News

After another brief dry spell in good Square Enix news, we're back with the Friday Tidbits again. I feel pretty confident that we're only a couple weeks away from a new blast of delicious news, though, as E3 is nearly upon us; the official conference starts on June 14, which is problematic given that this is also the first full week of the World Cup. Jerks. In this issue, we have news about how Squenix is a very healthy company, new info about the Western release of Birth By Sleep, some screenshots from the Final Fantasy XIV alpha release, a Squenix world record, some news not news about Final Fantasy Versus XIII (which still exists!), and a few other scattered release dates.

First off, if you might have been worried about Square Enix staying afloat with the mixed reviews of their in-house games, well, don't be. At the rate they're going, they'll have money to produce Final Fantasies up through XCVI, at least. Their top five games of their last fiscal year all sold over a million copies each for their year ending in April 2010, with three of them selling over three million apiece worldwide. That's not a low number of games, kids, and only one of them was not a Squenix IP.

Birth By Sleep, the newest Kingdom Hearts game is still coming, and now it's dated. It's coming September 7 (September 10 in Europe), and it is going to pack some high profile voice work, including Leonard Nimoy and Mark Hamill. If those two names don't pique your interest, how about James Woods? At the very least, that should appeal to hardcore Family Guy fans, right? If you're a KH fan without a PSP, Sony's even going to give you a $200 silver PSP bundle with the game, a nice big Memory Stick, and an unnamed movie. And it's not a PSP Go, so there's nothing to lose!

Everyone who got into the Final Fantasy XIV alpha is under a non-disclosure agreement. That means you're probably not going to get much info unless you know someone who really, really trusts you - however, Square Enix themselves released some screenshots this week. Might not be the most interesting information to come out about the game, but it's what you're going to get probably until at least E3.

Finally, you might have heard that our buddy Yoichi Wada stick his foot into it a bit this week, saying that the PlayStation 3-exclusive Final Fantasy Versus XIII might be on the table for a multiplatform release. Of course, since then, there's been some (probably Sony-suggested) spin that the initial statement doesn't necessarily mean anything at all. Since there's no release date for the game yet, it's hard to say right now one way or another. I doubt anything will come from it at E3, but Tokyo Game Show is a possibility.

Wrapping up, enjoy a couple more release dates. Siliconera has some release info you might have missed: the Japanese megahit Dragon Quest IX will be in North America on July 11th, with DLC to follow; The Four Heroes of Light, meanwhile, has been rated in Australia which means an English-language release is pending, and will almost certainly be popping up in Europe and North America sooner rather than later.

Source: Kotaku, SiliconEra, AndriaSang

Square Enix released its latest iPhone OS game since our last tidbits, a new IP called Chaos Rings. The game was developed with some of the developers responsible for the Wild ARMs series; with such a pedigree, you would assume that the game would be pretty special. And, if the early reviews are right, well, it kind of is within the scope of iPhone games. So far, nearly seven hundred reviewers on iTunes give the game an average of 4.5/5, and sites like Kotaku have plenty of good things to say as well. Visually, this game looks easily on par with console games of, say, eight years ago, and that alone will set it apart from most of its brethren (though it also might require fairly new Apple hardware to play at full strength). It also is a bit pricey for a iPhone game, at $12.99, but that still makes it a lot cheaper than a new game for your Nintendo or Sony handheld.

Final Fantasy XIII is already getting re-published in portions of Asia. To sweeten the deal for late adopters, they're getting a Lightning-themed PlayStation 3 controller in their bundle. It's nothing groundbreaking, just a Dual Shock in the general style that you might have seen before. Seems like the screenprint would wear off pretty quickly with it being on the handle like that, doesn't it?

As you no doubt know by now, Square Enix has become as big a name in games publishing as they have in games development, particularly in Japan, where they have released Western games such as Modern Warfare 2 on behalf of their original publishers. The "controversy" of games like MW2 might have led directly to our next tidbit—the company is soon to create a new imprint for the games that might be a bit extreme for the company's image in Japan. Called "Square Enix Extreme Edges," the label will be used exclusively for games that get Japan's equivalent of the ESRB "Mature" rating label. There appear to be no immediate games that will get the label.

In sales news, while Western gamers appear to be a bit reticent towards Nier, there's no such issue in Japan. The Japan-only PS3 game starring Nier, called Replicant, started off its lifespan at the top of the Famitsu sales charts. The 360 game, Gestalt (the one we'll be getting in the West), started in 11th place for the week—not bad, being for a console that doesn't sell all that well over there. If you want to get your hands on the hot Replicant, try PlayAsia, through our new affiliate partnership: Buy Nier Replicant. We'll be working to add more items from PlayAsia to the site as we can. Having bought from there myself in the past, it's a pretty great place to get all sorts of imported gaming accouterments that you can't get from AmaCoN. Among those items might be these Kingdom Hearts figures, which were announced this week for release in August in Japan. They'll be hard to come by here, I'm sure, but if we can find them on PlayAsia for you, we'll definitely get you hooked up.

