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Maybe some of you noticed that there was no news last week. This is partly due to a lot of us being very busy these past weeks, and partly because someone was supposed to write it up, and then didn't. That would be me. Rather than wait for R51 to endlessly berate me on the matter, I figured i'd get the jump on this week's.

It's now only FOUR DAYS until the release of Final Fantasy XIII. Those of us who live in the UK have a chance to be at a launch event at HMV in London. This newsposter is quite likely to attend, though unfortunately, will not be dressing up as any Squenix character. The Final Fantasy XIII Website now has a Developer section, with information about the game's creators. There is a LOT of information about the game here, if you're looking for a last rush of new things before the game itself. We also now know that the size of the installation on the Xbox 360 Version is precisely 18.3 Gigabytes (Except on Weekends). Do you have enough room for it?

Also, now available on the Playstation 3, Star Ocean: The Last Hope International. It actually looks pretty cool, and i've never played any Star Ocean games before. If I had a PS3, I'd be slightly tempted to get it. Other games Square-Enix have published in their newsletter include Supreme Commander 2, and, my personal favourite, Pony Friends 2. Squeeeeeeeeeeeee. In addition, the 18th installation of Final Fantasys I and II are now available on the iPhone, and to make things better, all of the other iPhone/iPod touch games by Square-Enix are now all at least 20% off. Of course, the only one I'd previously heard of was Song Summoner. More on handhelds, Dragon Quest IX will be seeing a Western Release, after performing well in Japan.

Final Fantasy XI, still receiving attention, will be receiving three expansions this year. Three whole expansions. Vision of Abyssea, Heroes of Abyssea, and Cars of Abyss- wait, no, I got that wrong.... Scars of Abyssia....hmm, I like the first version better. From this, I can gather that there's a place called Abyssia that has Heroes, Scars and Vision. And cars. And it seems that there will be a Final Fantasy XIV announcement on March 11th. The countdown begins again.

And that's pretty much it for these two weeks. Honestly, I'm more interested in the absolute insanity of the Portal updates and crazy hidden stuff. It's very possible that the cake is, in fact, not a lie.

Source: Square-Enix, Kotaku, Gamasutra

The Street Fighter IV announcement is the revelation of the last remaining character on the roster, Hakan. The official announcement will be on Nakky's Capcom blog on the 11th, but that will probably be the evening of the 10th for those of us in the western world. There *might* also be an unofficial Famitsu scan with that information out as early as this weekend.

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END SPOILER

I'm a bit out of touch with the current systems. Can someone explain what the benefit of installing the game would be?

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Climhazzard is the timeless evil robot who runs some of the cool stuff at CoN (mostly logging chat, since there are no quizzes at the moment), all the while watching and waiting for his moment to take over the world. -Tiddles

Quote (Sephiroth @ 5th March 2010 20:14)

I'm a bit out of touch with the current systems. Can someone explain what the benefit of installing the game would be?

(somewhat) Reduced loading time, and less noise from the system itself. And the latter point is definitely a plus. Although I don't own one, when he's using it, I can hear Dragon_Fire's 360 from here. It's no small matter.

Quote (CoN News Poster @ News Forum & Off-Topic)

STREET FIGHTER

This post does not make ANY sense. Why is it even here? Did Square-Enix start publishing Street Fighter when I wasn't looking?

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I'm a bit out of touch with the current systems. Can someone explain what the benefit of installing the game would be?

it really only serves to keep the disc in better condition. By installing to the hard drive, you (supposedly) lessen the load times and definitely expand the disc life. You still need the disc to play the game, so it isn't a true install.

This post has been edited by Nytecrawla on 5th March 2010 20:38

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Quote (Nytecrawla @ 5th March 2010 15:37)

it really only serves to keep the disc in better condition. By installing to the hard drive, you (supposedly) lessen the load times and definitely expand the disc life. You still need the disc to play the game, so it isn't a true install.

Well, it definitely is a true install in the manner of many PC games, which also require the presence of a "play disc" as a DRM measure. But other than that, you're certainly right.

Like Mike says, it really does reduce the noise, too. The 360's drive is quite loud, even on newer models (mine's only two years old, hardly first generation hardware). While game installs do reduce load time in my experience, as long as the game is optimized to support hard drive loading (as I believe games produced before the firmware update allowing game installs probably don't benefit as much), the impact is mainly on the noise and the pocketbook, since 360 HDDs are still stupidly expensive.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Not too much to add - because I can't find anything about this.

But I was watching TNA wrestling last night, and I saw that Spike TV was promoting FFXIII pretty heavily. I think they're doing some kind of special either Monday of Tuesday night (I really don't remember too much about it, I was doing work while watching it). If I see any more about it, I'll let you know.

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Praise Be To Helix!

Quote (footbigmike @ 5th March 2010 17:56)

We also now know that the size of the installation on the Xbox 360 Version is [URL=http://kotaku.com/5480759/how-many-gigabytes-is-ffxiiis-xbox-360-install]. Do you have enough room for it?

What does the weekend have to do with anything?

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"The Lord Bob Bree is my shepherd,
I shall not want;
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He leads me beside GameFOX;
He restores my karma.
He leads me in paths of moderation
for His name's sake."
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What does the weekend have to do with anything?

Last Thursday. i.e the Portal shenanigans I mentioned.