system sales? Of course one could argue that a true Final Fantasy exclusive would be required for such a monumental task, but in all honesty isn’t a new franchise more interesting?

Don’t get me wrong, I loved FF2 and FF3 on the SNES, and will never forget the time I spent in awed wonder at FF7 on Playstation. But beyond those the series took a sharp turn into the ho-hum department for me. FF12 was cool, but it just always felt like a few new enemies creatures or summon spells would be nice. S’matter of fact if the game hadn’t had the FF moniker I may have liked it more. And that’s really where I’m going with all this, Final Fantasy was a monumental franchise, and sales show that people love it, I myself enjoyed several in the series if not all. But I’m sure the talented minds at Square-Enix could do so much more with an original title, and now they finally are. Infinate Undiscovery and Last Remnant still look to retain that Square polish we all know and love, but finally create a new world and new adventures to play in. In all honesty I’m sure, like almost any Japanese developed RPG, it will have some cliche attributes. But if their desire is to target the Japanese consumer first and the RPG fan in the US next then that’s fine. Beyond the two Square studio titles, their Enix half is bringing out a Star Ocean offering, and Namco continues to show the love with Tales of Vesparia (with a system bundle in Japan.)

All in all it’s a great offering on the 360’s behalf to get a lineup like that, exclusive or not, it shows that they are trying to cater to that market as best they can. And hopefully having some heavy hitters like Square-Enix and Namco give continued support to the platform will encourage other Japanese Devs to follow suit. At the end of the day Microsoft has still sold enough systems worldwide to remain a major player in the ongoing system wars, but I’m sure they would love to add that elusive Japanese demographic to their list of victories for bragging rights.