Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry launches So-Fu accelerator

SUNSOFT is Back! Retro Game Selection will launch for Switch and PC via Steam on April 18 in Japan for 1,980 yen, SUNSOFT announced. The PC version be available worldwide, but it will only be available in Japanese. An English release is also planned.

AI roundup: Microsoft is planning to make a huge investment in Japan to accelerate the country's AI development. Additionally, the investment will also aid Japan in building strong cybersecurity defence to combat enemy countries. In other news, President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida urged Amazon and Nvidia to fund an AI research program. Know more about such AI news of today. 

Powerful Pro Baseball 2024-2025 will launch for PlayStation 4 and Switch on July 18 in Japan for 7,700 yen (8,470 yen with tax), Konami announced. Physical edition pre-orders are now available.

There’s been no shortage of recent indications that Star Wars Outlaws is going to release sooner than many expect. In addition to age ratings going up in Brazil, Australia, and South Korea, promotional pre-order material for the game has also been spotted in the wild, while leaks have previously claimed that the game is due out in the first half of the year. Now, a release date has leaked, and though it’s not quite in the first half of 2024, it’s still not terribly far away.

The number of arcades in Japan, the world’s third-biggest games market, have declined by nearly 8,000 over the past decade, according to a new report.

So, we’re in the second year of an ongoing wave of layoffs in the video game industry. If you paid attention to a broader level something like this has also been happening in the tech industry as a whole, but for video games, it’s meant hundreds of very talented and valuable people losing their jobs.

Otome visual novel Cupid Parasite: Sweet & Spicy Darling will launch for Switch on May 28 in the west, publisher Idea Factory International announced.

Corpse Party II: Darkness Distortion will launch for PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC via Steam, GOG, and Humble Store this fall worldwide, publishers XSEED Games, Marvelous Europe, and Marvelous, and developer Team GrisGris announced.

Publisher Bandai Namco and developer ILCA have released a new trailer and screenshots SAND LAND introducing “The Forest Land.”

The Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road Worldwide Beta Test Demo will launch for Switch on March 28 at 4:00 a.m. PT / 7:00 a.m. ET / 20:00 JST, LEVEL-5 announced. It will support English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Portuguese (Brazil) language options.

Stalking through the neglected ruins of an empty graveyard, I crouched through a hole in a wall with my katana in hand, ready to strike. I was about a dozen hours into my playthrough of Rise of the Ronin, the latest open-world action RPG from Team Ninja, and I’d already abandoned the beaten path of the game’s main quest to hunt down fugitives terrorizing the countryside.

Psychological thriller Loretta will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch on April 11 for $14.99, publisher DANGEN Entertainment and developer Yakov Butuzoff announced. It will support English, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese language options.