12w ago - Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida has officially invited PlayStation 3 fans to sign up for the PS3 Beta today.

Below are the details, to quote: This is Naoki Yoshida, the producer and director of FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn. First of all, I would like to thank the PlayStation.Blog team for the opportunity to share with you the latest developments in our game.

We were recently in San Francisco as part of a tour to show A Realm Reborn to members of the gaming media. Our guests had a chance to take the game for a spin, after which I sat down with them for an interview. I expect that reports will be hitting various online media outlets starting today, so please keep an eye out!

We consider it one of our missions to reacquaint gamers all over the world with the wonders of FINAL FANTASY. To this end, we'll be incorporating the most memorable elements of the series into A Realm Reborn.

Mind you, this won't be limited only to the game's launch; in subsequent patches, we plan to keep adding more great stuff from FINAL FANTASY's 25-year history.

For starters, adventurers will be able to take on the Crystal Tower (FFIII) raid dungeon, do battle with classic summons (such as Ifrit, Titan, and Leviathan), and ride magitek armor...

31w ago - Square Enix Community Manager Benjamin Bateman has posted up the first PS3 screenshots today for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn on the PlayStation 3 entertainment system!

To quote: Today we come bearing gifts! For all our RPG-loving fans we're excited to bring you the world's first screenshots of FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn on the PS3 (Chocobos included)!

In our first PlayStation 3 reveal we wanted to give you a guided tour around the UI and menus. With a wealth of different options and commands at your fingertips at any one time it was important for us to create an elegant UI that is easy to read and navigate.

Taking inspiration from previous games the look and feel of the new FINAL FANTASY will be instantly familiar to long-time fans of the series.

In FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn we've put an extra emphasis on customisation. Knowing that everyone has their own personal tastes, not to mention the need to have a load-out that's compliments the character and role you're playing in-game, all of the UI elements that you see in the screenshots can be enabled, disabled, and repositioned to suit your preferences. Menus are also simple to navigate with the command you're looking for being only a few button presses away.

The UI, like the rest...

49w ago - Sony Blog Manager Fabio Santana of Brazil has shared a fresh Final Fantasy XIV PS3 update today including an interview and new details below, as follows:

When it was first launched back in 2010, Final Fantasy XIV for PC was criticized by players and the media, and eventually the planned PS3 version was postponed. Since then, Square Enix decided to reshuffle the leading developers of the game, with Naoki Yoshida now acting as Director and Producer.

His challenge is to helm the 2.0 version of Final Fantasy XIV, which is a re-imagination of the original release. It will mark a new beginning for the game when it gets launched this winter, coinciding with the release of the anticipated PS3 version.

The game was not ready to be demoed publicly at E3 this year, but we got a chance to see a brief live demo behind closed doors of the game still running on a PC. It featured lush visuals, with a richly detailed character running through a forest area with dense vegetation and impressive lighting effects passing through foliage.

It was something we definitely aren't used to see in an MMORPG. "Right now it's optimized for PC. We're about 50% into the development of the PS3 version, but it's pretty much how it's going to look on the console...

149w ago - Square Enix recently announced that the PC version of Final Fantasy XIV will arrive this September while the PS3 version is delayed until March 2011, and according to FFXIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka the reason for the delay on Sony's PlayStation 3 is due to technical issues.

In a recent interview with JeuxOnline he explained as follows, to quote:

"We understand the wrath of players and developers are sorry because they did everything they could to have a simultaneous release date, but unfortunately they have encountered many technical problems on the development of the game for PS3. We strive to release the game as soon as possible.

If possible, we would publish the game sooner, we would like to start as soon as possible the beta on PS3."

152w ago - During an E3 interview, Square Enix senior vice president of software development Hiromichi Tanaka has said that there are currently "no plans" to bring the game to Xbox 360.

To quote: "Currently there are no plans for a version for the Xbox 360," Tanaka told RPGSite.

"We are still talking with Microsoft about an Xbox 360 version, but at the moment we are only working on the PS3 version and Windows version."

At last year's E3, Senior Vice President of Square Enix, Shinji Hashimoto, said that "in terms of other hardware devices, including Microsoft's, we're considering all possibilities [for Final Fantasy XIV]."

We'll see if this changes in the future.