True Fantasy Live Online Cancelled
Sad Gamer writes "Well, it seems long-awaited Xbox Live-compatible MMORPG True Fantasy Live Online has been cancelled. Apparently: 'The main reason cited for this action was the inability to deliver the intended experience to users of Microsoft's XBox Live service in Japan...' This leaves a tiny list of titles that left that can help to push XBox Live in Japan. 'Now Japanese XBox Live users only have titles like Halo 2 and Dead or Alive Ultimate to look forward to in the upcoming months.'" GameSpot has a full translation of the brief Microsoft Japan press release regarding this previously discussed, Level 5 created MMO, formerly likely for Western release as well, which notes: "The MMORPG genre, across all platforms, has become an incredibly crowded and competitive marketplace. In response, Microsoft Game Studios has decided to streamline its portfolio, making fewer bets in this genre."
I imagine it would have still been called "True Fantasy Online". A remarkably high number of Japanese games have names that are English phrases, and are sometimes even written with roman letters rather than the Japanese phonetic alphabet. Giving your game a title that uses words in a popular foreign language (like English, French, or German) is something that Japanese consumers seem to find stylish.