Today Sony Computer Entertainment shocked Japan with the announcement of the action RPG Dragon Quest Heroes for PS4 and PS3 during Sony Computer Entertainment Japan and Asia's press conference held in Tokyo, and we also learned how the project came to be.

After SCEJA President Atsushi Morita welcomed them on stage with a "First of all, I have to say, welcome back" said with a big smile on his face, the series' creator Yuji Horii and Tecmo Koei General Producer Kou Shibusawa had a brief chat on the game.

Horii-san started the dances by explaining how he met Shibusawa-san:

We're also very excited, actually with Shibusawa-san, we have known each other for over three decades, but maybe one decade ago I actually met him for the first time at a party.

Shibusawa-san then responded by telling how the project started and expressed his appreciation for the franchise.

Yes, I've been a great fan of Dragon Quest from I to IX, I did not touch X because I think that if I got into it it would be a disaster. So I love Dragon Quest, and that's why I wanted to develop the action game. I talked to Horii-san, and he wanted to go into an action game production about three years ago.

Ten years ago I met him for the first time and three years ago we started to discuss about action games, because I brought the idea of developing one and Horii-sensei had also been thinking about developing an action game. We wished we could create something refreshing, so we were sort of united in this, and we can make this announcement today.

After Horii-san praised the technology shown in the trailer of the game, Shibusawa-san continued by comparing it to Omega Force's PS Vita game Toukiden.

I think the refreshing and exhilarating feelings are like with Toukiden's big monsters. You feel the tension of fighting against those big bosses like in Toukiden and I hope this is going to be the first action game for Dragon Quest. Omega Force is now working on it, and I have been testing it with Horii-san and it's a really great, great game.

I have to admit that I did somewhat expected something like this, but when I heard the Dragon Quest music I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced (while millions definitely exulted).

Jokes aside, the Japanese Twitterverse and blogosphere simply exploded. I'm not sure about the west, but this must definitely be the "big announcement" Hirokazu Hamamura teased a few weeks agoDragon Quest coming back to PlayStation platforms is big all right.