Namco-Bandai just sent out the official press release announcing Dragon Ball Game Project Age 2011, confirming its development by Spike, who has been responsible for the Sparking! (PS2, Wii) and Raging Blast (PS3, 360) games over the last half-decade.

THE UNSTOPPABLE SAGA LIVES ON WITH DRAGON BALL® GAME PROJECT!
Dragon Ball Game Project AGE 2011 Scheduled for Release on Xbox 360 and PlayStation®3 System for Fall 2011

SANTA CLARA, Calif., (May 11, 2011) – Leading video game publisher and developer NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. delivered a KAMEHAMEHA today with the announcement of Dragon Ball® Game Project AGE 2011 (working title) for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. Prepare to dive into the world of Dragon Ball Z with Earth-shaking combat, a massive character selection, faithful manga-style graphics as well as exciting new features sure to please Dragon Ball fans around the world.

The upcoming Dragon Ball Game Project is currently in development by Spike Co. Ltd., who are honing their considerable talents to create a new landmark game for the Dragon Ball Z franchise. The game features upgraded environmental and character graphics, with designs drawn from the original manga series. Destructible battle fields, including massive craters and ki energy blasts cutting across the sky deliver a more dynamic experience and immediate sense of urgency to the exhilarating fights. An enhanced story mode drops players into the rich Dragon Ball Z universe, filled with beloved characters and powerful enemies. An accessible battle system allows gamers of all ages will be able to hold their own in fast-paced battles, while still retaining tactical depth for hardcore fans.

The new Dragon Ball Game Project will be playable at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con in July. For more information related to Dragon Ball Z, please visit: http://www.namcobandaigames.com.

While the rest of the Internet is busy talking about SoulCalibur V (which is admittedly pretty exciting), those of us following along with the Dragon Ball franchise have been waiting for additional tidbits on the so-called Game Project Age 2011, first revealed in Jump this past week.

The game was further unveiled by Namco-Bandai at their “Level Up” event in Dubai today. Details are still pretty scarce, but we at least have a teaser trailer!

What we do know is that “Game Project Age 2011” is indeed a working title and is subject to change. Additionally, FUNimation’s logo is present at the end of this first trailer, and Namco-Bandai US is already making these assets available to their associates, so the game is essentially confirmed for North American distribution.

Check out a couple new screen shots below:

As for a little speculation on our part, the game appears to have a different HUD from Zenkai Battle Royale (currently only in Japanese arcades), and while it will be another 3D action/fighting game, it does appear to be slightly different from the Sparking! and Raging Blast games from the last half decade, particularly with hints of a grappling system at close range. The trailer does end with a pretty fantastic shot of Goku in front of an enormous Ôzaru, so the prior claims of being faithful and as realistic to the source material as possible certainly seem more in reach than ever before.

As always, we will continue to update as we get more information about the game!

Namco-Bandai has posted a ¥1.8 billion (approximately $22.3 million) profit for the fiscal 2011 year.

In comparison to their other franchises, Dragon Ball did not perform well enough to warrant an inclusion on the top-performing list of franchises for the fiscal year, something hinted at in Q3 2011 when it did not show up for similar reasons. The franchise dropped from ¥15.8 billion in 2009 to ¥12.5 billion in 2010; with Ben 10 down at ¥12 billion for fiscal 2011 (the last one listed in the financial highlights), it is evident that the Dragon Ball franchise continued its drop even further.

As for individual video games, the company shipped 580,000 copies of DragonBall: Raging Blast 2 worldwide in fiscal 2011. This is a drop from the 700,000 copies of Dragon Ball: Raging Blast shipped worldwide in fiscal 2010. We know that approximately 87,000 of these were sold in Japan by the end of December, so this points to all markets contributing to the (downward spiral of) success the game has enjoyed.

This was the only Dragon Ball game in the company’s top titles for the fiscal year, meaning that sales of Dragon Ball DS 2 (Origins 2) for the DS, TAG VS (Tenkaichi Tag Team) for the PSP, and Ultimate Butōden for the DS would be lower than approximately 400,000 copies shipped each — this should be fairly obvious for the latter, however, considering that the game was only released this past February and exclusively in Japan so far.

