Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: When was the game Persona 4 created?
"Persona" is the largest and most popular spin-off from the "Megami Tensei" series. The first entry in the series, "Megami Ibunroku Persona" (originally released overseas as ""), was released in 1996 in Japan and North America. The first "Persona 2" title, "", was released in 1999 in Japan. The second game, "", was released in 2000 in Japan and North America. "Persona 3" was released in 2006 in Japan, 2007 in North America, and 2008 in Europe. Its sequel, "Persona 4", was released in 2008 in Japan and North America, and in 2009 in Europe. A sixth entry in the series, "Persona 5", was released in Japan on September 15, 2016, and was released in North America and Europe on April 4, 2017, to critical acclaims. In addition to the main "Persona" games are spin-offs, so far focused on "Persona 3" and "4": the canon spin-off "", two fighting games "Persona 4 Arena" and its sequel "Arena Ultimax" as well as the crossover fighting game "", and rhythm game "". While "Persona 3" and "4" used the "Shin Megami Tensei" moniker, it was dropped for the "Persona 4 Arena" duology and "Persona 4 Golden" as it would have made the titles too long to be practical.
On November 23, 2004, Blizzard released "World of Warcraft", a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. "World of Warcraft" is the fourth released game set in the fantasy "Warcraft" universe, which was first introduced by "" in 1994. Blizzard announced "World of Warcraft" on September 2, 2001. The game was released on November 23, 2004, on the 10th anniversary of the "Warcraft" franchise.
In North America, a bundle containing an 80GB PlayStation 3, a DualShock 3 wireless controller, a downloadable game coupon for "Pain", and a copy of "Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots" was released for US$499 on June 12, 2008, to coincide with the release of the standalone edition. Japan saw the release of the "Guns of the Patriots Welcome Box" that contains the game itself, a DualShock 3 controller, a Sixaxis controller, and a 40GB PlayStation 3 in either black, white or silver.
Development of "Rock Band 4" began in the last quarter of 2014. This followed from several factors. Harmonix's former CEO and current creative director Alex Rigopulos explained that the studio had awaited both a "critical mass" of adoption for the next-generation consoles, and a "clear and compelling creative vision" for the game before beginning work on a successor—prompting the franchise's hiatus. Rigopulos said that internally if they were going to bring back "Rock Band", they wanted to "really make the best game that we had ever made; that we had a vision for what Rock Band 4 was going to be, that made it worth making, really". A clear vision of the goals for the game came about more than a year prior to the game's release. Harmonix's Greg LoPiccolo added that they did not want to try to introduce "Rock Band 4" during the new consoles' first year where they would have to compete with major franchises. Funding for development was aided by $15 million in investments from Spark Capital and Foundry Group, not only to support "Rock Band 4" but the remake of Harmonix' "Amplitude" and future projects involving virtual reality.
A new installment in the "Grandia" series developed by Game Arts was officially announced on June 1, 2001 with the tentative name of "Grandia X". The game, later retitled "Grandia Xtreme", was to be published by Enix as they had just invested capital in Game Arts for a total of ¥99.2 million, or 15% of the company. The game was the first title Game Arts developed exclusively for the PlayStation 2. While previous installments in the series were traditional role-playing video games, the developers took the new title in a different direction and designed it more as an action role-playing game or dungeon crawler to make it more accessible to casual gamers. They nevertheless kept and enhanced mainstays such as the combat and magic systems, as well as the "enchantment" aspect of the story. To design the characters of the game, Enix and Game Arts selected Kamui Fujiwara, the character designer of "Terranigma". Development for the game spanned roughly 18 months.
A visual novel, "Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Portable", was developed by Namco Bandai Games for the PlayStation Portable and released on February 23, 2012.
"" was released in late 2007 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X platforms. The title is the first installment of the series to include wireless guitars bundled with the game and also the first to release a special bundle with two guitars. The game includes Slash and Tom Morello as playable characters in addition to the existing fictional avatars; both guitarists performed motion capture to be used for their characters' animation in the game.
"Guitar Hero World Tour", previously named "Guitar Hero IV", is the fourth full game in the series and was released on October 26, 2008 for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii. Analysts had expected that future "Guitar Hero" games in 2008 would include additional instrument peripherals to compete against "Rock Band"; "Guitar Hero World Tour" was confirmed as in development following the announcement of the merger between Activision and Vivendi Games in December 2007. Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick announced on April 21, 2008 that "Guitar Hero World Tour" will branch out into other instruments including vocals. "Guitar Hero World Tour" includes drums and vocals, and can be bought packaged with a new drum set controller, a microphone, and the standard guitar controller. A larger number of real-world musicians appear as playable characters, including Jimi Hendrix, Billy Corgan, Hayley Williams, Zakk Wylde, Ted Nugent, Travis Barker, Sting, and Ozzy Osbourne. "Guitar Hero World Tour" also features custom song creation that can be shared with others.
