Dead or Alive 4, the savior to Microsoft' woes in Japan, is scheduled to be released this week to throngs of eager and willing Japanese gamers. What does Team Ninja and Itagaki-san have in store for his fans and will they buy an Xbox 360 just for his lastest creation? GamePro certainly thinks so by giving the game a perfect 5 out of 5 in its next magazine.

IGN actually flew to Tecmo to play DoA4 for two straight days and put up a pretty comprehensive preview.

"At first glance, Dead or Alive 4 is similar or even the same as Dead or Alive 3, but in many respects, it's deeper and more challenging and all in very subtle ways. What do I mean exactly? First, there are more moves per character. You'll find in the game's excellent training mode a helpful and deep sparring mode that enables you to see which moves are executed, but a new tracking system displays visual bars detailing the height of each attack as well. You also can set up the opponent to perform a single or a combo attack to practice specific moves against them.

Could Microsoft's fortunes in Japan take a reversal from DoA4? It looks like Itagaki-san has the best shot at that honor this week.

IGN: Dead or Alive Preview [IGN]