Microsoft has renewed the IP trademarks for Xbox 360 exclusive JRPG Lost Odyssey.
Lost Odyssey, developed by Mistwalker with help from Feelplus, was one of Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s first games after he left Square Enix. The game released in late 2007 in Japan and two months later in February 2008 in the West. Featuring a traditional turn-based battle, Lost Odyssey had the familiar Final Fantasy “feel” with many dubbing it the “real” Final Fantasy XIII. Many to this day including me consider it one the best JRPGs of the 7th generation consoles and easily the best JRPG on the Xbox 360.
The game featured a unique world with magic becoming industrialized and helping society develop faster but in-turn making certain civilizations dependent on it. Lost Odyssey featured “Mortal” and “Immortal” party members, with each adding a unique strategic edge to the gameplay.
Although faring well with critics and selling moderately well, the Lost Odyssey IP has been inactive since the last decade, could this trademark renewal lead to a new entry in the series?
The Lost Odyssey trademark was renewed by Microsoft back in September and approved in October (1, via), strictly for use for computer programs and and game software. Interestingly Microsoft let the toy, DVD (movie), website, etc trademarks expire as you can see in the screenshot below.
This could very well mean that Microsoft purposely is keeping the trademark alive for use as a game in the future. Upon further inspection of the trademark, Microsoft renewed the trademark for 6 years back in 2014 and extended further 10 years in 2018. It seems suspicious that Microsoft would add 10 years to the trademark when they had two left, plus they could’ve added 10 years back in 2014 but they didn’t. We’re spit-balling here but this is certainly something to thing about.
Developers Mistwalker and Sakaguchi are current working on Terra Wars, the latest entry in the Terra series for iOS and Android smartphones. Adding fuel to the fire Sakaguchi mentioned in last week’s issue of Famitsu that he was starting work on a new project. Plus trademarks of The Last Story, another Sakaguchi game by Mistwalker, were renewed earlier this month by Nintendo. Does this mean Mistwalker is finally coming back to console development with their last console game being the fittingly named The Last Story released for the Wii back in 2011? We certainly hope so.
Do you think there’s some traction for this Lost Odyssey trademark renewal? Mistwalker was facing money troubles years back which led them to work on smaller smartphone games, but they’re doing well now with the Terra series being huge money makers, maybe the ex-Final Fantasy developers are ready to make their mark known on the console games market once again.
Lost Odyssey is currently available on the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One through its Backward Compatibility functionality. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