"Metal Gear Solid Touch" for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad is a "touch shooting" game that revisits "MGS4"s plot and action through the touch interface. Developers of the game "LittleBigPlanet", Media Molecule, released an expansion pack based on "Metal Gear Solid 4" on December 23, 2008. It includes character skins for Old Snake, Raiden, Meryl, and Screaming Mantis, as well as a "Metal Gear"-themed set of levels.
The first entry in the series "Tomb Raider" was released in 1996 for personal computers (PC), PlayStation and Sega Saturn consoles. The Saturn and PlayStation versions were released in Japan in 1997. The second game, "Tomb Raider II", launched in 1997, again for PC and PlayStation. A month before release, Eidos finalised a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment to keep the console version of "Tomb Raider II" and future games exclusive to PlayStation until the year 2000. The PlayStation version was released in Japan in 1998. "Tomb Raider III" launched in 1998. As with "Tomb Raider II", the PlayStation version released in Japan the following year. The fourth consecutive title in the series, "", released in 1999. In 2000, with the end of the PlayStation exclusivity deal, the game also released on the Dreamcast. In Japan, both console versions released the following year. "Tomb Raider Chronicles" released in 2000 on the same platforms as "The Last Revelation", with the PlayStation version's Japanese release as before coming the following year.
The first two "Disgaea" installments were released for the PlayStation 2. The series debuted in Japan with "" in 2003 on the PlayStation 2 and has since been re-released on the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS with new content. It was known for many uncommon elements previously unseen in the strategy RPG genre, such as complex gameplay, extremely high maximum stats and a maximum level of 9999, and humorous dialogue. "", released for the PlayStation 2 in 2006 in Japan, has been re-released on the PlayStation Portable under the title "" with new content. Both of these games were later ported to the PC as "" in 2016, and "Disgaea 2 PC" in 2017 respectively. Both are based on the PlayStation Portable versions, with additional content and redone graphics. The series then moved on to the PlayStation 3 for "", released in Japan in 2008, and was re-released on the PlayStation Vita as "" in 2012. "" was released in Japan in 2011 and re-released on the PlayStation Vita as "" in 2014. A direct sequel to the first game, "" was released for the PlayStation 3 in 2013. The latest entry in the series, "" was released in 2015, moving the series to the PlayStation 4, and was ported to the Nintendo Switch as "Disgaea 5 Complete" in 2017.
"Planetarian" was released on November 29, 2004 via download over the Internet playable on Windows PCs, and was first made available only to Yahoo! Japan Broadband users. The game was opened up for general sale on December 6, 2004. Key released a CD-ROM version for Windows PCs on April 28, 2006 in limited and regular editions. An updated version of "Planetarian" compatible for Windows Vista PCs was released by Key on July 31, 2009 in a box set containing five other Key visual novels called Key 10th Memorial Box. Another updated version compatible for Windows 7 PCs called "Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet Memorial Edition" was released on April 30, 2010. The "Memorial Edition" also came bundled with the three previously released "Planetarian" drama CDs. An HD edition for Windows was released on July 29, 2016. "Planetarian" was released on Steam by Sekai Project in English for Windows on September 12, 2014, with later support planned for macOS and Linux devices. The Steam release was updated on September 17, 2014 to allow the user to switch to the original Japanese version of the game.
"Dragon Quest IV" was remade for the PlayStation on November 22, 2001 in Japan. It was developed by Heartbeat and published by Enix. The remake was developed using "Dragon Quest VII's" 3D graphics engine. The characters, towns, world maps, sound, battles and enemies all received updates. The character sprites were updated to match the original artwork for the characters in the original "Dragon Quest IV" Manual and artwork.
With this remake came several new features. Among these features were a new chapter in which Psaro is available as a party member (as well as a prologue chapter), an intra-party talk command similar to "Dragon Quest VII", and the ability to turn off the artificial intelligence for party members to allow for direct control of their attacks (except UC Party Members). The game sold over one million copies in Japan by the end of 2001.
