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.

Red Steel was one of the first games to be released on the Nintendo Wii and because of this it was able to receive quite a bit in sales. It is true that many gamers were not very pleased with the game. However, it was still able to offer a few good ideas that were not pulled off well thanks to the Wii remote.

But now, with the announcement of the MotionPlus add-on, Ubisoft hopes it can make good on the promises made in the first game. “Red Steel 2 has been in development for many months now, and this new device will help us be even more precise in what we do with the product,” Ubisoft executive director Alain Corre told GamesIndustry.biz.

Nintendo announced their plans to work with Fujifilm Holdings so that they can launch their new photo service to Wii gamers. This new service will allow users to upload and print photos through the internet.

Along with news of this new feature they went on to say that they would be working hard to meet demands of the people this year so that there are no more shortages. Nintendo CEO and global president stated, “We are really intending to increase the shipments to the U.S., especially compared to last year.”

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.

Xbox gamers will be happy to know that they can have an Xbox Live Gold Subscription for as little as $3 per month. Newegg is selling 13 month Xbox Live subscription cards that are on sale for only $39.99. They can be shipped in 3-7 days for free.

For those of you who don’t know, a Live Gold subscription enables you to play games online against others. If you buy one of these cards directly from Microsoft (or, say, Best Buy), it’ll cost you $49.99.