"Included in the version update scheduled for early September will be modifications to the degree of difficulty of Pandemonium Warden (and associated pets), Absolute Virtue (and associated pets), and Jailer of Love. The aim of these changes is to create battles where a decisive outcome may be reached within a shorter period of time."

More after the jump.
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Gamervision reports:

''A new patch has added some new bosses to Final Fantasy XI, including the somewhat ridiculously resilient Pandemonium Warden. A guild named Beyond the Limitation attempted to take down the Warden, but had to quit after 18 Hours of combat. One of the guild leaders reported, "People were passing out and getting physically ill. We decided to end it before we risked turning into a horrible new story about how video games ruin people's lives."

They estimated that it would have taken an additional five or six hours to beat the Pandemonium Warden, and had to question their abilities in the game. The boss changed forms every few hours, and when they finally decided to call it quits, the enemy was in it's 20th form. They are also one of the only guilds to take down the highest-level boss in the game without glitching it, so they weren't screwing up the Warden battle.''
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Dissidia Final Fantasy details have once again been spotted and this time, they're coming from Japanese game magazine Famitsu. the game's producer Tetsuya Nomura, director Takeshi Arakawa, and planning director Mitsunori Takahashi all sat down with the publication and answered a few questions.

First on the agenda was the question of why the game is taking so long to finish. The devs answered that the team doing it is pretty young and adjusting was one of the most time-consuming parts of development. As for how far along into completion the team has gone, they said they're at about 50 percent and that character models are almost completely sealed.

Plenty more at the source!
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The next version up date will usher in a number of new additions to the Campaign system, as well as several changes to existing elements.
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Kotaku writes:

Square Enix honcho Yoichi Wada (above, left) is worried. Western game companies are doing really well! Meaning that competition is getting harder. Yet, Wada hopes to capitalise on the Western market, aiming to increase the ratio of overseas sales from its current 50 percent to 80 percent in the next three years. According to the exec:

"We face competition not only from Japanese videogame companies but from game companies worldwide. We also see some new players from outside the videogame industry coming in... Economies of scale and breadth of scope is getting important. It may be a business alliance or it may be us taking a stake in others, but we need to go beyond traditional Square Enix."

That business alliance sounds nice and all. But, how about stop calling everything Final Fantasy? Or make things other than RPGs? Or if you are going to make RPGs, why not make the games people have been asking for for the past decade?
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A new study from Nottingham Trent University explains the widespread underbelly of gender-swapping throughout the world MMO world. ... » Read More

Play Reports: Luurs' avatar, 'Sots', had amassed the stash over four years of play, and the newspaper reveals that in total his horde was apparently worth 75 million Gil - or nearly 4,000 USD. US police authorities have, so far, refused to investigate this crime, despite Luurs identifying former friend 'Ayri' as a suspect.
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Square Enix's Final Fantasy XI development team announced that the Fan Art Contest during the upcoming Doll Festival that will begins in March of 2007. The official theme of this year's contest will be "The Ladies of Vana'diel." The contest will be accepting all submissions as of today until the March deadline. The official contest announcement (via the link below) has information on how to enter.
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SquareEnix is hosting another round of contests for the Fan Festival attendees this year. Pool your talents and master the fine arts with your entry in the Art, Costume, or Movie contests.
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The next expansion of the land of Vana'diel will turn back the clock to a time before the events of Final Fantasy XI's storyline, before the crystal war. Square-Enix's booth was running at trailer at TGS 2007, revealing the release date to be this November 22. Featured in the footage were lots of sweeping environmental pans showing off passages hewn into snow-covered rocks, armored black chocobo, and expanses of dusty desert mesas.
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Chocobos are skilled at way more things than just digging – weve known this for a good 16 years. Theyre excellent chefs, loyal babysitters, and if youll recall a little game called Final Fantasy VII, very good foot racers if bred correctly. So were happy to announce that youll soon be getting a little bit more for your $13 a month playing Final Fantasy XI online – Chocobo Racing. Though the fun starts with a March 29th update later this week, Square Enix will be rolling out several ... » Read More

Sony Computer Entertainment have released a small update for the PlayStation 3 that allows PlayStation 2 games to store cache data on the hard disc drive, like Final Fantasy XI or the SOCOM map pack. Rather than a regular system update that would up your firmware version number, the update is a standalone package available on the PlayStation Store.

