Slashdot Mirror

eldavojohn writes "It's no secret that Final Fantasy XIV took a lot of heat early on, which required extensive damage control. And the Japanese tsunami (which appears to have added $7.5 million to their losses) certainly didn't help. But if what early investor reports are saying is true, then Square Enix is expected to report $148 million in losses for the closing fiscal year. Expect title cancellations (which might add to the hurt) and a very painful realization for the owner of Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior (PDF). Perhaps a move to re-releasing classics will prove more fruitful than high development cost MMORPGs?"

Square Enix has announced plans to release three expansion chapters to Final Fantasy XI. Their blog post provided some details about the new content: "The first installment, A Crystalline Prophecy — Ode of Life Bestowing, is slated for release for all languages and platforms in Spring of next year. Subsequent installments will then follow, being released in intervals of every few months. These expansions packages will only be available through online purchase via PlayOnline. The projected cost for each installment is around $10.00. ... Up until now, expansion packs have generally been developed from a perspective of 'lateral expansion,' focusing namely on the introduction of new areas. These three new expansions, however, will deepen the storylines running through pre-existing areas by ushering in all-new plots and intrigues. While not necessarily containing as much content as traditional expansions, these episodic scenarios are designed to take anywhere from one to two months to complete."

More movement on the massive scale. WoW Players should be aware that Patch 1.7 was released today. It's a big one, with a new raid instance, Hunter changes, and the inclusion of a new type of server (Roleplaying PVP) available. Get downloading. City of Heroes has seen Issue 5's Release, with a new zone, new power sets, and a big tweak to the Blaster archetype. Late last week a whole bunch of new City of Villains Beta invites went out, and Gamespot has a rundown on the upcoming stand-alone sequel. Major changes are afoot in Everquest II's Producer Letter, with changes to combat, classes, items, NPCs, buffs, crafting, and grouping. Is it even the same game? On a final non-commercial note, CNet has news that the Second Life virtual world is now free to enter, with the Linden Dollars economy expected to prop up the costs associated with running it. Interesting. From that article: "Currently, Rosedale said, "Second Life" has 45,000 members and is growing at about 10 percent a month. There are now more than 16,000 acres of owned land in the virtual world, and new land sells for about $129. Users must pay a fee of about $25 a month to maintain their land. Thus, Linden Lab is earning about $400,000 a month without ever factoring in membership fees." Update: 09/14 05:50 GMT by Z : Cutriss rightly points out that I overlooked the interesting Ballista Royale update to FFXI. Additionally, a new patch for Dark Age of Camelot was released today, and the main site revamped for the upcoming expansion.

FF7:AC Movie writes "Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children has been leaked on the Internet early this morning by a pirate group from Hong Kong known as BiEN (which incidentally means good in French). The Square-Enix film was due to release in Japan on September 14th 2005 after numerous delays. As for the North American release date, it has been pushed back to a cloudy end of November."

An anonymous reader writes "Could the Final Fantasy series have finally come to an end? About.com's Adrien-Luc Sanders thinks so in his article The Final Days of Final Fantasy. I'm sure many people here remember Final Fantasy VII and how it helped Sony win the console market away from Nintendo. The article contends that Final Fantasy's glory days are over, that with the release of Final Fantasy X-2, the underwhelming EverQuest clone Final Fantasy XI, and the much-delayed Final Fantasy XII (finally confirmed for a 2006 US release), we've effectively seen the end of Final Fantasy. Is it time for Square-Enix to give up on Final Fantasy?"

Final Fantasy Online Warcry has the news that iTunes is now carrying Final Fantasy scores and music from the Black Mages. Square Enix has a listing of all of their iTunes offerings, which includes music from FFI - FFXI, a live concert offering, and two albums by the Black Mages (Nobuo Uematsu's rock band).

_xeno_ writes "Final Fantasy XI is currently under a DDOS attack from unknown parties. No additional information is really available, but Square-Enix has contacted "[l]aw enforcement authorities in Japan, the United States, and Europe." The attacks started on April 9th and are evidently ongoing, causing server downtime, preventing people from logging in to the game, and causing extra latency. No word has been made on the exact nature of the attacks or any progress on blocking the attacks."

The official site for Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is now live, with trailers and information now available. Unfortunately, the site makes heavy use of Flash and a fast connection is likely required to make effective use of the site.

GameGirlAdvance has a look at the litigation between NCSoft and Marvel, examining exactly how infringy the character creator can let you be. The Square/Enix people are starting a roving FFXI party, to kick off later this month in CA. f13.net has an interview with Scott Brown, a developer on the upcoming car-based Auto Assault MMOG. The staple MMOG stats resource, MMOGChart.com, has been updated again by Sir Bruce. He's added several more games but doesn't have new subscription numbers for WoW or EQII.

Bagels writes "Square Enix is finally answering the prayers of thousands of FF7 fans with a side-story PS2 game called "Dirge of Cereberus: Final Fantasy VII." Not much is known yet - the game focuses on the character Vincent, it's set one year after the upcoming movie, Advent Children, and it's early in development as of now - but this is sure to be a hot topic amongst fans and critics of the series alike."

Kethinov writes "The Chrono Ressurrection Project (previously mentioned on /. here), an attempted 3d remake of the popular 2d game Chrono Trigger, has been shut down by Squenix in the form of a cease and desist letter. Quoth their website, "it is with our deepest regrets in that we have to announce the closure of the Chrono Resurrection project. Square Enix Co., Ltd recently issued a Cease and Desist letter which will mean the project is closed indefinitely." The site retains two trailers and a number of screenshots."