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With E3 dead and gone, there was a little bit of slowdown in Square Enix news. We'll be back to things trickling through until Tokyo Game Show, I'm sure, in which we'll probably get fresh deluges of news about Final Fantasy Versus XIII and XIV Online. For now, though, the trickle is on.

First news is that Xbox 360 might not get a hold of the new Online entry. The director of XIV, Hiromichi Tanaka, is saying that the game won't be on 360 because Xbox Live is too closed of a system. It appears that the "business scheme" Microsoft puts forth just doesn't do what Square Enix wants for the game, as put forth by Yoichi Wada in a separate interview. Eggboxers shouldn't give up hope, though, I don't think - it's not as if Final Fantasy XI didn't make the port eventually, and we don't know what might be in the cards for the future.

On the Versus front, the first new media since last year's TGS came out this week, with a bit of detail behind it. The screens are scans from Famitsu, and have an interesting look to them, with one in particular showing a player character outside of a somewhat "modern" gas station, with "modern" here representing something like 1950s America. The rest of the details came from Nomura, and aren't exactly groundbreaking - there are some destructible environments, and a large open world, and enemies will by and large be visible before combat but some will sneak up. Given what I see in the screenshots and the descriptions above, it actually sounds a bit like a more sandboxy Parasite Eve so far. No complaints here if that's the case.

What might be the most interesting thing of the week, at least for the Square Enix Naysayers Club, is that Wada has also said this week in Forbes magazine that all future Square Enix games will have a level of multiplayer or social networking capability. I understand, I understand - this could go really badly. It could result in all Squenix games being driven by microtransactions, as seems to be the growing trend in social gaming. It could even result in games where you have to harass your friends on Facebook in order to progress. Or, it could be something cool. Maybe it shares selected progress items or achievements to your Twitter or Facebook wall. Maybe it opens up some true multiplayer as in the beloved SNES entries from the Mana series. The only thing we do know so far is that this new business plan is meant to impact all games, up to and including the core Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and Kingdom Hearts franchises.

Until next time, I'll be sharing all my gaming exploits with you until Square makes it automatic!

Source: Eurogamer, Final Fantasy XIII Net, Kotaku

All socially networked... oh dear. This could very well mean the final death of the traditional RPG at squenix...

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Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V
Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X

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Yeah I'm not really liking this at all. I've never liked anything that Wada has to say.

I really hope they aren't going the "bog us down with microtransactions" route.

True multiplayer would be awesome, though.

I like how he says the developing crowd he has from 10 years ago are stuck in the past and can't make multiplayer games. Well don't make multiplayer games then! If he intends to shuffle the staff around I'm actually quite supportive of that. I've not really had a problem with the games up to IX, but from then on I think the series has taken a bit of a dive, aside from a lot of aspects of XII which are excellent. I hope this new blood he's hiring are given some discretion to be more creative and surprising. I think this might be to do with the 'unoriginal' criticism Square has received following XIII.

This post has been edited by sweetdude on 27th June 2010 08:49

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.