News

As stated at The Register (much thanks to Iceman for linking us to the article), Sony and Microsoft will be presenting their new consoles, respectively the PS3 and XBox2, on May 16th.

Sure fact? Well, not exactly, as none of the companies said why they would want to make a press conference, but the fact that the E3 starts the very next day hints towards that direction. The real deal is probably when the two consoles will be available for sales: Christmas, early 2006...? Nonetheless, the E3 will probably emphasizes a lot on the two new consoles, which would make it an interesting event.

Square Enix, on its Official Grandia III Page, has announced a tentative Japanese release date for the game in Summer 2005.

The site features short descriptions of the game's plot, world, and characters. The story centers around Yuuki, a 16-year-old boy who dreams of building a plane and flying away from his island home, and Alfina, a 16-year-old priestess searching for her missing brother.

Grandia III will be the first title in the series to be published by Square Enix. Previous Grandia titles were published by Enix alone before the company's merger with Squaresoft in 2003. However, all Grandia games to date have been created by the same developer, a company named Game Arts.

The CoN image demons have been hard at work again - you might recall us adding sections for "Official Art" for Final Fantasy I, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VI, and Final Fantasy VII all pretty recently. Thanks to Neal and Kame, though, we've added even more art in the form of bonus art captures from FF Anthology and some scans from Nintendo Power magazine. The affected galleries include those for Final Fantasy IV, V, and VI.

In the realm of Final Fantasy VII, again thanks to Neal (and, of course, myself), you'll see filmstrips containing selected frames from every Limit Break in the game. You can find them on the Limit Break and the Characters pages.

Hope you enjoy the new eye candy we've given you, and as always watch this forum to find out what we're doing as we do it.

The CoN now has another fanfic in the FF6 section : The Candle. It's a chilling fanfic that takes place halfway through the game, from Celes's point of view.

Feel free to comment in this thread, or in the original Site Submissions thread.

As many of you may already know, we're adding a new affiliate today, Heroes of Ivalice. You all know I'm not a big fan of pen-and-paper or text-based RPGs, but Kairo's concept is so good, and he's so passionate about it that I wanted to share it with everyone via CoN. Of course, I can't explain it properly, so check out his thread to learn more.



Also, those of you who follow our fanart galleries often may recognize the name Lindsay Cibos. She's a very talented artist who has an image in our Fanart Hall of Fame. Well, now she's got another claim to fame - Tokyopop has recently published her shojo manga "Peach Fuzz." When you can read about an artist in your local newspaper, who has donated to CoN, you know she's getting to the big time. Check her out at her own site and learn more.



Finally, I've heard a rumor that another artist at CoN is iin talks for a publishing deal and is close to closing a contract up. I won't say who because I don't want to jinx it, and I don't want you all to guess for the same reason. But keep your fingers crossed anyway.

Front Mission Mobile joined Square Enix's line of cellphone games for the Japanese NTT Docomo service on March 7. Front Mission is the third major Square Enix console series to be ported to Docomo's cellphone platform, following last year's releases of Dragon Quest i and Final Fantasy titles.

Much like Final Fantasy VII: Before Crisis, the new Front Mission game has been designed such that Square Enix may periodically release future installments of the game, which are to be downloaded from their website with compatible phones. Access to the game and its new installments requires a monthly premium of about US $5, added directly to the user's phone bill.

Screenshots of the first installment, "Front Mission 2089," may be found at the game's official website.