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In what is becoming more and more characteristic for the industry as a whole and Square Enix in particular, we got this week another series of tidbits and new media for the next blockbuster releases from the megacorp. We covered only a bit of the Final Fantasy XIII Premiere Party around here, though it happened this week; in essence, it threw out a lot of stuff that the media weren't allowed to show per se, with a lot of little news attached. Beyond what laszlow posted on Tuesday, there was a new trailer, which while kept "secret" at the start, soon showed up on a Japanese morning show, at least in part. After the party, a little bit info came to light as well; Kotaku brings us a new series of screens, while GameSpot has some details of the Uematsu-penned theme song, as sung by newcomer Sayuri Sugawara.

More news from Nier this week, too, as it was renamed a bit to "Nier Gestalt." The reason? Well, it seems that Squenix is already planning to build this game into a franchise, with a teaser for "Nier Replicant" showing up in Famitsu a few days back. Few details to speak of from the new game, but rumor has it that Nier Gestalt might be going to 360 only and Replicant could do the same for PS3. Fragmenting the audience seems a move destined to make the game fail in the long run, but it's not like anyone really thinks Square Enix makes only smart decisions these days, right? In any event, Squenix are saying that these rumors have no bearing on the North American release - who knows what that means? Do we get only Gestalt for both platforms? Do we get both games for both platforms? Is there a magical Wii release coming? (Just kidding on that last one, I think.)

Source: Kotaku, GameSpot

Earlier today, Square-Enix threw a Final Fantasy XIII party, showing off new screens, information, and what have you about Final Fantasy XIII. There was some nifty news, like the announcement of another Final Fantasy-themed beverage ("elixir") and the revealing of a PS3+FFXIII bundle in Japan, but the real reveal was three numbers: 12.17.2009.

That's right, Final Fantasy XIII will be out in Japan on 17th December of this year. That number was accidently leaked by a few different sites over the weekend, but now it's definitely official. FF XIII will retail for 8800 yen, which works out to be about $95 USD or 57 GBP, usually a price reserved for special editions and bundles.

But who cares about those Japanese? When is it coming out in the United States, or Canada, or Europe? Spring 2010. Square-Enix refuses to give Westerners such precise numbers as they did the Japanese, but Square-Enix president Yoichi Wada claimed that FF XIII is aiming for an international release this spring. Details on the specific date are currently nonexistent, but supposedly upcoming. Keep your fingers crossed.

Source: Kotaku, More Kotaku, Guess who?

For a game that has barely surfaced, Final Fantasy XIV is generating quite a hype, and for good reason too. Similar to Final Fantasy X, the new game will feature its own religion. The depth of Yevon and its link to the central storyline is one of the more outstanding features of Final Fantasy X — perhaps we will see a similar degree of success in this next game. The style of the world will be a combination of medieval and sci-fi, so nothing special there then. Could it be the same battle between the old and the new, the church and progress? If the religion has no bearing on the plot then Square Enix may avoid igniting a potentially volatile topic.

Character growth will be linked to whichever weapon the character is wielding. There will be no experience and no levels; growth is apparently comparable to the job system of Final Fantasy V and, of course, Final Fantasy XI. Character customisation is always a plus, but not including character levels may be unwelcome to some in the die-hard RPG crowd.

The bad news for some of us is that our old adversary '30-day subscription' will be making a comeback. Against the growing trend of free-to-play, pay-to-upgrade multiplayer online games, Square Enix is stalwartly insisting on the same scheme as they used in Final Fantasy XI. A subscription system may not come as a surprise to many, but those of us who dislike this method may be somewhat put off.

On a much more positive note, Nobuo Uematsu will be composing the entire score for the first time since Final Fantasy IX. Rather than shoehorning his aging great pieces into the new games, he will now be composing a host of new tracks, many of the them likely to become favourites.

Final Fantasy XIV is due for a simultaneous global release in 2010 on PC and PS3, with an Xbox 360 release still pending.

