News

Around four months ago, Capcom dissolved its Clover Studios development team, citing financial reasons. Clover Studios had been behind Capcom's Viewtiful Joe series, as well as the 2006 hits Okami and Godhand.

However, we may have seen a new beginning for Clover Studios in the form of SEEDS - an independent studio run by Shinji Mikami (the mastermind behind Resident Evil), Hideki Kamiya (creator of Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe), and Atsuhi Inaba (of Steel Battalion fame). Those three developers, all of whom have produced blockbuster titles as part of Capcom's production studios and the late Clover Studios, announced yesterday that they were leaving Capcom to work as a freelance developer - given the track record of those three producers, and the fact that they are essentially severing official ties with Capcom, this is some pretty big news.

Also of interest is that they haven't assembled a team yet. The revealing of their new studio also came with sort of a casting call. Here's a translation of their announcement:

Sounds a little self-indulgent, doesn't it? Of course, even though they are no longer iwth Capcom, it isn't out of the question for any of these designers to work on Capcom games, or even further sequels to their signature franchises. If Nobuo Uematsu can still provide musical numbers to FF games (he was credited as Smile Please Inc. for his work on FF VII: Advent Children and his contributed song to FF XII) and Masahiro Sakurai can direct and design SSB: Brawl despite leaving Nintendo and HAL Laboratories nearly four years ago, then the SEEDS team can still work for Capcom, but not as part of Capcom.

SEEDS hasn't revealed any games in development, as they are still working on personnel, after all.

Sources:
WIRED
SEEDS official website (Japanese)

This will be my shortest newspost ever, but I didn't want any punk wannabe newsposters beating me to the info this time.

Square-Enix recently revealed that Balthier (also known as Balflear), the loveable air pirate from Final Fantasy XII, will have a storyline role in the PSP remake of Final Fantasy Tactics. It is unconfirmed if he will be playable or not, but he will have a storyline role.

In the same announcement, Square-Enix revealed one of the new job classes for the remake: Dark Knight. Let the moveset speculation run wild.

Source: RPGFan

A recent developer blog post by Square-Enix's Tetsuya Nomura revealed a great deal of new information regarding the Fabula Nova Crystalis project, which comprises the PS3 games Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, as well as the cell phone game Final Fantasy Agito XIII.

The world of Final Fantasy XIII is called "Cocoon," and it uses crystal technology to create a highly advanced society. It is also completely surrounded by a large shell, which protects Cocoon and its inhabitants from all manner of evil residing outside of the shell, whose space is collectively called "Pulse." Cocoon's government reacts to the threat of the Pulse lurking monsters with "drastic measures," and uses the threat of exiling Cocoon citizens to Pulse as a means of controlling the people. Lightning, FF XIII's protagonist, is "chosen by the Crystal" to stop "those who would destroy the world," but Nomura (who is working on FF XIII as a character designer) was vague on any details otherwise.

Summons are going to be handled very differently in Final Fantasy XIII than in past FF games. They still serve as allies of our protagonist, but have some very unusual abilities; for example, the summon Shiva can now be transformed into a motorcycle, which Lightning can ride during battle. Somehow, this action-oriented feature is going to be implemented in a classic ATB system, but Nomura also stated that the game's developers are having "difficulties" implementing these new features.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII, an entirely separate game on its own, is supposedly set in a single kingdom within the same universe as Final Fantasy XIII and features a conflict centered over the last remaining crystal of said kingdom. The still-unnamed main character is a silver-haired swordsman who can teleport to any location where his sword is thrown. FF Versus XIII is being directed by Nomura himself and will use an action-oriented game engine based on the Kingdom Hearts series. Neither FF XIII nor FF Versus XIII has received a release date yet.

Final Fantasy Agito XIII is going to be a fully-3D cell phone game that centers on protecting another one of these crystals. That's essentially all that is known about Agito thus far, that and the fact that it doesn't have a release date either.

Source: RPGFan

Yes, you heard correctly. The ninth entry of the fabled RPG series is going to be on the Nintendo DS. Very little concrete info has been released thus far, but we know that it's going to be called Dragon Quest IX: Defenders of the Stars and it's going to be co-developed by the Dragon Quest dearm team (Yuji Horii, etc.) and Level-5, virtually the same team that brought us Dragon Quest VIII for the PS2 a year ago. Horii himself stated in the press release that this DS game is "not a gaiden or side-story, but a true part of the series."

