Actually, it’s more of a complete, overall summary of the situation to date courtesy of the GIA.
The newly revitalized Gaming Intelligence Agency has provided its look at the persistent Square rumors and the overall situation between Square & Nintendo in recent years. Ever since the announcement that Sony PSX would get Final Fantasy VII and not N64, the Square issue has been a sensitive one.
Recently, things have been looking up; Square seems quite interested in GBA and Final Fantasy XI is planned as a multiplatform title. Despite such enthusiasm, Hiroshi Yamauchi’s staunch comments last January indicated that there was no deal with Nintendo & Square then and that there probably wouldn’t be any time soon…
This has not prevented the recent rumor that Square may be holding a press conference to announce GameCube plans, similar to Capcom’s own recent (and unexpected) Resident Evil GameCube announcement.
The GIA studies the rumor by thoroughly reviewing the complete issue. They wisely remind that Gamefront are the entity that broke the GameCube logo (PGC were just the ones to confirm it!) so the German site has a good track record. Furthermore, Gamefront have cited a source at a Japanese game magazine for providing the info.
Another ray of hope pointed out is Final Fantasy character designer and Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuya Nomura spoke enthusiastically about both of Nintendo's current consoles during an interview with Electronic Gaming Monthly, "I offer huge praise for both the Gamecube and Game Boy Advance," Nomura said. "If there is any chance to work on them, I may go for it. As far as Xbox is concerned... it's quite big, isn't it?"
Old Japanese newspaper blurbs from 1994 and 1995 are even dug up, quoting strong Nintendo support from Square just prior to the shocking Sony announcement. No matter how loyal Square may be to Sony at this moment, its enthusiasm for the latest Nintendo hardware may turn the tables once again…
September 24th is the date things will go down, so we may know soon. Square will allegedly be at least announcing some X-Box support, so perhaps there really will be some Nintendo announcements too. Will they be as big as some of the rumors are predicting? We can only wait and see.
