News

That's right! In honor of the Caves of Narshe's upcoming 10th anniversary, a second CoNtest (quite possibly the first of several) is coming up very soon! This CoNtest is going to be quite different from last year's, with concept by Del S and code by Rangers51 and Tiddles. I won't tell you exactly what it's about yet, but here are a few hints:

1) This CoNtest will use a tournament-style setup coded directly through the website; no more emailing in submissions.

2) Again, this CoNtest will almost certainly favor contestants that frequent the forums and chat more often than others; it's similar to the incognito CoNtest in that respect.

3) For the most part, this CoNtest will NOT be about video games, not even ones that CoN covers; if you have an extensive knowledge of video games, it isn't going to help much. If at all.

4) Bogut.

That's all I'm saying, so let the anticipation begin! This time there will be guaranteed prizes for the first, second, and third-finishing contestants in the form of Amazon.com gift certificates, so the stakes are pretty high. You can expect this new Contest to drop sometime in the next few weeks. Until then, prognosticate away!

Want to sign up? Signup should be available in the evening of 18 June or sometime on 19 June - it's as simple as clicking a button. To stay updated so you know when you can sign up, either subscribe to this thread or make sure you can receive email from board administrators.

Square-Enix let loose several new news tidbits in their recent end-of-fiscal-year statement that are of interest to fans of their two most popular series.

First of all, Final Fantasy XIII for the Playstation 3 will be released no sooner than the end of the current fiscal year (March 31st, 2008). Thus, the earliest that we'll see FF XIII on Japanese store shelves is Apri of 2008. FF XIII never had a concrete release date to begin with, but now we know at least when not to expect it.

Dragon Quest IX for the DS, however, reportedly is progressing along ahead of schedule. This could mean that the TBA 2007 release date is a guarantee rather than a mere estimation.

And according to the same end-of-fiscal-year reports, sales were around 32% up while profits were around 32% down. The sales jump was in large part due to excellent North American and European releases of Final Fantasy XII; this marked the first fiscal year in Square-Enix history where a majority of its sales came from outside Japan.

Source: RPGFan

In the USA video game sales charts for the month of April, the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii posted strong sales numbers by selling 471,000 and 360,000 units, respectively. The XBox 360 had a disappointing April with 117,000 units sold, but not as disappointing as the Sony Playstation 3's 82,000. In a hilarious turn of events, the Nintendo Game Boy Advance sold 84,000 units in April; that's right, the GBA is selling better than the PS3.

And unsurprisingly, Pokemon dominated the game sales charts by having its two versions combine for a little over 1.7 million sold. Diamond made up for just over one million of those.

But that's not the point. The point is that Sony's sales situation is getting worse, and it will probably need those hyped Fall 2007 releases to stay in the game.

Source: http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=16199

According to Square-Enix representative Shinji Hashimoto, Square-Enix doesn't have that much incentive to release any games on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console at present. From 1UP.com:

"We feel that the Japanese game market still requires [physical] media. Also, FF and Dragon Quest are played by a wide range of users, from children to adults, so there are limitations when you consider the problems that we would have with billing systems."

Bottom line, if consumers are paying up to 30 USD for remakes of older Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games, why should Square-Enix put them on the VC for a quarter of that? That's what Squenix is thinking, and that statement might unfortunately be evidence that our favorite Japanese developer isn't going to have any downloadable content on the Wii anytime soon.

Source: 1UP

Despite rumors to the contrary following its announcement last year, Dragon Quest IX: Protectors of the Starry Sky will not be featuring an action-oriented battle system and will stick to the tried-and-true turn-based system that has been a feature of every game in the Dragon Quest main series.

However, there are still a few adjustments being made to the DQ formula. Enemies will now be visible in the open field and running into an enemy will trigger a battle, not unlike the battle systems from Chrono Trigger (which had several traditional Dragon Quest staff on its team). Battles will be in full 3D in the same vein as the PS2's Dragon Quest VIII, and DQ IX will also support multiplayer co-op at any stage of the game using the DS's wireless multiplayer capabilities. Also, for the first time in the series, the main character's appearance will be fully customizable by the player - everything from a character's weight to facial features is player-controlled.

