When Yoicha Wada proudly announced that Square Enix had been in talks with Tecmo about a takeover for a while, he made it seem like it was a done deal. Unfortunately, the new Tecmo president Yasuharu Kakihara didn't agree.
Square Enix made an offer of $200m for Tecmo, but they have decided to reject the offer and will turn down any more advances that come from Square Enix. Instead, they have decided to pursue a prospective merger with Koei, the creators of the ever popular Dynasty Warriors franchise.
Square Enix will be bitterly disappointed with this news, as they were hoping to gain more of a foothold in the western market. It looks like they will have to try something else though.
Just over a month ago we announced that work on the Final Fantasy X section would be postponed due to another project which was being undertaken. Today, we can officially announce what that project is.
Final Fantasy Union is going to be a branch of Square Union, which will focus purely on Final Fantasy. This will allow a much more focussed approach and hopefully you'll all appreciate that the new site looks awesome, and the content that's up so far is much improved.
Gradually, the Final Fantasy content on Square Union will be migrated over to Final Fantasy Union and it will receive a nice overhaul at the same time. Square Union itself will then focus much more on Square Enix's non-franchise titles such as Ehrgeiz and Vagrant Story.
Thank you for the continued support and hopefully you'll like the new site!
With The World Ends With You prompting Yoichi Wada to suggest that games of this nature will be produced much less due to poor sales, Square Enix were probably hoping that their next new IP - Sigma Harmonics - would perform much better.
Both fabled producer Yoshinori Kitase and respected musician Masashi Hamauzu were brought on to the staff, but even these two high profile names have failed to inspire the Japanese public to go out and purchase the game.
Oricon Monitor Research have conducted a survey over 1000 individuals to decide who is the most popular gaming character in Japan. The group covered all demographics, with people chose from multiple ages groups, and each gender being equally represented.
The character that came first is hardly surprising (Mario), but Cloud managed to coming in second place - beating both Yoshi, Solid Snake and Slime.
The Chocobo was actually the second highest representative from the Final Fantasy franchise, finishing seventh.
Following the announcement at DKΣ3713 yesterday that the Final Fantasy XIII demo would be exclusively appearing on the Playstation 3 via Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete in March 2009, Square Enix have also announced that the demo will be playable by the media at this year's TGS.
This is exciting news and hopefully the media enjoy playing the demo as much as they did playing the demo for Final Fantasy Dissidia.
Final Fantasy Dissidia has been announced to have a release date of December 2008 in Japan, which points towards a Q1 release for North American audiences and perhaps a Q2 release for European games.
Square Enix have been quite quiet on the Dissidia front quiet recently, so expect some more nes at the upcoming Japanese gaming shows.
After a long wait and numerous delays, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete has finally received a release date from Square Enix.
It was announced during the DKΣ3713 event, and it has been confirmed that the Blu-ray disc will come with a Final Fantasy XIII demo as part of the product.
Square Enix have finally announced that a Final Fantasy XIII demo is on the way, and it will be exclusive to the Playstation 3 system.
They announced at the DKσ3713 2008 private party, that the demo will come packed in with Advent Children Complete, which is going to be released during March of 2009.
Although the Final Fantasy X section is only half complete, we have decided to postpone further work on the section.
The reason for this is that we're working on another project as well, which is going to be taking all of our time. When it's launched it will be quite obvious why and we're aiming to have the work finished by roughly the start of September.
We will continue to report news though, so be sure to check back for the all the latest on Square Enix.
