Square Enix News Tidbits: Rated M for Mature?

The answer is: yes, but only if you are really reaching. This week, you can find some updates to last week's Square Enix news, as well as yet another release for the oldest games in the Final Fantasy series. Beyond that, we've got some Square Enix business and employment news, a bit more Final Fantasy XIII hype, and even some potentially M-rated weirdness. And now we roll on, with our heads held high.

As reported last week, Birth by Sleep was the top selling game in Japan for the first time. Now, this week, it's the second time around. It's still beating New Super Mario Bros. Wii in week-to-week sales, but by a vastly smaller margin than before, largely because now it's the game's week two, not launch week. Given the install base for PSPs versus Wiis, I don't imagine this trend will continue all that much further before something, whether it's NSMB or some other newer release, will knock Kingdom Hearts off the top rung.

In case you haven't had enough of Final Fantasy I and II yet (note that you can play Final Fantasy I on no fewer than five American systems already), you will soon be able to take them with you on your iPhone or iPod Touch, you trendy fool, you. (Yes, I have both, but I don't use them for games. Also, it's well-known that I'm a massive hypocrite.) Not very many details yet, but it seems like the games will be based more or less on the PSP releases, but with a redesigned interface due to the necessity of using touch to navigate the games.

Squenix announced this week that they're looking to take on some debt. While the company has billions of yen in liquid assets already, but they also owe billions in debt, too (though not as much as they have on hand). When they sell their bond issues worth ¥35 billion, the additional cash can help to pay off the original debt, or it could also be used to go on another game-company-gobbling purchasing spree, or some of both. In another part of the company, composer Masashi Hamauzu has left the sound team of Square Enix. He composed music for a variety of games produced by the company, notably a couple releases in the SaGa family, Final Fantasy X, and most recently Final Fantasy XIII.

And, hey, have some promised weirdness. Apparently one of Vanille's models within Final Fantasy XIII is nude. Not entirely surprising, given that this is common practice as the modelers can then be able to more closely map clothing and equipment to the base model; allegedly, though, Vanille's model in this case includes detail in her upper half that isn't often seen in such things. Let's just leave it at that, shall we? And no link, you'll just have to go looking on your own (which, of course, I know you're already doing, and that will no doubt tide you over until the next tidbits).

Source: Kotaku, Square Enix DLG (on Facebook), Square Enix Music