Source: The Escapist (Experience), The Escapist (Subscription), Destructoid

With Gamescom underway off in the wilderness of Europe (read: Germany), it shouldn't be a big surprise that there's some Square Enix tidbits coming out. We've been following the stories all week and are rolling them up right here for those of you who might have missed them. I like these roundups, personally; you can catch up on a lot of little things without cluttering our news section with tons of little posts, you know? However, you don't care about my philosophy, so here we go into the hard data:

Final Fantasy XIII
As has been the standard for this game, things are leaking out just a bit at a time. This week brings yet more character names for this upcoming release, as well as new screenshots of HorseOdin. Both names apply to more "rivals" for Lightning; no big surprise that the protagonist of a Final Fantasy game has a lot of folks that don't like her, right? The new male rival is named "Yaag," apparently; the female is, in a surprising turn towards normalcy, apparently called "Jill." You can see Odin in the same magazine scan that shows Jill—it remains to be seen whether they'll actually call the horse form of the summon Sleipnir, or ignore that part of the mythology altogether. Thanks to Yelanates for throwing the Yaag story our way.

As a final note for thirteen, The Escapist tells us that the dev team for the 360 version is aiming to get the game to us on three DVDs. Brings back memories of the Playstation era, does it not? This information is not concrete yet, as the development is not far enough along to be considered final, but Yoshinori Kitase says that three is the goal. He also says that the way things are looking, the number of discs might be the only noticable difference between the two console versions, so that's pretty good news for those of us who don't rock the Playstation 3. Now, if only Squenix would reneg on their exclusivity deal for XIII Versus...

Final Fantasy XIV
Kotaku brings us a series of Final Fantasy XIV video clips this week, by way of GameTrailers. It's mostly demo stuff, but hey, tech demos are cool. There's a demo displaying how each race runs through a variety of facial and body expressions, an archer getting pummeled by some fairly large chickens (with some low-fidelity battle music in the background that still sounds good), and a couple other attractive but not particularly inspiring gameplay videos.

Nier
As Square Enix try again with an action-oriented genre, it appears they're going a bit more towards God of War and Dante's Inferno with "mature" content, say Kotaku. The newly-debuted-at-Gamescom character Kaine appears to have a bit of a potty mouth and a fairly-standard-for-Squenix-women risque costume. Combine somewhat-inappropriate clothing with a foul mouth, and what do you get? Well, maybe something kinda hot, but just as likely something that might look like they're trying too hard to, as put by Nier's producer, expand beyond the existing Square Enix image. We'll see in 2010 when the game drops.

Source: Kotaku, FF Insider, The Escapist

Earlier today Kaz Hirai confirmed the upcoming release of the long-suspected new, slimmer model of the PlayStation 3 arriving soon in stores worldwide. The new model contains a 120GB hard drive, maintains all the features supported in the 80 and 160 GB versions, and is approximately 30% smaller and 35% lighter than the current models. The slender new version also has a new, modified PS3 logo etched on the side, and comes standard with the new PS3 firmware v3.0.

Sony also confirmed that the $299 price drop will apply to all PS3s, namely the 80 GB and 160 GB units still on the market. There are also rumors of a second slim PS3 with 200 or 250 GB of storage space, but these are only rumors at the moment.

The new Sony PlayStation 3 will be available worldwide during the first week of September, at $299 in the United States and 299 euros in most of Europe.

Sources (with pictures) courtesy of Kotaku:
Original announcement
Price points
Bonus information with pictures

Ever though that Square-Enix were not so open to innovation? Ever thought they liked to repeat the same admittedly successful formulas? Ever thought they seemed unwilling to let a new idea join the stable?

Well, you're not alone: Tri-Ace, who you may remember as developers of such RPG's as the Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile series, have decided to plump with Sega as publishers for their latest offering, Resonance of Fate (AKA End of Eternity in Japan, an apparent reference to Isaac Asimov) rather than Square-Enix. According to RoF/EoE director Takayuki Suguro, "SEGA has a more open attitude towards accepting new RPG ideas than Square Enix," and thus they've decided that the publishers of their new game will be the owners of everyone's favourite small annoying blue creature with spiky hair rather than the prudish and stuffy owners of everyone's favourite small annoying blond creature with spiky hair, at least for EoE/RoF.

End of Eternity/Resonance of Fate is an RPG set for release on XBox 360 and PS3 in late 2009 in Japan as EoE and 2010 in North America and Europe as RoF, with mankind near extinction due to environmental collapse (again), and from the look of it a copious amount of bullets.

Source: Kotaku