11.08.06
Luminous Arc CD, ironically not so luminous
A few days ago, I had a comment (not spam – seriously, ‘erotic enema’? please stop!) from someone who wanted to find an mp3/midi of the theme song from Luminous Arc. The game itself is due out this winter on DS, but no mention, certainly, of any music availability. After much searching through Japanese sites, I have come across one interesting bit of info: the game CD was given out as a freebie at the Tokyo Game Show not too long back. Aside from one link leading me to an auction from Yahoo (jp) which finished a month ago now (for approx. £3.55), I could get no image of this elusive CD. The official blog (this post written by one of the composers, Yasunori Mitsuda) does say however, that as the game is out soon, please wait a little longer. I’d imagine, as most RPG games are, CDs will be released soon after the game release. In their post updated today, they have said that the release date will be announced within the week, so not too long at all :)
FF XII, since being sold in the Americas has reached 1.5million in copies shipped (3.9million, including Japan). The whole of the FF series has apparently sold more than 70million copies, two countries combined. They reckon it’s the high quality CG that made this so successful… but I’m thinking it’s more to do with the storylines (however good the graphics, if the story was shit, surely no one in their right mind would buy it?).
Anyhoo, Square Enix has also announced that there’s a ‘Square Enix Museum 2006′ at Animate (アニメート) in their main store at Ikebukuro, between 7th and 15th this month. Open between 10am-8.30pm (mon.-sat.) and 10am-8pm (sun.), tel. (03)3988-1351. They also say that some of the original artwork will be sold direct to those who make it there.
Alex said,
November 8, 2006 at 12:02 pm
Final Fantasy is apparently one of the biggest game franchises too, which boggles me since they were always so slow (or gave up) releasing stuff in Europe.
Micha said,
November 8, 2006 at 3:58 pm
whoa. thx a lot for the research.
haha. It seems so that I stole some time from ya. sry ^^
yuka said,
November 8, 2006 at 4:18 pm
No need to apologise – I wasn’t even sure if it was out yet, so a good time to check it out. Also, most games that prove popular enough, like those FF series, will make it out as a music score too – but of course, that’s only in Japan.
As regards Square’s past non-marketing in this country, well, the Japanese gamers stoutly and misinformedly believe that foreign gamers won’t be interested in their stuff. Sad to say that’s a grave misconception on their part, especially thinking about the profits they could be making over here. So why Americas and not Europe? Probably because they feel secure that because the Americas have a fairly high population of people of Japanese decent (not to mention many Japanese companies still send their employees over there), they’d ‘understand our stuff’. Whether that’s true or no, I do believe that more of those Japanese games should be promoted and sold in Europe. (Mind, most of the crap does get filtered out before they ever release anything, so that is a plus.)
Micha said,
November 9, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Well. Gotta go and get Ouendan btw. damnit. Online payment etc. have to get me informed. And for Sound-Scores it is the same. Stuff like the score of Crono cross is hillarious and It is a thing for my collection. (Yeah I like those scores too ;)).
Btw: Knigdom Hearts 3 sold 500k units till now here in Europe. It is an amazing thing for an Eastern RPG. FF is like everyone knows it… But the more crazy stuff like Tales of.. or other stuff which already gets released here have good solds. Don’t know what profit they are making (but better than Every Extend Extra in Japan I think :0. Bad luck for this game ._.”. ahhh drifting off).
In the end the hardcore gamers here are importing the stuff, but after the lik-sang event there is afaik only play-asia left to import games from. So My friends and me have to import now over this thing. But only the games, where the text is not so important. some friends of mine are studying Japanology (one of them is already in Japan, one is going next year, and some are already back :D), they are hardcore importer, because they understand what is written in Kanji, Hira and Kata… But I have no chance. But I need this Ouendan thingy also XD. (And also the American Version EBA. Heard it is groovier…)
Waaah I drifted off hardcore.