Square Enix

Big news on the second day of VanaFest: Hiromichi Tanaka, the current producer of Final Fantasy XI, is stepping down and will leave Square Enix mostly due to health problems.

Hiromichi Tanaka started his work at Square in 1983 and was one of the earliest members and eventually headed up  Square Enix's 3rd development division. Later he became Corporate Executive Online Business.

At Square he worked on games like Final Fantasy, II and III, Secret of Mana, Xenogears and Chrono Cross. Besides producer of Final Fantasy XI he was also producer of Final Fantasy XIV till December 2010 (which was badly received by the fans causing him to step down).

Akihiko Matsui will take over his spot as producer of Final Fantasy XI.

After the closure of the E3 show floor last night for that day, Square Enix has shared an impressive over three-minute Final Fantasy realtime tech demo of Luminous Studio, their new game engine for the next generation. 

The trailer that you've just seen, which is called Agni’s Philosophy, is all in realtime, no pre-rendered footage. Yoshihisa Hashimoto, chief technology officer for Square Enix proved that by manipulating scenes in the trailer and showing it again.

This trailer is very impressive and makes me excited what's in store for the Final Fantasy series in the future. Time will tell.

Recently an image has been circulating the web about a new Square Enix title called Valiant Saga: Final Fantasy that will be released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The image shows that the game is developed by Eidos Montreal. There's also a Twitter account active with the default avatar.

Please note that this is no official announcement and is most likely a fake. Or not?

Square Enix has announced their E3 line-up for this year. Note that five of the seven games are developed by western studios.

• Heroes of Ruin (Nintendo DS)
• Hitman: Absolution (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC)
• Kingdom Hearts 3D Dream Drop Distance (Nintendo 3DS)
• Quantum Conundrum (PlayStation Network, Xbox Live, PC)
• Sleeping Dogs (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC)
• Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (Nintendo 3DS)
• Tomb Raider (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC)

Great 'absentee' this year is (again) Final Fantasy Versus XIII which was announced on the E3 back in 2006. Also no Final Fantasy Type-0, which was released last October in Japan.