‘Crimson Dragon’ Demo Briefly Shows Up On Xbox Live In Japan

A demo for Crimson Dragon, an upcoming Kinect title that is essentially the spiritual successor to the Panzer Dragoon franchise, showed up unannounced on Xbox Live in Japan earlier today. Before you get too excited; it appears to have been a mistake.

According to Siliconera, it wasn’t long after Crimson Dragon made its silent demo debut on Xbox Live that Microsoft pulled it without a word, suggesting that the demo was put up in error. Considering that Microsoft didn’t say anything about a demo, that sounds likely.

The demo may have been promptly pulled but some gamers managed to grab it in time, and one even uploaded some footage of it. As noted in the video’s description (and on the user’s blog), the demo doesn’t appear to show anything new. It’s the same demo that PAX East 2012 attendees saw.

Crimson Dragon was first announced awhile back during the Tokyo Game Show in 2010 under the working title Project Draco. Yukio Futatsugi, who directed the first three Panzer Dragoon games, was confirmed to be filling the same role with Crimson Dragon.

The game is said to be a digital-only title and was announced as part of an effort from Microsoft at the time to bring in a number of notable Japanese developers.

Crimson Dragon was originally supposed to see a release on Xbox Live in Japan around June of 2012, but Microsoft delayed it only one week away from its intended release date. Microsoft has shown the game off since then, but there’s been next to no word on when, if ever, the game will be coming out.

The fact that a Crimson Dragon demo exists gives at least some hope that it will. If you’d like to check out some footage of the demo before it’s pulled, see the embed below.