Gamers Evolved

Square Enix – the Japanese game software – stated this week that they would be launching their “Final Fantasy XIII” in 2009 in Japan. Square Enix has been keeping the due date a big secret hoping to get gamers excited.

Square Enix will offer “FF XIII” for both Sony Corp’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp’s Xbox 360 in North America and Europe, and exclusively for the PS3 in Japan. The launch timings for North America and Europe have yet to be decided.

PS3 has added two new titles to their PlayStation Store which include 1492: Joint Strike and Siren: Blood Curse. Siren is SCEA’s most highly anticipated horror title and is an episodic series of 12 episodes. All 12 of these episodes are available for $39.99 at 8.91GB. Or you can pay $14.99 for three bundles.

Meanwhile, 1942: Joint Strike is more of a standard PlayStation Network title, as a top-down shooter and revival of Capcom’s classic series. It’s priced at $9.99, and 129 MB in size.

Microsoft announced that they would be releasing a 60GB version of the 360 for only $349 – which put the 20GB for sale at only $299. In retaliation Sony announced that they will be cutting their prices as well. They know how to play hardball!

Sony will be increasing the storage from 40GB to 80GB – but they will keep the price at $399. It remains to be seen whether the formerly 40-gigabyte model will get any feature updates, like card readers or the like, but as of now, it’s just looking like a little more room for your new movie downloads.

One of the more popular games on PS3 – Metal Gears Solid DLC – is making its way to Xbox 360 gamers and I think we can all agree that this is something we have been looking forward to for quite some time. For now this is just a rumor and we are still waiting for the official announcement from Microsoft.

However, good sources are telling us to start celebrating and to prepare our pocketbooks. There shouldn’t be any problems with the game converting to Microsoft. In fact they may find that this will boost their sales and give them an edge in the console war.

EA has put a stop to all production for the PS3 version of Red Alert 3. They will be focusing all of their attention on the PC and Xbox 360 versions to make sure that they are released on schedule.

 “We can confirm that the development of Red Alert 3 for PS3 has been put on hold. EALA is focusing resources on development for PC and Xbox 360 which will ship simultaneously this autumn,” said EA PR manager Jonathan Goddard.