Another title I’m looking forward with great interest for Year 2010, along with Final Fantasy XIV.

The Limited Collector’s Edition, available for Playstation 3 on March 9, will include the game, a soundtrack containing tracks chosen by composer Masashi Hamauzu, and a “The World of Final Fantasy XIII” artbook.

Also included in the package: three art prints of the main characters’ Eidolon summons, and a decal of the “Brand of the l’Cie.

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With the North American market counting for 1.8 Million Units of total sales.

“It’s exceptional news, actually. I think the machine is a great machine, with the Blu-ray,” commented Guillemot, speaking to GamesIndustry.biz. “I’m happy that they were able to move to that [price point], particularly in the UK.”

Sony has reduced the price of its console to EUR 299 in mainland Europe, and GBP 249 in the UK with immediate effect, ahead of the release of slimmer unit due in the first week of September.

“I think it’s awesome,” enthused Gibeau. “It’s an old line, but it still rings true for us: ‘We make the ammunition for the hardware wars’. So the lowest priced hardware possible is a good thing for us. We want to see as big and broad a base as possible, and the Sony hardware is a good piece of equipment.”

The redesign will help the PlayStation 3 shift more units in Europe, said Guillemot – a positive for Sony as well as the industry as a whole – as it now becomes a more attractive purchase to a mass market consumer.

“It’s also going to be a smaller machine, and I think this will help Sony and the whole industry – because everybody will react, and so we’ll be able to see it come to the mass market,” he said.

Gibeau agreed that the new price will allow publishers to reach more consumers. “Getting into that price point is just going to expand the market for us, especially in Europe. We have a lot of PS3 games, we’re a good supporter of Sony, we believe in the platform. We’ve got a lot of PSP games coming, and frankly we also support the PlayStation Network with direct-to-consumer releases.

“So we’re strong, committed partners of Sony and I’m extremely excited about the Slim – I think it looks great. And the price point will be hot.”

Lower prices will help the current console market sustain a longer lifecycle, said Gibeau, meaning publishers and developers can concentrate on existing hardware rather than invest in future technology.

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COLOGNE, Germany, Aug 19 (Reuters) – Japanese video game maker Konami Corp (9766.T) is expecting its business in Germany to benefit from the price cut for Sony Corp’s (6758.T) flagship PlayStation 3 game console, a company executive told Reuters.

“In any case, the price cut for Sony’s PlayStation 3 will help us sell more games (in Germany),” Martin Schneider, the company’s head of European marketing, said in an interview at the Gamescom trade show on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Sony said it will roll out a slimmer, cheaper version of the PS3 in the first week of September at $299 in the United States, 299 euros ($422.7) in Europe and 29,980 yen

($315.6) in Japan. It added that the price for the current model of the PS3 in Europe and the United States would be lowered as of Wednesday. [nLI152101]

“However, there could be a dampening effect due to the insolvency of Karstadt — one of our trading partners. At the moment, business there is running, but this could change before the end of the year,” Schneider said.

Karstadt department stores are part of Arcandor (AROG.DE), one of Germany’s biggest retailers, which filed for insolvency in June after its request for state help failed. [nL9454449]

Konami — which is most famous for the Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania game series — competes with Electronic Arts (ERTS.O) as well as Capcom (9697.T), famous for its Street Fighter games.

The company’s Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) directly rivals Electronic Arts’ renowned FIFA soccer brand, which has attracted a larger group of followers in Germany.

However, Schneider said that the latest version of PES was holding up well.

“In Germany, the gap (between PES and EA’s FIFA) is not getting bigger, but it’s also not getting smaller.”

In the fiscal year to March 2009, Konami generated net sales of 309.8 billion yen ($3.29 billion), while operating income amounted to 27.4 billion yen.

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Priced at $299.00 Along with the new suprise firmware 3.00 my happiness went into overdrive . I’m currently playing MAG with the development team and media press from gamescon 2009.

And work on bring backwards compatibility back to the Playstation 3.

Another area is expanding the PlayStation Portable Demographics and software catalog. With titles that would be appropriate for young and the old gamers alike.