Monster Hunter moves to PCs

One series that never quite caught on in America as it did in Japan is Monster Hunter. Monster Hunter has been pretty much a Playstation franchise, games have only been released for the PS2 (1, 2 and the expansion pack Monster Hunter G), PSP (Monster Hunter Freedom) and Monster Hunter 3 is scheduled for the PS3. Now Capcom is bringing the franchise to PCs with Monster Hunter Frontier. They are beginning a closed beta on January 25, 2007 for Windows PCs. The current specs require gamers to have Windows XP, a Pentium III processor 1 GHz or faster, 256 MB of RAM, a video card with 64MB of memory and at least 800 MB of hard drive space. While the console games have online and offline play, Monster Hunter Freedom is going to be online only. Hunters can group up with up to four other people to play the game. Compared to other MMOs Monster Hunter is limited, but it has a dedicated community similar to Phantasy Star Online. Capcom has not announced any fees for the game or a release outside of Japan at this point. Considering that Capcom is making their online network with Dwango called Daletto and Monster Hunter Frontier is spearheading the project there is a chance that Capcom might want to give the game as much exposure as possible by releasing it overseas.