Phantom Dust US hopes dashed as turmoil erupts at MGS Japan

Microsoft Game Studios has announced that its Japanese division’s most important project to-date, Phantom Dust, will not be released in North America. It’s a strange decision, as Phantom Dust will be ready for release in Japan before Christmas, and it’s not the sort of title that would need to fester in the hands of translation and localisation teams before an English-appropriated version could be presented. It’s a fairly standard ‘action blaster’ set in a dark near-future world, i.e., exactly the type of game that would sell well to an American audience.

As a game that was supposed to increase the Xbox’s appeal in Japan, it is difficult to understand what Microsoft’s motivation could be in sheltering their American fans from it. Perhaps it has the potential to disrupt the targeted sales of other Microsoft Game Studio releases in this period. There has been no mention of a European version, but if the US doesn’t get a look in, it is a fairly unlikely prospect.

We’ll let you know if anything changes with regards to the spectral activity of Phantom Dust.