In June 2017, Adam Isgreen, creative director of Microsoft Studios announced "Age of Empires: Definitive Edition" at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017. It features overhauled graphics with support for 4K resolution, a remastered soundtrack, and other gameplay improvements, and was planned to be released on October 19, 2017, but was delayed until February 20, 2018. "Age of Empires: Definitive Edition" was released through the Windows store and was met with mixed or average reviews and weighted score of 70 out of 100 in Metacritic. PC Gamer gave the game 60/100, calling the game "solid remake of a game past its time". GameSpot gave the game 6/10, praising its 4K graphics and upgraded soundtrack but criticizing old problems still persisting.
A version of "Disgaea: Hour of Darkness", including the added content in "Afternoon of Darkness", was released for Microsoft Windows via Steam on February 24, 2016, retitled as "Disgaea PC". The initial release was panned by critics on launch due to its many bugs, which included persistent crashes, save file loss, and poor performance, even on high-end PCs. A patch was released soon afterwards that fixed many of the bugs. Another patch was released for the game later that added the four characters previously exclusive to "Disgaea DS". Players who bought the game during the 2016 Steam Summer Sale would also earn free in-game cosmetic items for Valve Corporation’s first person shooter game Team Fortress 2.
Hugues Giboire, art director of previous Ninja Theory game "Heavenly Sword", returned to work on the game. A Microsoft Windows version of the game was announced on January 9, 2015. The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4, and was made by Ninja Theory with a team of around twenty developers. Its subtitle, "Senua's Sacrifice", was announced in March 2016. "Hellblade: Senua's Psychosis", a short documentary film included with the game, details the concept behind its story and inspirations, notably the team's study of mental illness. It was written and narrated by Antoniades, and edited by Juergens.
The game was first thought up in 2007 during a meeting between PopCap and Square Enix, which had published several of PopCap's games in Japan. Jason Kapalka, the co-founder and chief creative officer of PopCap, claims that he "half-jokingly" proposed a game collaboration between the two companies that would combine a role-playing game with "Bejeweled"-style gameplay, calling it “Final Fantasy Bejeweled”. Kapalka was envisioning creating a similar game to "", a 2007 video game which members of the development staff of both companies were playing at the time. The idea attracted the attention of Yuichi Murasawa, designer of "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance", and the game began formal development. To differentiate the game from "Puzzle Quest", the gameplay was based around "Bejeweled Twist" rather than "Bejeweled", which Kopalka feels fit the art design of the game more. Other candidates considered were "Zuma" and "Peggle", but they were dropped as the developers felt that they did not fit in with the combat theme. PopCap developed the early prototype for the game, then allowed Square Enix to complete the bulk of the work in designing and creating the game, especially in regards to the RPG aspects. Square Enix and PopCap announced the game on September 24, 2009. It was published by Square Enix on the Xbox Live Arcade and on the Steam platform for Windows PCs on November 18, 2009. A downloadable pack of maps and a pack of items were made available for sale a week after launch on November 23, 2009 for both versions of the game.
Doom (typeset as DOOM in official documents and stylized as DooM in other media) is a 1993 first-person shooter (FPS) video game by id Software. It is considered one of the most significant and influential titles in video game history, for having helped to pioneer the now-ubiquitous first-person shooter. The original game was divided into three nine-level episodes and was distributed via shareware and mail order. The Ultimate Doom, an updated release of the original game featuring a fourth episode, was released in 1995 and sold at retail.
Nintendo executives were initially reluctant to design a new system, but as the market transitioned to the newer hardware, Nintendo saw the erosion of the commanding market share it had built up with the Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo's fourth-generation console, the Super Famicom, was released in Japan on November 21, 1990; Nintendo's initial shipment of 300,000 units sold out within hours. The machine reached North America as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on August 23, 1991, and Europe and Australia in April 1992.
During the SCE Worldwide Studios keynote speech at the 2014 Taipei Game Show, producer Junichi Yoshizawa announced that the game would have a simultaneous release in Japan and Asia, and would also be localised in both Japanese and Traditional Chinese. Sony Computer Entertainment later announced in April 2014 that the game would be localized for a western release. North America and Europe both have physical retail releases of the game. A Korean language localization was also announced, and later released on August 7, 2014. The Chinese-language version of the game released in Taiwan and throughout Southeast Asia was released on the same day. Whilst the Japanese version of the game features a map of Japan's 47 prefectures for its competitive multiplayer mode, the Chinese-localization Asian version was announced to have players select Panopticons from regions such as Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. According to Nick Accordino who is in charge of the western localisation, the English release would feature 50 Panopticons based on cities located around the world.
Some new games are yo-kai watch, pokemon sun and pokemon moon.
