Making use of the Xbox's internet connectivity, Ninja Gaiden was the focus of a series of online contests that spanned North America, Europe, and Japan. However, the game had to be censored for release in some regions, and Japanese sales were poor, with only 60,000 in the four months following its début. Tecmo specifically targeted Ninja Gaiden at a non-Japanese audience, and despite difficulties in obtaining content ratings due to the game's graphic depictions of violence, it was generally well received, with 362,441 copies sold in North America in its first month. Inspired by the 1990s Ninja Gaiden series, this game is set in a re-imagined world based on the Dead or Alive series of fighting games, another Team Ninja creation.
The game follows the fictional story of Ryu Hayabusa, a ninja, in his quest to recover a stolen sword and avenge the slaughter of his clan. It went through five years of development before its release by Tecmo in 2004, and has been progressively enhanced with a number of expansion packs and two remakes, Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Ninja Gaiden is an action-adventure game developed by Team Ninja for the Xbox, and later updated for the PlayStation 3 as Ninja Gaiden Sigma.
