Sony Refunds Final Fantasy XIV Customers

Customers who purchased Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn on the PlayStation Network from August 27-28 are receiving a full refund from Sony.

Customers who did purchase the game through the PlayStation Network on August 27 or 28 will find a full refund, and the game will reappear in the PSN download list.

The refund comes as a result of unstable servers, a problem plaguing the MMO since its relaunch last week. Director Naoki Yoshida explained on developer Square Enix's forums why the servers have been problematic.

"Considering the outcome of our first launch, our sales estimates were decidedly conservative," he said, "as we believed that there would be a more gradual rise in users over the opening weeks and months.

"Instead, to our pleasant surprise, we experienced tremendous support from a great number of players who were eager to get into the game from day one."

Yoshida said that FF XIV was designed to support 5,000 simultaneous players in any given world at one time. However, high concentrations of players in the same three city states toward the beginning of the game led to crashes, followed by more when all of those players tried logging back in at once.

This follows the news that Sony will be allowing an extra week of free play to anyone who registers before September 9, because of the same server problems.

Yoshida said that, although these problems may fix themselves as players progress in their respective games, the development team is working to fix the current problems.

"As of this post, the servers have been acquired, the essential programs installed, and we are currently in the process of conducting our internal tests," he said. "The fact that we had to implement these restrictions is a direct result of my inaccurate sales and login estimates, and as producer, I must accept complete responsibility for this misstep. Each and every player who has been affected has my deepest apologies."

Source: GameSpot

Mike Mahardy is a freelance writer for various outlets. To hear his thoughts on The New York Giants, Tim Dorsey or white chocolate, follow him on Twitter. 

Digital Diary: Instagram Video and the Death of Fantasy

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New Final Fantasy XIII Game "Just Entered Production"

Work on the new title in the Final Fantasy XIII series that will be announced in September has apparently only recently started.

In this week's Famitsu (via Andriasang), producer Yoshinori Kitase said that the new project only recently entered production and that we'd find out the game's title on September 1.

While it's not much, the news that the game hasn't been worked on for long lends credence to the idea that we could be about to see Final Fantasy XIII-3. When it was first revealed that new series details were incoming, many fans were hoping they may in some way relate to the long-absent Final Fantasy Versus XIII, but unless you count 2006 as "recent", it appears we can now rule this out.

The Final Fantasy 25th anniversary event in Shibuya kicks off later this month, with the new game scheduled to be revealed at 11.30 on September 1 through the "Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Saga: New Developments Presentation".

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Editorial Assistant, and would personally prefer Final Fantasy X-3. Let him know your thoughts and feelings on IGN and on Twitter.

Podcast Beyond: Final Fantasy Versus XIII's Un-cancellation

PlayStation. Does the word send a chill down your spine? Does it caress your senses with wave upon wave of irresistible pleasure? No? Do you like PlayStation? Then you're certainly in the right place. Welcome to Podcast Beyond, your link to the IGN crew that pushes news, opinions and utter hilarity straight to your ears (and subsequently, your brain).

Greg Miller's either dead or just away on vacation -- we're not entirely sure -- leaving Moriarty, Clements and Goldfarb to fend for themselves. The boys talk extensively about Final Fantasy Versus XIII and the state of Square Enix, and also touch on all other matter of PlayStation news, spanning from Vita's poor sales in Japan to the unfortunate words of Rhode Island's governor apparently leading to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning 2 losing its publishing funding at the eleventh hour. And of course, there's plenty of your reader mail.

Oh, and Goldfarb eats an apple.

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