Final Fantasy XIII, the latest edition in the long-running series of role-playing video games, was released in Japan this week. The picture above was the scene at a store in the Shibuya district at midnight, as large groups of customers lined up to buy the game. As this article from the Guardian describes,

The game’s Japanese creator, Square Enix, said it hoped to sell at least 2m copies of Final Fantasy XIII domestically, which would make it the first PS3 title to sell more than 1m units in Japan. Analysts said worldwide sales of the latest instalment of the 22-year-old game could reach 5.6m.

This is the first time the title has appeared on the PS3 platform; the US and European versions, which go on sale on 9 March, will also be available for Microsoft‘s Xbox 360, the second most popular games console after the Nintendo Wii. (Final Fantasy XIII is not appearing on the Wii.)

The US version of Final Fantasy XIII won’t be coming out until March, but it will undoubtedly cause quite an uproar in the video game industry in this country too, as the game series has been very popular for a number of years.

Here’s the trailer for the US version of the game: