E3 06: Frame City Killer canceled

LOS ANGELES--A number of big-name games are suspiciously absent from this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, but the absence of one of them, Namco Bandai's Frame City Killer, has been explained today.

A message from the publisher on the Japanese Namco Channel site confirms that after a series of delays, development on the game has been discontinued.

"We are sorry to say that we have decided that Frame City--the Xbox 360 game which our company had planned for a spring 2006 release--will not be released," the company said. "Our apologies to everyone who was looking forward to the game's release."

Despite the setback, Namco Bandai will continue to support Microsoft's new system. It's showing Mobile Ops: The One Year War for the Xbox 360 at its E3 booth this year, and the Frame City Killer announcement indicates further development is under way.

"Our company will continue to develop high quality software for the Xbox 360 next-gen console, from a new RPG to others," Namco Bandai said. "We ask for your understanding. We'll announce new titles and their release dates separately."