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When the Pixel Remaster games were released in physical editions for consoles a couple years ago, they sold out virtually overnight, leaving only digital downloads available for players. With a couple years' water under the bridge now, though, and the continued popularity of the remasters, Square Enix have announced that a wider release of the physical games will be available starting October 8.

Like the original limited edition release, this new one will be for Playstation and Switch only. Unlike the original, though, the pack-in bonuses are limited to just a sticker sheet. The release is priced at $75, which seems like a lot - but, thinking back on it, that's still less than I spent for Final Fantasy III (US) on SNES 30 years ago even accounting for inflation.

Source: Gematsu

The Pixel Remaster games announced around E3 this year now have started to show up, with the first three games of the series coming first. Gematsu is reporting that Final Fantasy I, II, and III will be the first games released on July 28 worldwide for Steam, iOS and Android. Steam has all three available for preorder at 20% discounts, leaving the prices at $9.59 US for the first two games and $14.39 for Final Fantasy III.

There are no updates for release dates on the Pixel Remaster releases of IV, V, or VI as yet, nor prices.

Source: Gematsu

The Final Fantasy "Ultimania" guides have been lore for Western Final Fantasy fans for many years; I remember first hearing about their existence twenty years ago, but I've never seen one in person. Finally, though, those of us who want to see these guides in a format we can actually read ourselves - not you, smug Japanese-knowing CoN fans! - will get a chance to own them in English.

Next June, Dark Horse and Square Enix will release a 300+ page archive of Ultimania guides covering the first six games of the series in a hardbound edition. It's expected to be the first of three volumes encapsulating the entire series. Amazon, at least in the US, has it listed for just $34 currently, and I know I have already preordered my copy.

If you want to do the same, check this AmaCoN link: http://amzn.to/2xhj5SX

Source: Siliconera

Several years back, The Speed Gamers did a fun Final Fantasy marathon for charity, a goal with which CoN was happy to help. It's 2017 now, and it's time to start up again! At 6pm Eastern tonight, TSG will kick off a new marathon for the benefit of St. Jude's Children Research Hospital, with TSG players running through all of the main-series games over the course of a week. I'm posting this a bit before the start, of course, but look right below for a good place to watch if you want to tune in. I know I'll be watching a fair bit and will be doing so in CoN chat as often as I can, so come join me, won't you? They'll be doing the games in order, starting with Final Fantasy I tonight and targeting the next CoN game, Final Fantasy IV, tomorrow night.

This time around, we've provided a bit more support with promotion on social media, and our old friend Gabe provided a number of awesome fuse bead sprites for TSG to give away as donation prizes. We're not sure when they'll be given away, but keep an eye out if you're a Final Fantasy IV fan!

St. Jude has been a recipient of my own donation dollars for quite a while, so I personally think this is a great time to support people playing your favorite games for a fantastic cause. You can donate directly from here, even if you're not watching. Make sure you mention that you found out about their good cause from your friends at CoN! Don't forget that donations at particular times might also enter you for prizes like Gabe's, so pay attention, or, if you want to guarantee that you get something cool, check out these charity t-shirts on Fangamer, with $10 going to St. Jude on every shirt purchased.

Join us in wishing TSG luck over the next week, and have some fun coming up by checking out your favorite Final Fantasy games played at pace!

Source: The Speed Gamers

2017 will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Final Fantasy franchise, with the original game having been released on 18 December, 1987. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was writing about the game turning 25, so it seems very strange indeed that I could already be writing about 30 - and in some ways, it is strange, because the actual anniversary is still more than a year away and it's easy to forget that North America waited almost two years after its initial Japanese launch before it came ashore here.

So, even though the real anniversary is more than a year away, Square Enix are ready to celebrate. Or, at least, they're ready to tell us that they're ready to celebrate via their old standby - a trailer video released at TGS. There's also a website, which is pretty neat as such things go even though it's fairly bereft of content at the moment, with just video clips from each game and an announcement of Final Fantasy XIV events at Zepp music halls in Japan starting in February.

There's no current indication as to what other events might mark the anniversary year, or whether any locales outside of Japan will be included.

Source: Gematsu, Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary

Starting today, the North American PSN store has a series of Final Fantasy games half off. Which games, you might ask? Well, a bucket of them. You can get a version of every numbered Final Fantasy game up through IX (not including III, which never has had a Sony release). Most of the games are the PS One versions, including Origins, Anthology, and the three released originally for the first PlayStation. Final Fantasy IV's PSP version is included, as is Tactics: War of the Lions. Rounding out the set are three games from the Dissidia series.

This sale is 50% off the top and will be running for two weeks. The game selection is a little different than the European-region sale that we, uh, forgot to post about until right now. That sale's over, though. Sorry about that.

Source: US PlayStation Blog