Square-Enix has presented an offer to buy Eidos, raising the prospect of the Japanese house of "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Quest" absorbing the British publisher being Lara Croft's adventures and the "Hitman" series. Square-Enix pitched the stock offer to Eidos on January 7 and an official order, presented in rich detail in filings today, will now be presented to shareholders.

The "Final Fantasy" publisher is in hot water today, reports Bloomberg, after Square Enix stock fell 11% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the lowest for Square Enix in five years, after delaying a report on its earnings results by a week. Read more...

Square Enix might be taking their time with "Final Fantasy XIII" on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but "Final Fantasy" fans don't have to wait much longer for their RPG fix, as the publisher announced today that "Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time" is coming to Wii and DS simultaneously on March 24. Read more...

The Microsoft media briefing ended with a bang this morning by showing a new trailer from "Final Fantasy XIII."

Immediately following the briefing, Square Enix held a press conference about the game, where "FFXIII" producer Yoshinori Kitase and Square Enix exec Shinji Hashimoto answered all the questions they could in 45 minutes.

Here's a round-up of the facts so far from the brief Q&A session: Read more...

Since the last entry, I finally got a sick, nauseous feeling playing a video game. Finally! I'd heard about people who got motion sickness playing first-person shooters. I'm sure "Mario Party" has caused a few upset stomachs, too.

But for all the hundreds (thousands?) of games I've played, I never played one that made me feel unwell.

Then came Thursday morning.

During my morning commute, Square-Enix's new iPod game"Song Summoner" got me seriously worried I was going to see my breakfast for a second time.

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If you loved the subtle, psychedelic twists made to classic "Pac Man" in the Xbox Live Arcade version, you're quickly going to fall in love with "Space Invaders Extreme," too.

Square Enix was showing off the Nintendo DS version of "Space Invaders Extreme" (there's also a PSP version coming, too) at Nintendo's Spring Media Summit, and I quickly became obsessed with the frantic new take on the classic shooter.

After my hands-on session, I was tempted to jump on Play Asia and purchase the expensive import version, but a Square Enix representative calmed me down.

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San Francisco — Change isn't easy. Square Enix learned this during the development of the WiiWare-targeted "Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King." At GDC last week, Square Enix shared some lessons in a panel entitled "WiiWare Project Lifecycle: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, The Little King."

"My Life as a King" Designer, former "Final Fantasy XI" and "Front Mission Online" server programmer and self-proclaimed "token English speaker/programmer" Fumiaki Shiraishi and Producer Toshiro Tsuchida told a packed crowd they quickly discovered Square Enix's traditional development tactics -- which produce the sprawling epics beloved by gamers worldwide -- weren't going to work in this decidedly atypical development environment.

"With "Final Fantasy VII," we established a process for developing high-quality games," said Tsuchida. "All our games since then have been developed with a similar process." Additionally, Tsuchida humbly suggested the traditional process could be preventing some creativity at Square Enix.

"Creators need to be creative," he said.

What is Square Enix doing to make sure that continues to happen? Read on to find out.

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