This is great news for fans of the series, who are unfortunately accustomed to long delays in between DQ titles (there were five years between the releases of DQ VI and DQ VII, followed by four years between DQ VII and DQ VIII). It is certainly unexpected for Square-Enix to put the next iteration of such a major series on a handheld system, but it might just be a testament to the overwhelming popularity and developer support of the Nintendo DS in Japan. In any case, the tentative release date for Dragon Quest IX is "mid-2007."

source: N-sider

Playstation 3, despite, shall we say, a technical fault that we should probably stand by on in the US and Europe, launched this weekend in Japan with a few scenes that may have shocked some. Reports of all 100,000 available consoles being sold on the first day have been made, though Reuters have stated a more reasonable figure of around 88,000 consoles sold, and reports of massive queues show that despite the price woes, the low availability, and the slim choice of games at the start, Sony still hasn't succeeded in losing all 100 million of its customers who bought the PS1 and PS2 despite it's best apparent efforts to do so.

The sales on the first two days have almost beaten XBox360's Japanese campaign from December 2005 to April 2006 when they sold 105,000 units in the period from December 10th to April 2nd, and around 60,000 of those in the first two days, placing Sony marginally ahead comparatively. Assuming that Sony manages to shift approximately another 50,000 units in Japan by March, they will at least be on a par with the rival that many people expect them to have to duke it out with as Wii seems set to capture the marketplace, and XBox360's year head start is almost null and void in Japan.

However, amid a launch that was better than some people seemed to anticipate, there were further setbacks, but this time, in the form of con artists (Of the swindling variety, not the sort who post fanart in Site Submissions). Reports that businessmen were paying homeless persons and poor Chinese immigrants to stand in line and purchase a console for resale at a vastly inflated price on internet auction sites have appeared in more than one major media source and a quick scan of even ebay.com will find PS3's going at no less than $1000 US and even up to $1500.

Despite the many problems, Sony can perhaps take heart from the fact there is still huge interest in upcoming games such as Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and of course, Final Fantasy XIII, as well as the fact that as current market leader it appears nothing short of exploding consoles would cause them a devastating loss, and with such huge prices seemingly being paid for by those with perhaps larger reserves of funds than common sense, even the hefty price tags on the console are not discouraging some people with disposable income. On the other hand, the apathy in the west seems to be growing as more and more people are discouraged by the flaws and price, and perhaps a few maybe even concerned by the organised chaos of the Japanese debut, though it remains to be seen what will occur this Friday in the United States. Even the latest setback should really be discounted as for all that is known the situation may not be as bad in the US... Or may possibly be worse to remain realistic.

The traditional Playstation strong point of backwards compatibility seems to have hit a significant snag, but it remains to be seen what effect this will have long term should the problems be repaired. It should be noted even PS2 had a small selection of games unplayable, and XBox360's backwards compatibility was reliant on emulation in many cases, a scenario apparently to be repeated with PS3 albeit on a smaller comparative scale.

All eyes now rest on the US as PS3 launches with 400,000 consoles said to be available in the States this Friday, presumably to further lines and near-riots, only to be followed on the Sunday by Wii launching, unusually in it's global debut outside it's homeland . It's clear that Nintendo, with a reported $200 million advertising war chest and the charismatic/hyperactive press conferences of Nintendo of America President and Chief Operating Officer Reggie Fils-Aime spearheading the attempt to win the hearts and minds of gamers young and old, have all but sewn up at least the propaganda war in the US. This weekend will be when the first blood will truly be drawn in this latest console war, and despite all we have seen so far, nothing can be predicted with any degree of accuracy, and anything could happen.

Wii will apparently gain a European foothold far in advance of PS3, launching on December the 8th in the EU (including the UK and RoI) compared to the delay to March of Europe's PS3 launch. With a rushed launch on the whole by Playstation, perhaps this is a good thing long term for European gamers as teething troubles will be rectified... and perhaps even the library of games will be greatly expanded.

Sources: BBC Launch Article, a Look at the console itself, still looking at the console, and then a look at the teething troubles, and finally the reports of foul play at the launch.

CNN: On the Launch, on the the technical troubles and the reduced sales figures.

Sony Press Release on US launch.

The title says it all. In a press release issued yesterday, Capcom announced that Clover Studios, makers of Okami, God Hand, and the Viewtiful Joe series of games, will no longer be operational as of March of next year. In their statement, Capcom praises Clover Studios for achieving their goal of creating original and entertaining video games, but also states that it will serve Capcom better to use Clover Studio's funding and resources as part of the greater Capcom group and not as an independently-operating subsidiary. In a nutshell, Capcom loves Clover's games, but would rather absorb them back into Capcom and not have them spend so much money. It should be noted that the official dissolution of the development studio isn't official until March of next year, giving Clover time to still release any current unannounced projects that are under wraps.

Personally, this news saddens me. Viewtiful Joe and Okami are two of the most fun, original, and beautiful action games of this generation, and I have high hopes for God Hand. Hopefully, Capcom can still make good use of the enormous talent within Clover Studios after its disbanding, and we can see more great games in the tradition of Okami and Viewtiful Joe in the future.

Source: Capcom's Official Press release, found via digg.com