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Europeans can look forward to their first official taste of Chrono Trigger on February 6th, 2009. That's right, Europe's never had an official release for Chrono Trigger, ever, so this is the first chance many Europeans will have to enjoy the game legally.

If it's any consolation, Europe, Americans never got English versions of Terranigma or VibRibbon. Well, maybe that isn't much of a consolation. But hey, congratulations!

Source: Kotaku

After too much waiting for a game that doesn't require any real localization at all, Amazon.co.uk now has a release date for Final Fantasy IV DS; it's September 5, 2008. Of course, that's coming up in just over three weeks, which really makes sense given that there wasn't any real localization necessary. As usual, AmaCoN tries hard to get all preorders to you on the actual release date of the game, so you won't have to wait: order now.

The other new release dates for the day are for the new Harvest Moon games, for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii, subtitled "Island of Happiness" and "Tree of Tranquility" respectively. While the Harvest Moon series has always been a bit niche, even for a series that has been going on for over a decade, I know there are quite a few fans who might be looking to pick these games up; if you're one of them, you can preorder now for a DS release on August 26 and a Wii release on September 16. Not only that, Amazon preorders for these games pack in farm animal plushies as bonuses. So, uh, get your farm... animals?

After months of delays, product detail changes, and other reasons for European gamers to grumble against Sony, the PS3 has finally launched in Sony's largest European market, the United Kingdom.

Though only a few hardcore fans took to sleeping on the pavement in order to secure a console, the line did improve as the midnight launch at an Oxford Virgin Megastore drew closer. And those truly rabid fans found themselves with a terrific pay-off for their determination to get a console at launch. No, silly, not the mere fact of having a console at launch. Mere minutes before midnight, a Sony rep announced that everyone already in line would receive not only a complimentary copy of the game Resistance: Fall of Man, but a 46" Bravia plasma HDTV.

Clearly, the PS3 launch went well for those who chose to show up for the midnight launch, and this is an unprecedented show of generosity on the part of a company that has been known to void a user's warranty if they admit to using 3rd-party AV cables. But as much as I wish I'd been in that line, what does this really say about Sony? Isn't giving away free plasma TVs for buying a video game system kind of like handing out cookies to secure votes for prom queen?

Source: GameSpot

With the PS3's European launch finally approaching (but still a month away), our friends in Europe and Australia are finally close to Sony's next generation. But this eager anticipation may take a downward spin with the latest news from Sony.

Striving to cut costs, Sony has announced that the European PS3's backward compatibility will be far more limited than the North American and Japanese versions. Only a "limited range" of PlayStation 2 titles will play on the European PS3, while a "broad range" of original PlayStation titles will function. A short list of compatible games will be available at launch, and the list will be expanded as Sony gets around to it. Specifically, the PS3 will not ship with the Emotion Engine chip, which was essentially the CPU for the PS2.

Sony intends to focus on software emulation as a cheaper solution to providing backwards compatibility to European gamers.

Source: GameSpot

Sigh. Sony, Sony, Sony... You're going to charge European gamers the highest prices worldwide for your product, and now you're removing one of its most attractive features?

If this had happened to the US version, there'd be no way that I'd buy a PS3. I don't like making stacks of consoles, and, frankly, holding onto my older titles means a lot to me. And what about the people who were planning on making the PS3 their first Sony console? What games are they supposed to play? Launch titles? Oh, please.

Sony have announced that Playstation 3 will release in Europe this March the 23rd, with one million consoles available at launch, roughly a quarter of those said to be for the UK alone. The same date applies to those of us in Australia and New Zealand. And according to at least one source, the million consoles are spread amongst Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Australia.

European gamers with possibly more money than sense and presumably a large amount of patience to go with that can expect to pay either 425 GBP or 599 Euros for the 60GB version of Sony's latest console, with the smaller 20GB variant only becoming available later on. Irish gamers will however pay a steep price of €630 for the 60GB console due to the 21% VAT in the Republic of Ireland. Australasians shall pay around A$1000 or NZ $1200.

Sony have stated 30 titles will be available at launch. Sadly, they're all the same ones out for the US and Japanese launch mostly plus ports from last-gen consoles and the occasional Generic Sports Game 2007 title thrown in for good measure.

Europe seemed to have been struck hardest by the various delays of PS3's launch, from the Spring 2006 issues with the blu-ray copyright, followed by the manufacturing issues with the blu-ray devices themselves led to Europe's launch being delayed, Sony claiming that the 27 nations of the European Union plus those who have had the brains to stay out of aforementioned corrupt political union presented a logitically more complex launch area than the US or Japan, and to avert failure in all three markets chose to delay the PAL launch. Though having shipped 2 million consoles to Japan and the US, failure is hardly what has occurred. The only troubles are those ones sitting unsold and the fact Wii gained a 700,000 sale head start last December alone. On the bright side, at least it wasn't 60 consoles (425 GB variants) available priced at £1,000,000...

Sources: The BBC, Wikipedia and the Herald Sun..

For several months now, Western fans of the notorious and quirky Mother/EarthBound series of RPGs have been anxiously awaiting a diffinitive answer to one very agonizing question: Will Nintendo of America finally deliver the third installment to the franchise - only recently launched in Japan this past April - to North American GameBoy Advances? As far as localization is concerned, the official word suggests we shouldn't hold our breath.

Although lacking in great detail, NoA's localization manager Nate Bihldorff, as reported in an interview by Planet GameCube, explains what could perhaps be considered the nearest thing to a true conclusion: "I'm not working on Mother 3. I don't have all the writers under me, so there may be other people in discussions going on with it, but I wouldn't look forward to it in the immediate future, no. Sorry, I know! There's a big Mother fanbase, there is." Bihldorff further advises, "At least everyone can go back and play Melee to get your Ness on."

Certainly this all comes as little surprise to those familiar with Nintendo's track record attributed to handling the Mother series; even the GBA re-release of Mother and Mother 2 (EarthBound) was denied the slightest prospect toward a domestic launch. So does this mean we'll never again see a legally distributed Mother RPG within this hemisphere? If Nintendo of America, like Nate Bihldorff, has begun to contemplate the true depth of the game's fanbase, then the chances otherwise may in fact rise to more realistic proportions.

Source: EuroGamer