Entertainment Electronics Blog

We live in an age in which all the biggest game releases get their own Collector’s Editions or Limited Editions or Limited Collector’s Editions. So it should come as no surprise that Final Fantasy XIII will be receiving one. The “Limited Collector’s Edition” was announced today for European territories, and a look at its features may give us an idea of what will be coming to the U.S. Bonuses include an exclusive soundtrack CD, a hardback art book featuring character and environment art, three art prints of summoned characters, and a “Brand of the I’Cie” decal.

Keep in mind this is the list of bonuses for Europe, and Square Enix hasn’t announced a similar package for the U.S. yet. We expect they will in the near future, and wouldn’t be surprised if the list of bonuses were similar, or even exactly the same. The press release doesn’t mention a price, but this kind of set would traditionally go for $69.99 in the States. Whenever Square gives word of a U.S. Collector’s Edition, if the features remain the same, that’s where we’d expect the price to land.

John Carmak, influential game desiner and technical director of id software, has predicted that Sony will be the first to make a move into the next generation of gaming hardware, probably to prevent “the same kind of 360 lag from happening to them again”.

“The whole jockeying for who’s going to release the first next-gen console is very interesting and pretty divorced from the technical side of things,” Carmack told CD-Action, as spotted by Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry.

“Whether Sony wants to jump the gun to prevent the same sort of 360 lag from happening to them again seems likely.

“As developers, we would really like to see this generation stretch as long as possible. We’d like to see it be quite a few more years before the next-gen consoles comes out, but I suspect one will end up shipping something earlier rather than later.”

One of the main reasons behind the success of Microsoft Xbox 360 is its release one year ahead of Sony PlayStation 3 as well as considerably lower pricing. Sony might want to release its PlayStation 4 ahead of its arch-rival. But anyway, I hope this generation could last a long time. I hate they force me to buy these new stuff.