http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;260732425;fp;2;fpid;2

The Star Ocean series is making its debut into the "next-gen" era. So far, things are looking out of this world.

One of the more surprising parts of Tuesday night's Xbox 360 RPG event in Tokyo was Star Ocean's new graphical style. Developer tri-Ace has made the transition from PS2 to Xbox 360 mean quite a lot, by using the hardware to achieve a more realistic, Final Fantasyish (think fantasy armor made of sci-fi materials) look, as producer Yoshinori Yamagishi explained: "...Star Ocean for PSX only had 2-D characters and then for the PS2 the characters were made in 3-D because the hardware enabled them to evolve in that way. For the Xbox, this is next generation hardware and obviously there's brand new technology and new abilities that can be put into the game that tri-Ace had held off on prior [to now] because the hardware was not able to handle it."

The story is not a continuation of Star Ocean 1, 2, and 3, but rather a prequel to the trilogy, "...depict[ing] how Star Ocean came to be." In fact, during development the dev team was calling it Star Ocean 0, but changed it to 4, with the official subtitle of "The Last Hope" to avoid the negative connotation of zero. WWIII pretty much levels the world with a heaping helping of "weapons of mass destruction" so mankind heads out into the stars to escape. Looking at the amazing view from the spaceships in the CG trailer, you can't help but think how unrealistic that portrayal is-a zillion stars glowing brightly in what is scientifically mostly empty space-but it's so breathtaking you don't mind.

When asked whether the title was Xbox exclusive, Yamagishi replied, "I think your question probably translated to, 'Would it be coming out on the PS3 as well?' and the answer to that is here are really no plans, nothing set in stone at the moment. We can't say right now that it will come out or it won't come out for sure. It could go either way." He did confirm that it will be on 360 first, sometime in 2009 for Japan.

Sounds like it will be amazing, hopefully they will let you control the space ship

In 3, they had the similar announcer thing in the trailer, but no mention of WW III, so they have clearly added that in, and are just making us accept that it happened before the other games, which I do find slightly confusing

If it happened long enough before the other games, there wouldn't have been any express reason to mention it.

Certainly not to the point it would be detrimental to your Star Ocean 4 experience on the Xbox 360.

Yeh, but it is slightly confusing, though as you say, I will still enjoy the game

I wouldn't really call this a preview.

The trailer looked pretty good, and the game does appear to be better looking then the other SE RPG's that the 360 is getting over the next two years which is pretty good. I played one of the SO games on the PS2, it was pretty cool and had an interesting story for most of the game, but i remember it kind of fell apart or something, i can't really remember details it was so long ago.

yeah this isn't a previw just a few details,i hopr it will released for the ps3

Well, I've only played part of SO3, and I should get back to that soon, so thank you for keeping it in the spoiler text soriku

Does this come out in the fall? or sometime in 09?

Comes out 09