News

First news tidbits for November; possibly also the start of the AmaCoN Holiday Rush™? Seriously, get all your friends and family to buy stuff from AmaCoN this holiday. It usually makes up about 30% of our revenue for the year.

Anyway, here are some Square Enix News Tidbits for you. With the launch of Final Fantasy XIII in Japan getting ever closer, Square Enix have announced the release date of the official soundtrack. There will be, kind of typically, two versions—a four disc standard and five disc limited edition, with the differences being packaging, an extra disc with parts or all of Episode Zero and of course availability. Both sets will be available on 27 January in Japan, and with only about $14 difference in cost, I predict that there will be a rush for the more special-er version.

For those who don't care about the Japanese accouterments, though, you can note that Yoichi Wada thinks that "progress is good" on the Western front, and that he thinks it's possible to see a launch either in Europe, North America, or both before the end of April 2010. That seems like marketing talk, and I would expect to be waiting a bit longer than that, personally. AmaCoN still has it for 20 June 2010, for instance.

On the business front, it seems that the layoffs previously reported are now mainly done, with a grand total of ten percent cut globally. Perhaps not surprisingly, revenues for the last half-year were also up by almost exactly a third; of course, our readers who know a bit about business also know that revenues are almost never the same as profits.



Source: GamesIndustry, Kotaku

For those of you who have seen or heard Distant Worlds, perhaps you're saddened by the fact that it tends to focus on the work of Nobuo Uematsu and not the smaller contributions from other composers to the collection of Final Fantasy music. Well, if you can get to Japan in the next couple weeks, you'll have the chance to meet and listen to some like-minded souls, as a non-official production of music from Final Fantasy Tactics will soon take place in Tokyo.

Long lauded for its militaristic feel, difference from "typical" Final Fantasy music, and general quality, the score by Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata is extensive but has never received a promoted public performance treatment. On 22 November, though, that will change as a group of performers brought together specifically for this show will put on two matinee performances before calling it a day, and presumably, an end to the small concert series. The shows purport to play over sixty tracks from the game, custom-arranged into one or more medleys.

Of course, this sort of thing can only happen in Japan; perhaps someday through the power of the interwebs we can all enjoy what sounds like a great and overdue concept.

Source: Kotaku

We've been doing some behind-the-scenes work over the last couple weeks or so that you might have seen as you peruse the site; while we're not quite done with everything, I wanted to give you guys the heads-up both so you can enjoy the new stuff and also keep an eye out and report anything you see that looks funny while we continue to work.

The main thing that I've been working on recently is some updates to the way our still-new news section works. I've updated the main site RSS feed to now link directly to news articles, making it easier for you to read and comment without having to get all the way into the forums from the RSS feed. Note that if you subscribed to the old RSS feed, you can continue to use it, but you should really consider upgrading to the new one, as it will give you full stories and cleaner links to read and comment.

An added benefit to the new feed system is that we've also made RSS feeds for all of our news categories, too. If you have a particular interest in just one part of our news, such as News from Japan, you can RSS it directly and filter news via individual feeds.

I've also added a feature where you can share CoN news via Facebook, simply by clicking a couple links, so your friends can be as knowledgeable about the news we cover as you are. I'll be refining this feature in the near future, as well as possibly adding more functionality, such as the ability to tweet our news via your Twitter account as well.

Meanwhile, Tiddles and I, with some early help from footbigmike, Dragon_Fire, Hanyou, Del S and Olly, have done some tweaking to the forums. You probably won't notice most of the changes, as they're very specific to the server-side operation and security of the forums, but they do lay the groundwork for some other server upgrades that we're hoping to do quite soon indeed that will allow us to improve overall site security and possibly add other new features down the road.

So, please keep using the site just as you always have, and if you have any problems, let us know right away in the Errors and Troubleshooting forum. Thanks!

They're not actually spooky at all, sorry. With another quiet week behind us, about all I have for you today are updates on releases, thanks to Squenix sending me a nice email outlining all of the North American ones. You'll no doubt wonder, as I am, how they're deploying so many remakes of ancient games.

Here's the brief list of what's coming up, according to Square Enix:

1. A Shantotto Ascension, the next Final Fantasy XI pack, released this week;


2. Space Invaders Extreme 2 for the Nintendo DS has also dropped (seriously? Is there a market for Space Invaders?);


3. Arkanoid Plus has become available on WiiWare (again, seriously?);


4. An update to the mid-80's shooter Thexder has come online for PSP downloads—and if you remember anything about the original, kudos to you.

Since we're here, too, you can note that Hikari no 4 Senshi came out in Japan yesterday, too. Still no word on a Western port.

Enjoy your halloween! Post your costumes and pumpkins in General Topics!

Source: Square Enix

Less than twenty-four hours since our last post, Nintendo has put rumors to rest and officially announced the DSi LL (or, if you're down with the flow, the DS ILL?). It's considerably larger than the DSi—obviously, of course, to account for the much larger screen— and will come in three new colors, a chocolate brown, wine red, and "natural" white, which in product-speak usually means some ivory tint that may or may not match the photos shown today.

Yesterday's rumor of the new screens having a larger maximum resolution has proven to be untrue, which is both a good and a bad thing. Of course, people like higher resolution, so it's sad to not have the chance at it; however, it also means that Nintendo can't possibly produce games that would be playable only on the DSi LL, as it is functionally the same machine as the DSi.

Nintendo appears to be presenting the DSi LL as a more robust personal media player than the current DSi; the theory is that applications like web browsing and media play should be easier with the larger screens. Beyond that "feature," they're sweetening the deal by including styli in two sizes, and putting three DSiWare games on the unit at the factory.

All in all, it's a big honkin' unit for a handheld, around two centimeters larger in length and width than the current DSi, and an even hundred grams heavier. If the thought of Final Fantasy IV or The World Ends With You on a screen with nearly double the real estate intrigues you, though, you can pick one up from Japan on 21 November for about $220, or in Europe sometime in Q1 2010. The North American release has not yet been announced, but it's still early here in the states and I expect that info to come out in just a few short hours, so keep an eye out here.

UPDATE: Nintendo has finally confirmed that it will arrive in North America at roughly the same time it does Europe.

Source: Kotaku

The rumor from Japan today is that Nintendo is applying new planned obsolescence to their handhelds. With the DSi barely a year old, it appears that the big N is planning to drop a new version in Japan by year's end, with a screen more than 20% larger in diagonal.

It appears that this new 4" screen model will completely replace the current 3.25" model, with the intention of simply making the images larger for folks. The original news report from Japan rumors that the resolution of the screens might also increase, which could possibly make higher-res games possible on the system (but, of course, less workable for the older DSi and DS); however, this is not yet clear from the known information, so don't count on being forced into an upgrade in the near future.

Source: Engadget