Square Enix has just gone and revealed the release date for the publisher’s upcoming massively multiplayer online RPG, Final Fantasy XIV, announcing that eager PC gamers will be able to get their hands on the title in late September, while PS3 owners will have to wait until March 2011.

In addition, the PC system specifications for Final Fantasy XIV have also been unveiled, with plans of a new PC beta also coming to light.

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Graphically impressive videogames are a dime a dozen nowadays, and while some games push that visual envelope into the stratosphere (Crysis 2, Uncharted 2, RAGE, Killzone 2 etc.), most electronic entertainments at least pass the bare minimum requirements to keep players engaged long enough for the gameplay to take over… or not.

Graphically impressive massively multiplayer online games (MMOG), on the other hand, are much more rare. Some games go with a stylised visual aesthetic to keep everything looking good and fresh for years at a time (World of Warcraft being a prime example). Other games try to ‘wow’ us out the gate with realistic graphics, and end up looking dated a year later (Age of Conan, we’re looking at you).

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With Microsoft and Nintendo’s E3 2010 press conferences out of the way, both of which brought some interesting surprises and reveals, all eyes turned to Sony as anticipation grew for the company’s own annual E3 press event.

Many rumours and predictions hung on the lips of attendees, livebloggers and casual onlookers alike; would Sony reveal any new hardware, like a PSP2? What about some new unknown games? Did the publisher have any new games left to unveil after a flurry of pre-E3 showings, including Killzone 3, inFamous 2 and MotorStorm: Apocalypse?

All industry-watchers could do was sit tight and wait for the team at Sony to surprise and astound us:

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To keep up with the rest of the top-notch publishers, Square Enix has revealed its line-up of games that the company and its partners will be showing at E3 2010 next week, with highlights including Deus Ex: Human Revolution, The 3rd Birthday and Final Fantasy XIV.

Have a look through the full list below:

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Square Enix has announced that the upcoming beta test for Final Fantasy XIV, the publisher’s next massively multiplayer online RPG (MMORPG), will begin this month, starting with a closed beta seeded with a selection of invited players.

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A presentation held at the ongoing GamesCom videogame expo in Germany has unwittingly played host to a Final Fantasy XIV Online ‘peep show’ of sorts, as eager journalists with cameras tried to absorb as much of the gorgeous in-game footage as they could.

This has resulted in a veritable banquet of Final Fantasy XIV Online videos that show off the environments, characters, actions and magic from the game, which despite still being quite a ways off in terms of a release date, is already looking spiffy.

Watch below:

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Yesterday’s Sony E3 2009 press conference brought with it a few surprises, not least of which was the announcement of Final Fantasy XIV Online, a massively multiplayer online game that is console exclusive to the PS3 (but will also see a release on the PC).

Set to release next year worldwide, the game will be localized into English, French, German and Japanese, and feature the talents of developers such as producer Hiromichi Tanaka (Final Fantasy XI), art director Akihiro Yoshida (Vagrant Story) and music from legendary composer (and Final Fantasy bastion) Nobuo Uematsu.

In case you were wondering, the tagline for Final Fantasy XIV Online is “Adventure begins anew in the vast realm of Eorzea!” How dramatic!

Watch the debut trailer for Final Fantasy XIV Online below:

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