14 DAY TRIAL // Capcom and Microsoft were said to be working on something big together and yesterday brought the announcement that the two companies were collaborating on delivering Monster Hunter Frontier, the MMO installment of the long running series, to the Xbox 360 home gaming console at a later date in 2010.
The official Japanese site only mentioned the Land of the Rising Sun as a market for the new release, but a Western one should not be ruled out as a possibility. Monster Hunting Frontier was initially released for the PC way back in 2007 but it is only accessible for those gamers who live in Japan or in South Korea.
The Japanese version of the Kotaku website is saying that Capcom is also planning to offer an closed beta stage during May with the official release time depending on the way the beta turns out and on the feedback from players.
Monster Hunter Frontier will only be offered to those who have a Gold subscription for Xbox Live and the price is set to be 1,400 Yen a month, which is the equivalent of 15 dollars. It's not clear whether the game will also have an initial cost or whether paying a subscription for the first month will allow the player to actually download the game site from Microsoft.
One interesting issue arising from the announcement of the game is whether those who play Monster Hunter Frontier on the PC will ever get to share their experiences with those playing on the Xbox 360.
Capcom says that servers will be separated on release but that an eventual merging is planned. Microsoft has long maintained that cross platform play is possible between the Xbox 360 and the PC but few developers have implemented it. The Monster Hunter series is also getting its Tri Nintendo Wii release out in North America in April of this year.