Monthly Archives: December 2011

Square’s announced details of a 360-exclusive weapon for Final Fantasy XIII-2. Known as the Azrael weapon, carried by Serah, it’ll up your chain bonus stat.
You can purchase it from January 10 for 80 MSP. There’s more on it on Andriasang.

FFXIII-2 releases on January 31 in the US and February 3 for UK for PS3 and 360. Read our recent interview with producer Yoshinori Kitase for more.

Next time you ready a whinge about our mutual hobby, spare a thought for gamers outside Japan, the UK and US – like Mike Bowden, whose lament for our Danish brethren is echoed across Europe.

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Warner Bros. has released two new DLC bundles for Batman: Arkham City, offering a convenient and thrifty alternative for those who gave up on its bewildering array of pre-order incentives.

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Square Enix has updated its Members website, which was hacked last week, to confirm no user data was compromised:

“As a result of our continuing investigation, we have now confirmed that the database in which we store personal information was NOT accessed during the recent server intrusion. Therefore, your personal information was NOT compromised by an unknown third party. Square Enix is planning to restart the SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS service by the end of December. Details of the schedule will be announced at a later date. We deeply regret any inconvenience this may have caused our customers and fans, and appreciate your patience.”

Thanks, Joystiq.

Ahead of its official data release tomorrow, Japanese sales track firm Media Create has released a preliminary report.

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Gearbox has implemented a novel solution to the old random encounter problem.

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According to MCV, UK retailer sold 2,978,493 games last week, for total sales of £73.9 million. As noted earlier this week, Skyrim nabbed the top spot. Although the figures represent a decrease on the same period of 2010, it’s an increase over the previous week, and the second-best week of 2011 so far; the best week occurred in November, when the launch of both The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Call of Duty: Modenr Warfare 3 led a pack of 3,289,421 games sold at £120.8 million. This present week is 2011′s last chance to top that effort.

Thanks, EDGE.

Sony’s initial shipment of Vita consoles for last weekend’s Japanese launch falls about one-third short of pre-launch retailer reports.

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One player left his PC recording video of the last, celebratory gasps of Star Wars Galaxies as the venerable MMORPG shuttered forever.

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ArenaNet’s iconic Mesmer profession returns in Guild Wars 2, but the unique character type isn’t easy to build.

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Meet the cast of Final Fantasy XIII-2, assuming you haven’t already read the entire plot as extracted from the Japanese release.

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Bethesda has released a small patch for the PC version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, on top of the multi-platform patch 1.3 released last week.

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EA has confirmed it won’t censor Starbreeze’s Syndicate reboot to meet MA15+ content guidelines, preferring to skip an Australian release all together.

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This week’s US PlayStation Store update is dominated by massive holiday sales, but check out a number of newly-released full PS3 games and a slab of DLC.

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Speaking to the PlayStation Blog, Sony has revealed the two most popular games during the PlayStation Vita Japanese launch. The two chart-topping games were Everybody’s Golf and Uncharted: Golden Abyss.

Sony has not yet announced how many units those two games sold. However, Eurogamer notes that the Japanese sales charts are due to be released tomorrow, so we shouldn’t have to wait long for more info.

Publisher Deep Silver announced today that their zombie opus Dead Island has officially sold three million copies. The publisher had previously stated that Dead Island had shipped two million copies during its release month.

However, until now we didn’t know how many had actually sold. Not only did that initial allotment sell, but the game has obviously continued to sell well over the ensuing months. Selling, at the absolute least, another million copies since that first statement.

Via Game Informer.

Hopefully all of the Star Wars: The Old Republic fans will take a break from their jedi-dealings long enough to read this. Bioware has been making some amazing comments today about their committment to making The Old Republic last indefinitely. And they’ve also released a great behind-the-scenes vid doc. More »

According to a new report from the NPD Group, the third quarter of 2011 saw US gamers spend more on non-traditional business models than packaged retail goods.

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Siliconera has unearthed – and translated – two Japanese trademarks made by Square Enix. The first is the short and sweet Root of the Underworld, while the other runs on a bit as Door of the Underworld and the Path of Nayuta. Square Enix has indicated it intends to flesh out its portfolio of franchise properties, with a couple of new titles already in the works.

BioWare has confirmed it expects to launch Star Wars: The Old Republic in Australia and New Zealand early next year.

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