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Square Enix revealed much new information on the upcoming North American release of its MMORPG at the Sony Gamers Day conference.

The planned launch date for the Playstation 2 version is March 2004 and the price is going to be a heavy one. The game will cost $99. The cost includes the hard drive that will be bundle with the game. Note that the game will not be available separate from this bundle. Besides this initial cost, players will have to pay $12.95 monthly subscription fee.

The PC version of FFXI will see a release sometime this fall most likely sometime in October. Hard drive does not figure to be a concern here.

Source: RPGamer

The fourth Front Mission game was announced for Japan back on 4 September, the first new game of the series to be announced for the PS2. This is a franchise that I don't think ever really found its audience in the US or Europe, where the love affair with Mechs never really matched that of Japan.

You can read Gamers.com's take on the announcement, and then pay a quick visit to get a look at the first media released for the game. No word yet on the long-rumoured Front Mission Online.

This game has kind of a cult audience, and I doubt that a fourth game in the series, even if it makes it to US and European shores, will really be a breakthrough game for the franchise. However, Final Fantasy didn't really explode until it hit the seventh game of the series. Odds are that Front Mission will never be another FF, though.

RPGamer has ten new screenshots of Squenix's upcoming title for Nintendo's GameCube.  Hopefully these will help hold over gamers until the game is finally released.  

Not much new information at the moment, but check out all of the CoN's previous news updates at our News forum.

Source: RPGamer

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The screen shots definitely look nice.  I still think the artistic style they are going with is a little different though.

Squenix is considering a port of Final Fantasy III, the only installment of the series that has not had a North American release, to the Gameboy Advance.  The game would be a port of the Wonderswan version and not the old Famicom version.  With the Wonderswan dying (plus it not evening seeing a North American or European release) it would only make sense to port this game.

Source: OPGE

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Too bad it is not FF6.

Check it out, fellas. Square Enix released the official North American boxart for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, due out in the States on September 11th, 2003.

View the Boxart Here

Source: Square Enix

Looks kinda plain, IMO. Just like the game itself. Eh.

The folks over at Quiter are reporting, through an anonymous source, that Square Enix is currently planning to create an online installment of their Front Mission series.

Square Enix Japan recently registered the name "Front Mission History," and on top of that, Square Enix USA recently acquired the rights to develop a "computer game strategy / video game strategy through a global communication network."

As you can see, this new game is all BUT confirmed at this point. Remember, this is unconfirmed news, so take it for what you will, folks.

Source: OPGaming.com

This is soooooo awesome. All signs point to this being true, and dammit, I need a strategy fix after completely mastering Advance Wars 2. The Front Mission series was always interesting to me because it was one part Strategy RPG (which is always cool) and one part sci-fi (also cool). The customization options in the previous games were also top-notch, and online titles are known for heavy customization.