Gundam, Culdcept, and new mech game underway; Pac-Man and Galaga heading to Xbox Live Arcade.
TOKYO--At the Xbox 360 Press Conference in Tokyo today, Namco Bandai Games made its first Xbox 360 presentation since its corporate merger on April 1. Company vice president Shin Unozawa appeared on stage as the conference room was filled with the familiar 8-bit music of Namco's classic 1981 arcade hit, Pac-Man. And indeed, that was the first game to be shown off.
Unozawa announced that Namco Bandai Games is currently developing a version of Pac-Man for distribution on Xbox Live Arcade. He presented a real-time demo of the game, and showed off that it plays as a full port of the original arcade release, albeit with functions that take advantage of Xbox Live. Its menu featured the standard options seen in most Xbox Live Arcade games, including leaderboards, achievements, options, and an Unlock Full Game selection (so a downloadable demo is assured). Unozawa also announced that the arcade shooter Galaga is being ported to Xbox Live Arcade. Details about the games release and cost have not been revealed yet.
Unozawa then moved on to discuss bigger projects. The first game he introduced was Zegapain XOR, a mech shooter exclusive to the Xbox 360. The game is currently being developed by Cavia for a summer 2006 release in Japan.