The update runs nearly 7MB in size and basically looks to create a virtual space for PS2 hard drive support. PS2 games that can use, or in the case of Final Fantasy XI, require the hard drive will simply prompt you to save the data as per normal. On the PlayStation 3, this data chunk is listed under the Game Data Utility like any other cache information would be, though it's all stored in a single piece of data.

So for those of you who want to try out FFXI on the PlayStation 3, now's your chance.
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Square-Enix has announced its lineup for the 2006 Tokyo Game Show, which is being held from September 22 until September 24 in Makuhari Messe via Chiba, Japan.

Playable Demos:

Dragon Quest Monsters Joker (NDS)
Seiken Densetsu IV (PS2)
Chocobo no Mahou Ehon (DS)
Final Fantasy III (DS)
Final Fantasy XI (PS2/X360)
Project Sylpheed (X360)
Dragon Quest Monsters (Mobile)
Dragon Quest: Fushigi na Dungeon (Mobile)
Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden (Mobile)
Front Mission 2089 (Mobile)
Pokemate (Mobile)

Non-Playable (Video Only)

Final Fantasy V Advance (GBA)
Final Fantasy VI Advance (GBA)
Fabula Nova Crystallis - Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
Fabula Nova Crystallis - Final Fantasy Versus XIII (PS3)
Final Fantasy VIII: Crisis Core (PSP)
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Sony just released some more details regarding Final Fantasy XI's new Chocobo breeding program. Included are descriptions of some of the various breeds of the giant birds most adventurers use as mounts for quick travel. Destrier Originally bred for armored combat in the nation of San d'Oria, these black Chocobos are capable of wearing heavy armor. However, since heavily armored cavalry have gone out of fashion among the realms of Vana'diel, these birds have become extremely rare... almost ... » Read More

Good news has arrived for gamers that like a little animal husbandry mixed in with their battle against the forces of evil. The popular cross-platform massively multiplayer Final Fantasy XI is due for an upgrade, and the focal point will be the rearing of the giant, rideable chicken-beasts known as Chocobos. In the upcoming patch, players will be able to acquire the eggs of Chocobos and work to raise them into adulthood, at which point they'll be capable of breeding with other ... » Read More

More information has been uncovered regarding the upcoming expansion of the world of Vana'diel. Some new enemies enter the fray in the form of the Mamool Ja tribe of beastmen that rule over the Mamool Ja Savagelands. Fortunately, in addition to the previously announced Corsair job class, Blue Mages are also scheduled to make their FFXI debut in the new expansion to combat the ever-increasing ... » Read More

Joining the likes of Blizzard (World of Warcraft) and Sony Online Entertainment (EverQuest), Square Enix held its first annual Final Fantasy XI Fan Festival in Santa Monica over the blustery, unseasonably chill March 10th weekend. To fans of online role-playing games, the community is as important - if not moreso - than the gameplay itself. Pushing that sense of community into the real world is a great way to reinforce the relationship between fans ... as well as rack up some tidy merch sales. ... » Read More

Square Enix, the makers of Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest, look set to end their exclusive deal with Sony, preferring to produce their games for Xbox 360, Revolution and PS3. Square Enix president Yoichi Wada has hinted that since the next round of the console war won't be dominated by one machine, his company need to sell their titles on as many formats as possible. Speaking to Japanese newspaper Mainichi Daily News, he said: "The market for next generation game consoles will ... » Read More