Want a Xenosaga HD Collection? Namco Dev Says to Tell Your Friends

As we approach a full decade since the last release in the Xenosaga series, Bandai Namco's Katsuhiro Harada has found himself receiving a number of requests for a Xenosaga HD Collection. While he can't guarantee anything will happen, he has encouraged fans to band together in an effort to get such a collection made.

Harada, who is best known as the producer of the Tekken series (which, like Xenosaga, is published by Bandai Namco), sent out a message addressed to the "Xenosaga fan community" through Twitter today. In it, he noted fans' wishes to see an HD Collection released, but said it'll take more than the same people--or the "same person"--sending him messages every day to make it happen.

"It has been a long time since Xenosaga has been released," Harada wrote. "It really brings back memories of those days they were developing the first Xenosaga staying up all night, when the Tekken project was also staying up all night on the same floor at [the] office."

Harada said last year's international release of Project X Zone (a 3DS crossover game featuring characters from a variety of franchises, including Xenosaga) prompted him to explore whether there was "a business chance for Xenosaga HD remaster." He said, "[A]t that time ... I was not able to find the necessary market size that will pay for the development fee needed to create the HD remaster."

He acknowledged the possibility that he "didn't work hard enough," but said what he needs now "are the voices from many fans." By this, he means more than one person tweeting him every day--there needs to be a large group of people interested in a Xenosaga release, not a small number of people who say they'll each buy 100 copies. "Most companies will not believe in it," he said of those claims.

"What's important in these kinds of cases is the number of unique users," he continued. "It means more to have 100 people mentioning they want the game one time, rather than having one person repeating it 100 times. A miracle would happen if several tens of thousands are gathered at the end. Of course, involvement from the company is needed for this but…"

In addition to the recently announced Tekken 7, Harada is also working on Pokken Tournament, a fighting game featuring Pokemon characters. Meanwhile, Xenosaga developer Monolith (which is, as of 2007, controlled by Nintendo) is at work on the Wii U game Xenoblade Chronicles X.

The original Xenosaga, a spiritual follow-up of sorts to Xenogears, was released for PlayStation 2 in 2002 in Japan and a year later in North America. In the coming years, it would receive two sequels, also for PS2.

Would you be interested in a Xenosaga HD Collection, or are you more interested in Xenoblade Chronicles X? Let us know in the comments below.