"Grand Theft Auto IV" is the first title in the third generation of the best-selling "Grand Theft Auto" video game franchise developed by Rockstar North which was released on 29 April 2008. As the release date approached, Rockstar had been marketing the game heavily. Rockstar's marketing has come in many forms, including television ads, internet video, viral marketing, and a redesigned web site. There was even a mural of a prostitute named Lola painted on the side of a building in SoHo, New York.
"Persona Q" began development in 2012 after the release of "Persona 4 Arena", a fighting game co-developed by Atlus and Arc System Works. After this successful external collaboration, series producer Katsura Hashino wanted to create other collaborations. Based on fan requests for a "Persona" title on the Nintendo 3DS, Hashino created the game's concept. The development team was made up of the main "Persona" development team and the "Etrian Odyssey" team, which had created the larger body of Atlus' work for the 3DS: the "Etrian Odyssey" team, led by director and former "Persona" team member Daisuke Kaneda, had just finished development of "" for the platform. Hashino wanted to continue the trend of creating unusual entries in the series, in addition to making "Persona Q" a "festive" collaboration between the two teams in honor of the series' 25th anniversary. Its title was indicative of that wish for originality. The main aim was to create something for fans of the "Persona" series. The opening animation was directed by Tomohisa Taguchi, who also served as director for "".
The game was first announced during August 2011 in the Japanese journal "Famitsu". "Persona 4" Director Katsura Hashino thought about making "Persona 4 Arena" due to his wish of creating a 2D fighting game based on the "Persona" series. The staff also wanted gamers to play other types of games based on the series besides role-playing games with some of them being fans of fighting games. Hashino approached Arc System Works, inspired by their work in the "BlazBlue" fighting game series. Atlus first came into contact with Arc in August 2008 in hopes that they accepted their request to help them produce such a game. As a result, the game is a joint project between the Atlus and the Arc System Works staff. As of March 2012, director of the Atlus/Index side of the game's development Kazuhisa Wada gave praise to the way Arc designed the game, commenting on the 2D visuals employed by the company. Rather than a spin-off of "Persona 4", Hashino refers to the fighting game as a canonical sequel based on the direction from the plot such as the growth of the "Persona 3" characters. The choice from the "Persona 3" characters have been surprising for the developers themselves, and they have also hinted the addition of original ones. While the plot, script and character designs were handled by the original "Persona 4" staff, Arc System Works was in charge of the gameplay.
According to the game director Katsura Hashino, while "ideas [had been] thrown around earlier", development on "Persona 4" in Japan did not begin until after the release of "Persona 3". The development team consisted of the team from "Persona 3" and new hires which included fans of "Persona 3". Atlus intended to improve both the gameplay and story elements of "Persona 3" for the new game, to ensure it was not seen as a "retread" of its predecessor. Hashino said that "to accomplish that, we tried to give the players of Persona 4 a definite goal and a sense of purpose that would keep motivating them as they played through the game. The murder mystery plot was our way of doing that." The plot of "Persona 4" was "greatly inspired", according to Hashino, by mystery novelists such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Seishi Yokomizo. "Persona 4" was officially unveiled in the Japanese gaming magazine "Famitsu" in March 2008. An article in the issue detailed the game's murder mystery premise, rural setting, and new weather forecast system. The game's North American release date was announced at the 2008 Anime Expo in Los Angeles, California. Atlus would not make an add-on disc or epilogue for "Persona 4", as had been done with the "Persona 3 FES". "Persona 4" allowed players full control of characters in battle. This was due to negative comments from players about most of the player team in "Persona 3" being controlled by the game's AI. The amount of data the team ended up incorporating around school life, character relationships and spoke character dialogue was so large that there were fears it would not fit onto a single disc. The anime cutscenes were produced by Studio Hibari.
"Persona 4 Golden", released in Japan as "Persona 4: The Golden", was announced in August 2011 as a port of "Persona 4" for the portable PlayStation Vita. It was originally planned by Atlus to be a PlayStation Portable title, similar to "Persona 3 Portable", which would have required removing some of the features of the PlayStation 2 game. However, the Vita provided sufficient resources that allowed Atlus to expand the game. It is an expanded version of the PlayStation 2 title, adding new features and story elements to the game. A new character named Marie was added to the story. Additional Personas, character outfits, and expanded spoken lines and anime cutscenes are included as well as two new Social Links for Marie and Tohru Adachi. The game supports the wireless networking features of the Vita, allowing a player to call in help from other players to help in dungeon battles. Another new feature is a garden that produces items the player can use in the various dungeons. The game was released in Japan on June 14, 2012. "Persona 4: The Golden" is also the first "Persona" game to be released in traditional Chinese.