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Square Enix launches its epic Final Fantasy XIII with an epic party

2010-03-09 00:19
Square Enix knows how to do epic video games and big parties. Tonight, the Japanese company threw its launch party for Final Fantasy XIII, a huge release for the U.S. console game market that goes on sale Tuesday. The launch party itself, housed in a grand theater in San Francisco, showed that video games are serious business, with as much pomp and circumstance as the red carpet launch of a movie like Avatar. Yoichi Wada, chief executive of Square Enix, walked down a red carpet lined with models in white dresses. He welcomed the crowd to play the game a night before it goes on sale. He showed off the game 8217;s movie-like computer animated trailer. And I have to say it was spectacular. This is the one game where saying it is movie-like is really a compliment, with hair-raising combat scenes and beautifully drawn characters that you could fall in love with until you realize that they 8217;re just digital bits. The Final Fantasy franchise is one of the cultural hallmarks of our industry, said Mike Gallagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association, as he joined a bunch of other game luminaries onstage. And yet it 8217;s still a big question whether this kind of game has moved past its prime and the industry, and gamers, have rightfully moved on to something else. The Final Fantasy series has sold more than 92 million units, generating billions in revenues. Final Fantasy is that rare Japanese game, like Nintendo 8217;s Mario franchise, that has universal appeal around the world. It is key to Square Enix 8217;s goal of becoming a global entertainment company, Wada said. But it 8217;s not going to be easy to shatter past records. As a cultural event, can it get any better The game launched to great accolades in Japan in December, but its launch in the U.S. is the real test of whether Square Enix can overcome the recession and still be appealing in the age of casual gamers who are obsessed with FarmVille on Facebook. Can it still knock it out of the park with games that have great graphics and deep, emotion-rich stories for a huge mass market It 8217;s hard to bet against the company 8217;s past success. Previous wins have given Square Enix a war chest of resources that is unique in the industry. Budgets for games like this just don 8217;t get any bigger 8212; running into the tens of millions of dollars. Hundreds of people worked on developing the game. For voice acting, Square Enix turned to actors Troy Baker (pictured, right) and Ali Hillis to play the lead characters Snow and Lightning. Leona Lewis created the theme song for the game, My Hands from her album Echoes. Games just don 8217;t get any bigger than this, said Chris Taylor, creator of Supreme Commander 2, who appeared onstage with other star game designers to talk about the impact of the Final Fantasy series on game designers. To see it done so beautifully, it 8217;s just amazing. Is the game any good Well, if you piece together all of the computer-generated animation scenes...
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