Dragon Quest IX is shaping up to be quite different from many of its predecessors, but it is being made by virtually the exact same team that created Dragon Quest VIII - the studios of Yuji Horii, Akira Toriyama, and Koichi Sugiyama, as well as the independent developer Level-5. Dragon Quest IX is scheduled for a 2007 release in Japan.

Source: 1UP

On May 19th, 2007, in Seoul, Korea, Blizzard will launch the third iteration of its own special expo, the World Wide Invitational. There, Blizzard Korea officials will officially unveil the long-awaited sequel to Blizzard's legendary RTS. The announcement was made earlier today, and Korean message boards are going crazy.

Here's a translation of the announcement:

“StarCraft 2 will be revealed for the first time to the world at Blizzard's World Wide Invitational (WWI) on May 19th.

On the 25th, according to the game developers, it has been confirmed that Blizzard Entertainment Korea (aka Blizzard Korea) will present VODs and game content at the WWI that is starting on May 19th. Also, StarCraft 2's main developers will also attend to answer some questions.

It has been confirmed that StarCraft 2 is being developed in 3D, a new race has been added and existing units' characteristics will have many changes. Additional details will only be revealed to certain parts of WWI.

Blizzard has invited over 100 international media and has prepared both Seoul Olympic Gymnastics Stadium and Fencing Stadium for this event -- the biggest area ever for a short-term game event.

StarCraft 2's announcement preparation is proceeding with secrecy, and only the core group at Blizzard Korea knows the specific details and situation. As they have done in the past, Blizzard is not planning to reveal or release any details for the "best surprise announcement".

However, trustworthy information is being leaked from previous Blizzard employees, and through an acquaintance of ex-Blizzard North employees, StarCraft 2's development and its announcement at the WWI has been confirmed.

Last February 28th, Blizzard president, Mike Morhaime, has hinted that "At the WWI in May, there will be a surprise announcement" for the announcement of a sequel, Blizzard Korea has confirmed, on the 25th, an unrevealed sequel's announcement.

Blizzard Korea's Park Young-Mok director said "There is not content available for answer for the sequel. The sequel will be released at the WWI on the 19th. Please confirm it at the site on the 19th" and denied the confirmation on if StarCraft 2 is indeed the sequel that is to be announced on the 19th.

MBC Game's Lee Sang-Ho head said "Frankly, it's half anticipation and half worry. If SC2 is released in a form that is compatible with e-sports broadcast, there will be many new gamers and the entire industry will develop. However if it comes out in a form that is not easy to broadcast, like WarCraft 3, StarCraft fans will focus on the sequel while the original league will suffer a decline", expressing a cautious mindset.

OnGameNet's StarCraft commentator Um Jae-Kyung said "Blizzard has probably already grasped the difference between this nation's gamers and foreign gamers' difference in inclination through WarCraft 3. So I'm hoping for a more balanced structure, a structure with e-sports in mind. However, I believe that the e-sports league will continue to focus on StarCraft and a new league focusing on StarCraft 2 will form, the industry growing bigger as a result. As a gamer, I'm really looking forward to it.

Blizzard's WWI is on its third year and will take place from May 19th to 20th at the Seoul Olympic Gymnastics Stadium and Weight Lifting Stadium (translator's note: I thought it was fencing? o.O). Many e-sports games as well as events such as WarCraft 3 ladder season 5 Asia region preliminaries, for the first time, a World of Warcraft Arena Tournament Off-line Regional Finals will take place.”

South Korea regularly holds video game tournaments and broadcasts them as true sporting events, hence all of the e-sports references in the quoted text. As a gamer who definitely had a "StarCraft phase" several years ago, I am surprised and excited by this news. Starcraft 2 is on the horizon, and we'll learn more on May 19th.