News

Square Enix had a financial reporting briefing today, and the core of it was absolutely Nintendo's new console and mobile titles. As reported by the Wall Street Journal's Tokyo tech reporter, the company plans to "aggressively make games for Switch," ruling out no IPs in the company's stable. They did not go into any detail as to any specific IPs, of course, but they did reference new IP, active IP, or even resurrected IP. You can let your mind run absolutely wild with those possibilities, of course, but we've already seen the concept in action with games like I Am Setsuna or the possibility of Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition.

The company went on to say that the Switch is a great place for mid-level games, and due to the similarities in system architecture with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, it's very possible that more games could be made cross-platform in the future and include the Switch. I think in reading between the lines, this implies that the games can be ported but might need to be toned down, particularly in the case of games made with the PS4 Pro or One X in mind.

Additionally, as per Gematsu, the company mentioned the existence of unannounced mobile titles to be released in the second half of this fiscal year, as well as "sharp," "powerful," and "well-made" titles to be seen at next year's E3. There's no information currently as to whether these sharp titles are ones we already know are coming, like Kingdom Hearts 3, or whether they're currently under wraps.

Finally, the company dropped a few ongoing sales numbers to show its strength, with Dragon Quest XI having sold more than three million copies, NieR: Automata booking more than two million, and Final Fantasy XV at over six and a half million worldwide.

Source: Siliconera, Gematsu

Hardly unexpected since everything's being ported to Steam these days but yeah, World of Final Fantasy will be relased on Steam on 21st November.

A day one edition will be available for the first week which will give you a digital soundtrack sampler and a wallpaper. Not a big deal to miss if you want to wait to buy the game.

Source: Steam, Square Enix Store

A pop up experience celebrating the 30th anniversary of Final Fantasy is coming to London. The experience will last from the 3rd-5th November and take place in Slingsby Place, Covent Garden.

Fans will get the chance to sample the upcoming Dissidia Final Fantasy NT ahead of it's release, as well as play past games from the series. There's also merchandise exclusive to the pop up experience, artwork covering the history of the series..

Special guests include DISSIDIA® FINAL FANTASY® NT producer Ichiro Hazama and FINAL FANTASY® XIV director and producer Naoki Yoshida.

Source: FinalFantasy30.com

I could swear I'd heard about this before now, but I can't find it in any previous CoN news, so let's just treat it as new, shall we? Late last week, Square Enix published a new page on their 30th Anniversary microsite announcing a gallery exhibition in honor of the series' milestone.

The show has been announced in Alhambra, California, starting on December 2 and running through January 7 of 2018, at Gallery Nucleus. It looks like a fairly small gallery, and the photos included don't give a great indication for what all will be included. The announcement video includes only Sakaguchi and Shinji Hashimoto, and the list of artists involved don't have any direct ties to Square Enix; with that in mind, perhaps the show has as much to do with artists inspired by Final Fantasy as it does artists who have actually worked on the series.

If you're in the Los Angeles area for the holidays, try to check this out and report back to us!

Earlier today, I shut down the nomination phase. Sorry to those who were too lazy to get it done! It's possible you might not have gotten your favorite song in to the top sixty-four nominations by missing out, but it's okay, because now it's time for the second phase, and it's much faster to do this one and it's the part where you can win prizes.

https://regalia.cavesofnarshe.com/ is still where it's at. If you go back today, you'll see something similar to before, but now there are only sixty-four songs to choose from, and you only choose five. The new list is alphabetized, so that nobody has any idea which songs were most popular - from that list, you choose, in order, which ones you think will be the top five after everyone votes on the matchups which will be coming soon. Once you submit your list, you're entered to win the prizes we showed a month ago!

We'll leave this phase open until at least November 1, after which we'll get the voting started. Please remember to share to social media after you make your picks, because everyone everywhere can still play, whether they nominated or not!

I'll post the list of sixty-four as a subsequent comment to this news post for folks who want to see it before making their picks.

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