June 24^th, 2005 (3:18am) - Xbox Japan’s Yoshihiro Maruyama has told Famitsu that the Xbox 360 will have a "good line-up" of software available for it Japanese launch, with as many as seven to eight games developed locally in Japan. Maruyama did not reveal what exactly these titles would be, however, he did confirm that former Yoshiki Okamoto’s game would not make launch since it is still in the middle stages of development.

With the Xbox 360, Microsoft is hoping to perform much better in the Japanese videogame market than it has with the Xbox, and one of the company’s most important factors in doing such a thing is earning the support of Square Enix. At E3, Microsoft revealed that Square-Enix would indeed be supporting the Xbox 360, with its first game being an enhanced version of the already released Final Fantasy XI for the PS2 and PC. Fortunately Microsoft’s relationship with the Japanese RPG giant will not end there. In that same interview, Maruyama revealed that we will see more games from Square Enix on the Xbox 360, amongst many other games in development for the console from local Japanese developers, many of which have not been announced.

The Xbox 360 is expected to launch in Japan in December, shorty after the console’s launches in the United States and Europe, which are likely to be sometime in November. Pricing and solid launch details are expected to emerge in August.