In terms of general toys and hobby merchandise (non-video games), the franchise dropped in net sales from ¥3.3 billion in fiscal 2010 to ¥2.7 billion this fiscal year. The forecast for fiscal 2012 is ¥2.5 billion, projecting a slight drop from this past year.

None of this comes as any real surprise to those keeping up with the franchise on this level. It will be interesting to keep an eye on fiscal 2012 with a complete lack of the series on Japanese TV again and whether the bottom line sticks it out or drops even further.

From today until next Sunday, Viz is offering 20% off the price of volumes 1 through 16 of the Dragon Ball manga via their iOS manga app.

For those of you living in the future and who care about saving trees, this might be a good route to go to catch up on how the series actually began (both in time frame and in format).

Happinet’s official release website has updated their Dragon Ball Kai listings for the 15th DVD volume and 4th Blu-ray box of the “Artificial Humans & Cell arc”. Both releases are due out 02 August 2011 and will indeed include the 98th episode of Dragon Ball Kai that was produced, but never aired on Fuji TV due to the horrific earthquake that struck Japan in early March 2011. However, it is being listed as an “extra episode” (番外編; Bangai Hen) rather than by an actual episode number.

Hot on the heels of its official announcement earlier this week, a new website for Dragon Ball Game Project Age 2011 has opened:

http://b.bngi-channel.jp/dba/

There is not a whole lot there just yet, but promises of at least a video clip and additional information should be enough to keep folks salivating for a little while longer.

About a week ago, word began to leak around that a new video game would be announced in an upcoming issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump in Japan, with a Tales blog naming it as “Dragon Ball Game Project Age 2011”. This week, the game was officially unveiled in Jump:

Indeed titled Dragon Ball Game Project Age 2011 (at least temporarily), the new game is due out sometime later this year in the fall for both the PS3 and Xbox 360 from Namco-Bandai, and will be another 3D action/fighting game. No developer is currently listed, and details are rather sparse. As per the norm for Japanese announcements, the initial showcase says absolutely nothing of any real interest of substance:

(under “scoop”)
Drawing extreme DB action with super visuals!!
So INTENSE, you’ll be amazed! It’s the advent of a new style, with thoroughly recreated DB battle scenes on a gorgeous screen!!

(center)
You’ll feel like you’re really there, as never before!!
The facial expressions are super realistic, and the field goes flying!! The intense production really heats up the game!!

(center-left)
Autumn 2011
The battle begins on PS3 and Xbox 360!

(under the title information)
The project to take DB games to the extreme is set in motion!! The warriors’ battles enter a new dimension!!

(over bottom picture)
ACTION! DRAMA! SCALE! All these together create a super-class [of game]!!

[WHAT IS Dragon Ball Game Project AGE 2011?!]
It’s the project to create a new DB game, the likes of which no one has ever seen. By pursuing the most accurate recreation of the characters ever, we aim to make it the most lifelike!! Super anticipation!!

It appears to be an entirely new game (rather than a home port of, say, Zenkai Battle Royale currently in Japanese arcades). To be honest, however, any of this verbiage could have been pulled from any game announcement ever for the franchise. We will simply have to wait and see if any of this talk about realism and character expressions chalks up to anything.

Big thanks to sangofe for not only collecting all the bits of various information, but rewriting it again for us so we could easily post about it!

Already making its way throughout the rest of the world, Dragon Ball Kai is finally hitting France, and in a big way. Just yesterday (02 May 2011) at 11 pm, the series began airing in France on TV channel Game One — in its original Japanese language, subtitled in French! Our buddy Puto let us know that it began right from the beginning with the replacement score (the music from the original Dragon Ball Z TV series by Shunsuke Kikuchi), rather than the original Japanese broadcast score by Kenji Yamamoto, which has since been removed and is in the process of being phased out of all international releases.

Next up will be an edited and French-dubbed version of the series to air on their Nickélodéon beginning on 29 May 2011. In addition to that, Game One will also be airing an uncut version of that new dub beginning later this year in September. Both dubs will be produced by Chinkel, and while some of the roles have been confirmed to be their original voice actors (Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, Vegeta), others are still up in the air.

A home release has not yet been announced, but with so much effort going into the production, we will likely hear about it very soon.

The entire discussion can be checked out over on our forum, which includes various links and confirmations from external sources. Go France!