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In a recent interview with Eurogamer, series producer Yoshinori Kitase has expressed interest in returning the core Final Fantasy series to the Windows platform. Beyond the MMOs, XI and XIV, a new game in the series has not been published to the Windows desktop OS since Final Fantasy VIII. It's clear, though, that the company maintains some interest in the platform with releases from other series like Deus Ex and Tomb Raider, not to mention the recent re-releases of Final Fantasy VII and VIII to Windows last year.

While no games from the Final Fantasy XIII series were released for the platform, Kitase reminds Eurogamer that the original XIII development took place in a Windows environment, so the notion of a release was not restricted by the development itself but instead Squenix' own market analysis and concerns about DRM. Kitase stops well short of promising a release of Final Fantasy XV via Steam, but it's clear from his words that the interest is there and that a release could easily be in the cards if the numbers look to work in the company's favor.

Source: Eurogamer

Square Enix has registered "Shinra Company" as a trademark specifically for use with video games. After all this time, and with no remake on the horizon, could we be looking at another spin off here? Could the trademark be used somehow for the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 3? Today's news correspondent, fatman, puts his weight (ha!) behind the former, as Square has seen some success with releasing Final Fantasy VII on Steam and PlayStation Network, and no doubt all the recent sales have been lucrative. The time might be right for another continuation of the universe to reach the new and revived players recently brought into the fold.

Source: CVG, siliconera

Today's CoNcast addresses one of the questions about Square Enix that has been burning for the better part of a decade. That question has probably already leapt to some of your minds: when will there be a Final Fantasy VII remake added to the sea of other Squenix reduxes? We talk about the history of false starts towards this game, the opinions expressed by Squenix employees over time, what it would take to make the fanbase happy, the impact of the 2013 re-release to PC on future work, and even whether we actually care ourselves. But, really, who doesn't care? Is it you? Let's talk about this a little bit - the CoNcast is not meant to be a one-way street.

Don't forget that you can also talk to us about the CoNcast in all the usual means, whether that's at the forums, via email, Facebook, Twitter, et cetera. We could be looking for people to suggest topics, tell us how wrong we are, or even possibly participate in a recording (especially for episodes where we'd be looking for a more female point of view). We need to hear from folks to know that we're on the right track!

Source: The CoNcast Subscription Feed, The CoNcast on iTunes

Starting today, the North American PSN store has a series of Final Fantasy games half off. Which games, you might ask? Well, a bucket of them. You can get a version of every numbered Final Fantasy game up through IX (not including III, which never has had a Sony release). Most of the games are the PS One versions, including Origins, Anthology, and the three released originally for the first PlayStation. Final Fantasy IV's PSP version is included, as is Tactics: War of the Lions. Rounding out the set are three games from the Dissidia series.

This sale is 50% off the top and will be running for two weeks. The game selection is a little different than the European-region sale that we, uh, forgot to post about until right now. That sale's over, though. Sorry about that.

Source: US PlayStation Blog

As part of the celebration for the Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary, Square Enix brought in a wide array of artists to create an album celebrating the music of the series up to now. This is not exactly new news, though I believe we missed it in tidbits around the time that it was announced in October. The album was released last week, though, and to promote it a bit more, Square Enix Music posted this medley video to YouTube earlier this week, with samples of a large number of the tracks.

There's a lot of variety on show in this video, and it really makes for some fresh takes on some of the Final Fantasy music that we've heard for many, many years. It's piqued my interest, so I took some time to try to find some English-language shops that sell the double disc; while AmaCoN looked a bit pricey, I found that another of our shop affiliates, Play Asia, has the set for $35.00 including free shipping. If the video makes you want this for Christmas or... New Year's (?), hit that link right away.

Source: Square Enix YouTube, Destructoid

The site leak from a couple weeks back was confirmed today as Square Enix officially announced the existence of the Final Fantasy VII re-release on PC via its official site and social media.

The site is either really poorly optimized or is getting absolutely hammered right now (probably a bit of both, in fact), so you might not be able to reach it. It's pretty general information, and most of it is stuff that was reported before from the leak. One thing certainly worth noting is that the site says the game will be available exclusively from the Square Enix store, which would imply that the achievements and cloud saving features will be unique to this game and will not use technology like Steamworks. Additionally, the exclusivity might mean that a Steam (or Origin, if you're a masochist) release may not be in the cards at all.

Will it still be worth the rumored twelve-dollar entry fee without Steam? I'm no longer sure it is for me, but I'll have to see how it looks and runs, first. That information isn't yet available, nor is any kind of real release date.

Source: Final Fantasy VII PC