Finally for these long-winded tidbits, we return to the Dragon Quest bar. This time, for a giant, slime-shaped meat bun. You can not even think about saying that isn't cool.

Source: iTunes, SiliconEra, Kotaku

For those of us waiting for a FFV and FFVI DS remake, it appears that we might have to wait for some time. Long time Square Enix producer Shinji Hashimoto, executive producer of almost all Final Fantasy remakes and ports, stated on Twitter that due to "technical issues" Square is undecided at the moment on whether or not to go ahead with them.

The response was an answer to numerous fan questions regarding the release of certain Square video games. Hashimoto's reply to all of them was that they were "at present undecided," and that Final Fantasy V and VI in particular had technical difficulties.

Now, as to what technical difficulties, I can't be certain because the details are vague. It does seem very likely that we will have to wait quite some time for these already long-awaited ports.

Source: AndriaSang Gaming News from Japan

I just got another email from the good folks at Square Enix, advertising even more Distant Worlds shows from the ones I spoke about late last year. Most of that old news is still valid - there's still a CD coming out in June, the contents of that CD will be played at the summer Distant Worlds shows, and they're still going to Stockholm, San Francisco, San Diego, and Chicago.

The new news this time around is the addition of a series of new shows between San Diego and Chicago this summer, and after Chicago as well. Perhaps you're lucky enough to be nearby:

Houston, Texas - 24 July 2010
Washington, DC (Vienna, Virginia) - 30 July 2010
Toronto, Ontario - 27 November 2010

And again, if I can find the new CD on AmaCoN, I'll get it to you here.

Source: Distant Worlds

Good afternoon, fellow CoNers. These past two weeks have been interesting - a lot of Square-Enix's different franchises have been newsworthy recently. Yes, even their lesser-known "Final Fantasy" series. Weird, huh?

First up, our favourite classic Final Fantasy artist, Yoshitaka Amano, is directing his first feature film. It's title is Zan, which just makes me think of the evil robot in UT that's the alpha and omega - but that's neither here nor there. Unless the film is about that, which would be awesome. In addition, "The 4 Heroes of Light" has been trademarked by Squenix, which means that the DS game, Final Fantasy Gaiden, that was "announced" last year, may be seeing a Western release sometime in the near future. Also, an interesting documentation of someone's journey through the Final Fantasy XIV playtest, which gives insight into many of the upcoming MMORPG's features.

What do Square-Enix and Hideo Kojima have in common? Apart from both being mainly Sony until last year's E3 where they both (partially) defected to Microsoft, I mean. Well, the former are creating some figurines for the upcoming Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Interestingly enough, there will also be some cross-functionality with Square-Enix's upcoming game Front Mission: Evolved. If there was one great thing about MGS4, it was piloting Rex. This is what I am hoping for.

Finally, Dragon Quest! As everyone should know, I know nothing of Dragon Quest, but I've never even heard of Dragon Quest Arcade. But apparently it's getting a Wii port, which will also make use of the DSi's connectivity and camera and technological gubbins, which you also need to download an application for. Seems a bit overly complicated, but hey, Square-Enix LOVE their money.

<3

Source: Kotaku, 1Up

It's been pretty slow for Square-Enix recently - everyone's been playing Final Fantasy XIII instead of talking about it. So what's next? Well, of course they're going to release merchandise. Figurines of Snow, Lightning and Vanille, and Serah's earrings are now available from the US store. The figurines, as always, look kind of dodgy. But now that XIII is out of the way, Why, Final Fantasy XIV is of course next. The first wave of beta testers have been selected, but that does not mean there aren't still opportunities. There will be more chances in the future, so you can still sign up! And what's more, Square-Enix have started a new website containing more information, video blogs, and a wiki! Development seems to be progressing well on XIV. And here, take a look at the new "tribes" of the game. Neko Neko Mawaii.

But enough with all the newer Final Fantasys. Remember how awesome IX was? Yeah. It looks like Final Fantasy IX will be soon heading towards the Playstation Network. This is very excellent news. I still have my discs, battered as they may be, but I demand that anyone who hasn't played IX should choose that over XIII if given a choice. It would be the next game we covered if I had my way. But alas. UPDATE: Wait, it's been confirmed. Hooray! Oh, but they're still looking at Final Fantasy VII remake possibilities. Still. This has got to stop.

Yeah, that's all for now. What news will there be in the coming weeks, I wonder?

Source: Kotaku, 1UP, Square Enix