So I was going through and updating a bunch of bookmarks, during which time I went on over to Square Enix’s site for the first time in a long time. There I discovered an announcement that reports that in spite of reports of the contrary, there IS no official release date for Final Fantasy XIII yet.

Now, I haven’t heard anything about an FFXIII release date yet (and I’ve been sitting here muck, so it can’t be all THAT widespread a rumor yet. But, there you have it.

Original source: Square Enix

CVG reports that there WILL be a Final Fantasy XIII demo so fans can get a handle on the battle system prior to actually getting the game. (Frankly, if we need a trainer simulation in advance of the actual game to comprehend the system, I can’t think that it bodes well– though after the complete snooze that was FFXII’s system, it still sounds like an improvement.)

But no date has been provided for the demo just yet, so don’t go holding your breath. 2008 promises to be the year when we get more information on the game (which to me says…we won’t get the game itself. Boo). CVG has a few other details on the world setting, if you want those, some of it interesting and some of it as inane as “the red thing on Carbuncle’s head is a ruby” (….durrrrrrr).

So there you have it: there is, in fact, no actual news on FFXIII, but now we can pretend that there is.

Original source: CVG
Secondary source: Kotaku

Thanks to a rather snotty Kurono K (I kid!) for pointing me to Kingdom Hearts Ultimania, which offers news of three new Kingdom Hearts games: one for the PSP, one for the DS, and one for the cell phone (covering all bases, eh Square?).

Oddly, the news doesn’t seem to have been picked up much yet, hence why I didn’t find it (in my defense, I have enough on my hands just keeping up with all the anime sites online, let alone gaming ones, let alone game-specific ones!). But there you have it.

Okay, I don’t really consider myself a gamer. Frankly, I never have enough money to invest in becoming one. But there’s enough overlap between the anime and gaming worlds that I know that Level 5’s booth being packed while Square Enix’s is near-empty is pretty funny.

That said…Squenix, where are my Kingdom Hearts announcements, bitch?