makoto-asada
Latest
Xbox One rises in Japan on September 4
Microsoft is bringing the Xbox One to Japan on September 4, some ten months after the console first hit store shelves in North America and Europe. Systems with or without Kinect are available at launch, with the peripheral-less unit priced 39,980 yen (around $392). Add in Kinect and the bundle goes up to 49,980 yen ($490). Japanese publisher Mages/5pb Games greeted the news by unveiling three titles for the system. The trio are visual novels Chaos;Child and Mystereet F: The Detective's Turn Call, and a tie-in for the anime series Psycho Pass. The Psycho Pass game and Mystereet F are in development at Mages' Div 8, the new studio headed by former Cave head Makoto Asada. According to Inside Games (via Siliconera), Asada has three more games in development for Xbox One. He plans to make an announcement on them at next month's E3 conference, so chances are we'll learn more about the floating girl teased as Div 8's "next project." [Image: Microsoft]
Former Cave head Asada working on Xbox One game at Mages
Makoto Asada is developing an unannounced Xbox One game at Mages/5pb, having left his job as head of shoot-em-up specialist Cave to work on the next-gen project. Asada moved on from Cave back in June after five years at the studio, having helped produce Guwange, EspGaluda 2, Akai Katana, and Deathsmiles among plenty of other games. Details on Asada's Xbox One game are sparse, but Dengeki Online (via Gematsu) does report it'll be packaged, and that more info should be forthcoming shortly. Mages also announced it's publishing Constant C, a 2D action-puzzle game that was one of the 100 recently Greenlighted on Steam. Mages is bringing Constant C to Xbox 360 as a downloadable game in early 2014, although it's unclear if that'll be limited to Japan or not.
Cave dev head Makoto Asada leaves to work on next-gen projects
Cave Interactive, revered house of bullet-hell shmups with funny names, has lost its head of development today. Makoto Asada announced his departure in a blog post, where he thanked fans for supporting his five-year tenure with the company and revealed he's moving on to next-gen console projects. Asada's most recent contributions were on Dodonpachi Maximum, a Windows Phone installment in Cave's popular series. Asada also worked on Deathsmiles, EspGaluda 2, Guwange and pretty much every other shmup the company put on Xbox 360.
