14 years after Super Robot Taisen was released for the Game Boy, Banpresto held the 2005 version of its annual Super Robot Taisen Thanksgiving Festival in Tokyo today, commemorating a milestone its flagship series had reached last year: Sales exceeding ten million copies. 1500 fans gathered in Shinkiba's Studio Coast to take a look at the exhibited boxes of previous series installments, hear various musical performances, buy merchandise only available today and of course hear series mastermind Takanobu Terada talk about the recently announced 3rd Super Robot Taisen Alpha: Shuuen no Ginga for PlayStation 2.

The first to enter the stage however was Banpresto president Takashi Nakada. He thanked the copyright owners of the various anime series featured in Super Robot Taisen and the series' fans for their continued support, and pledged his company was now aiming to reach sales of 20 and then 30 million copies.

Following a trailer highlighting CG demos and battle scenes of the 3rd Super Robot Taisen Alpha, series producer Terade took the stage. He explained that the Alpha sub-series was planned as a triology from the very beginning, but nonetheless some plans, such as the creation of an Alpha Gaiden title had to be altered. The concept of the third Alpha title was "to go as far as one can go". So far the series has limited players to the outerspace region that is close to earth, but with the new game, the development team will let players head for the entire galaxy and present a story larger in scale than any of its predecessors.

The 3rd Super Robot Taisen Alpha: Shuuen no Ginga will be available in Japan sometime this year.

• Famitsu