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Gaming News

Square Enix revealed a new character in Final Fantasy XIII, called "Sazh Kalzroy", who appears to be an Afro. He likes the color green and Chocobo chicks, and his weapon is a pair of pistols.

Square Enix announced SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu [Final Fantasy Legend 2] for NDS, a remake of the classic Gameboy RPG, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the SaGa series.

Here are the Famitsu 2008 Top 10 game industry news in Japan, voted by readers and retailers:

1. Announcement of Dragon Quest IX release date and Dragon Quest X in development for Wii
2. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G went on sale and became a phenomenon, PSP raises up
3. Square Enix chosen Xbox 360 as the platform for its new RPGs (Star Ocean The Last Hope, The Last Remnant, Infinite Undiscovery)
4. Sony ceased production of 20GB and 60GB model of PS3 in Japan, no more PS2 backward compatibility
5. The latest Tales title - Tales of Vesperia released on Xbox 360
6. 54 software firms sue makers and retailers Nintendo DS flash cards
7. Metal Gear Solid 4 went on sale, became the best selling PS3 title to-date in Japan
8. Xbox 360 retail price dropped below 20000 yen and raised system sales
9. Storm from E3: Final Fantasy XIII coming to Xbox 360 in North America and Europe
10. TGS 2008: Monster Hunter 3 demo lineup completely filled within first 7 minutes

Here are the most outstanding developer in Japan in 2008, voted by readers and retailers:

Nikkei business news reported that Sony will be posting the first loss in 14 years. The company expects to have a 100 billion yen or $1.1 billion operating loss for the fiscal year.
Eidos revealed that Tomb Raider: Underworld has sold 1.5 million units worldwide, failed to meet company's $30.39 million sales forecast. As a result 30 staffs have been laid off in Crystal Dynastmic, and Eidos is considering a makeover of the next Tomb Raider game.
In an interview with IGN, the development team of Star Ocean: The Last Hope said Tri-Ace has no plans to release a PS3 version of the game.
At CES, Robbie Bach said that Microsoft will be sticking with the current generation of Xbox longer than the original one, due to the fact that it is increasingly harder to get consumers to upgrade to new model. The company will focus on improving Xbox 360 games and features.
The Wiibrew community reported that Wii already have DVD playback functionality since the beginning, but the functionality was disabled by Nintendo. It is possible to re-enable the DVD playback capability by a firmware hack.

* Little Big Planet has sold over 1.3 million units worldwide
* Little Big Planet has over 300,000 levels created, and a total playtime of 2 full years
* PlayStation Home has been downloaded by 3.4 million users worldwide
* $1 million goods were sold in PlayStation Home
* EA has signed to become a partner with Home, a new EA Home space will be revealed soon
* An update to Life with PlayStation will be coming this spring
* There are 17 million PSN accounts, with 2.1 million new accounts added in December 2008
* MTV is now a partner with Sony to provide video content through PSN
* Installed base of PSP and PS3 is now 61.3 millions worldwide
* Sony Online Entertainment to offer free-to-play title Free Realms for tweens, teens and families

* Xbox Live has hit 17 million active users, with 3 million users added in the past quarter
* A demo of Halo Wars will be available on Xbox Live on February 5
* Over 28 million units of Xbox 360 were sold worldwide
* Microsoft to release a new application called Kodu, which is an application to teach children how to program
* Over 12000 titles from Netflix are viewable via the 360

Sony announced two new colors will be available for the PSP-3000 model: Radiant Red and Vibrant Blue, both models will be available in Asia on January 15 and 17.