News

The Sony PlayStation 3 is changing up the gigs and dollars on each of its units again, with the recently-announced 40-gig PS3 retailing for $399 US and the 80-gig PS3 retailing for $499 US. Both models at these prices will be available in the United States on November 2nd.

The 40-gig model was actually revealed a few weeks ago, but until now there was no confirmation as to whether it would ever make it outside Japan, Europe, and Australia. The new price point for the 40-gig version marks the first time that a PS3 is available for under $400 US.

Source: Gamespot

I'm not ashamed to admit it. CoN's Final Fantasy IV section has been a bit weak. It was always kind of the slow child of the group, even when the group consisted of only two games; the Final Fantasy VI section always overshadowed it in a pretty significant way, and in all honesty, there was good reason for it. Even after we added coverage for the PSX rehash of the game, we weren't talking about a collection of content in the league of the Rosetta Stone—as many of our longer-time members will no doubt recall, the entire section has/had long been plagued with errors from minor to simply stupid. It seemed for a while that even our improvements merely led to more errors over the years.

Things started to change in 2005 (Yes, 2005. Sad but true). Excitement over the first Final Fantasy series remake on GBA was as close to fever pitch as I can really remember, as Final Fantasy IV was getting new content and a new platform. We ached for this game, and we ached to cover it, even going so far as to find (by some miracle, I assure you) a Japanese copy of the game to begin collecting data. When the American version was released, we dropped the hammer on it, and began collecting data almost immediately. And, like I say, that was December of 2005. It's now October of 2007. And we now, finally, have something to show for it: the finest collection of Final Fantasy IV data for all three American releases (which, of course, includes all the European releases, too) that you will find in any single place anywhere. We took the last two years to completely rebuild the Final Fantasy IV section from the ground up. We rechecked and reconfigured the data for both the SNES and PSX versions, checking extensively on data sets to make sure you were getting correct info for both older versions. Beyond that, we dissected the new (...ish) Final Fantasy IV Advance cart to make sure that we could give you all the data contained therein, as well. We even upgraded the code that drives the whole thing, so you now get all of the high-end functionality you've come to expect from the Caves of Narshe, including rapid switching between game versions and extensive spoiler protection.

As usual around here, this is hardly the result of one man's work. When you visit the new Final Fantasy IV index page, which I suggest you do as soon as you're done reading, you'll see at the bottom a big, big table of people who have contributed to the section over the last two years. I can't list them all again here, but I thank each and every one of you for sticking to this even though it was quite the mountain of ordeals to get off the ground. Especially I want to thank a few people, though, for going well above the call: Del S, for a huge amount of data entry; Mimic, for a ton of editorial work towards the end of the process; footbigmike, for always being willing to do factchecking and link-clicking at a moment's notice; Sabin, for sticking with a task until completion, even though that task was brutal; and, of course, my greatest partner in crime/greatest critic Tiddles. Please show them and everyone who worked on this section with me your appreciation without delay—this is a big one in the win column for the Caves of Narshe.

But that's not all that's coming in new today. After a full year of providing links on-demand only, we're finally rolling out the real AmaCoN store, providing everything Amazon.com sells to you via CoN. It can be a bit of a long story to tell here, but if you live in the US, Canada, most of Europe, or indeed most of the world, you can now buy pretty much anything you might want, starting from right here, and CoN will get a little cut of the money. This goes for video games, books, electronics, textbooks for you Uni-attending folks, toys, even gift certificates. We've set up pages with lots of Final Fantasy stuff for you, but don't feel limited by that, because we have search boxes so you can find anything Amazon sells. So, please, start using it, and encourage your friends and family to do the same, especially with the holiday season coming quick. We use all the proceeds to fund CoN server costs and contests, so you not only get your goods, but you get a better, more fun CoN in return.

To find out more about AmaCoN, check out the AmaCoN main page; alternatively, feel free to check out one of our country-specific pages, for the United States, the United Kingdom and European Union, or Canada.

At a news conference earlier today, the big N made an announcement that for the past couple of years seemed like an inevitability: the Fire Emblem series of strategy RPGs will have an incarnation on the Nintendo DS. No additional info was provided with that announcement, not even a title or screen; just the knowledge that the long-running series will be on the world's most popular handheld in the future.

Source: Kotaku

Yesterday Nintendo announced a special new accessory, the "Wii Remote Jacket," to be used in conjunction with the Wii Remote. These new covers will reportedly both serve as a protection for your Wii Remote and also provide a firmer grip to prevent from slipping out. These new protective sleeves will be bundled with all new Wii systems, but current Wii orders can receive one for free from Wii.com or nintendo.com if they can provide their Wii's serial number over the phone.

Hopefully, this should reduce the number of Wii accidents that were so widely reported following the release of the system. Nintendo claims that these new sleeves will "supplement, not replace, the basic game-play instructions: keep a firm grip, don't let go of the controller, use the wrist strap and make sure your play area is free of people or objects."

Source: Nintendo's Press Website

Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, the PSP prequel to FF VII starring Zack Fair, is selling awfully well for only a week on the market. According to VGChartz (linked below), Crisis Core sold approximately 350,000 units on its first day and an additional 100,000+ units in the following week - VGChartz admits that these estimates, while impressive, are still probably lower than the true numbers. And These sales figures don't include the special limited-edition 77,777 units sold along with a customized new-model PSP, bringing the total to a minimum number of 527,000.

There is still no confirmed release in North America or Europe for Crisis Core, but once it's announced it should be posted here shortly after. With sales numbers like those in Japan and FF VII's popularity in the United States, it's a foregone conclusion that we'll see it eventually.

Source: VGChartz, via Digg.com

So we're still not blazingly fast. But we get there when we can.

We've got 35 brand new pieces of fanart this time round, from artists old and new alike. These awesome new submissions grace our
Final Fantasy 4, Final Fantasy 5, Final Fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 7
and Final Fantasy Tactics galleries, so mosey on over and enjoy great art courtesy of:

• 
  Cloudyfan
• Frozen_Aura
• Galsic
• 
  Kaine
• LilGrim1991
• 
  Narratorway


• PrinceofDamycan


• Rujuken


• Llucilla

Let's all thank them. And thank me and
Mimic, too, for putting this update together.