Earlier this weekend Square Enix began a two day party for the public and games press to play the latest games such as Final Fantasy XII, Kingdom Hearts II, alongside many more great titles...we've just uncovered coverage (thanks BDGamer.net) of the party via IGN and Gamespot.

News hitting the web earlier today provides details of the release date for Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Coincidently we attended a World-wide exclusive screening of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children back in December 2004, when we met Nobuo Uematsu the composer of the Final Fantasy music, click here to find out what Uematsu-San had to say!

Engadget.com currently has picture of a 'qwerty' add-on for the Xbox 360 controller purportedly from what looks like a Spanish 'press' presentation for the Xbox 360... Due to the timing of this report hitting the web, we have been unable to confirm the authenticity of the presentation with our contacts at Microsoft.

Expect more news on this development as soon as we confirm it on Monday.

Over the past week Microsoft has been making headlines, with constant announcements on its upcoming software and Next-Generation games console (Xbox 360).

Now, the Windows Vista (formally known as Longhorn) beta was released to subscribers of MSDN (a hefty download of 2.42GB). You can view a number of screenshots of Windows Vista via this link. Also Levenez.com has an interesting chart tracking the development of how Windows Vista came to be.

The beta for the latest edition of Internet Explorer 7.0 was also released, and from what we've heard and seen so far I.E. 7.0 will host numerous new features such as 'tabbed browsing and a 'phishing filter' alongside many more improvements (Download the tech overview via the above link for more info).

While the above has been going on, Microsoft recently held an Xbox Summit in Japan for the Xbox 360, which they announced massive support from leading Japanese publishers and developers!

Overall a pretty busy week for Microsoft!

According to a report appearing on Spong today, Sony are planning on cutting the price of the Playstation 2 by the beginning of December. The new price is likely to be somewhere between £60 and £70 for the slimline PS2.

The city of Leipzig goes beyond the fantasy as Square Enix Ltd has today confirmed that Final Fantasy XI will be on show at Europe's biggest Games Convention, held at the Leipzig Games Convention. The buzz from the press release is as follows:

European gamers will get their first look at the next generation gateway to the world of Vana'diel where 500,000 other players from across the globe already adventure.

At the Square Enix stand, there'll be FINAL FANTASY XI characters created specifically for the show, and gamers will be able to explore some of the fantastic areas within the game. There'll also be special Leipzig giveaways including a specially produced CD-ROM containing a brand new FINAL FANTASY trailer and a link page to download a free trial version of the title.

The 6th August 2005 has just been pinned on the News0r.com monthly gaming calendar as we have just learned of an event taking place at The Museum of Computing; Swindon. The Museum is kicking off a rather cool exhibition by hosting a gaming day with numerous Nintendo consoles and handheld devices on display, as well as competitions for people attending on that day!

Here are the details:

Date: 6th August– until the end of September 2005.
Place: The Museum of Computing.

On Saturday we provided you with an update on the upcoming Doom movie. Today (thanks to Bluesnews.com) we've learned that the official Doom Movie web site has gone live, alongside a trailer of the movie.

Click here to visit the Doom Movie website, which contains a number of pictures, trailers, desktop downloads and of course the synopsis of the movie.

At last week's Playstation meeting in Japan, Sony released the promised v2.0 BIOS upgrade for Japanes PSPs, adding web browser support for the handheld console among other things. A version for the US market is due for release soon.

According to a report on Games Domain, the European PSP (due for release in September) will ship with the v1.52 BIOS, meaning it won't allow any of the well known homebrew hacks to work, and also won't allow web browsing. Hopefully an upgrade will be made available for Europe shortly after release.

Given that Europe is the second largest market for video games (especially Sony consoles and games), it really is remarkable that the company chooses to treat Europe as a second class market.

Xbox Gaming 360

In the early hours of Monday morning (or at 1.30pm if you were staying in Japan) the Xbox Summit 2005 took place in the magnificent city of Tokyo, Japan. Microsoft sent News0r.com the press release in which the Japanese games publisher elites vowed their overwhelming support for the Next Generation Xbox 360.

Japan is notably the main video game market in the World, principally due to the influence Japanese publishers and developers have expressed with their creative art, which has inspired the development of numerous games enjoyed by millions of gamers around the world. Secondly Japan is ripe in terms of video games, electronics and amazing broadband connections of over 100MB. Thirdly it makes complete sense for Microsoft to host a summit of such magnitude in a country such as Japan, after the early début of the console via MTV before E3 2005, plus the scale of the Japanese support which was announced will be critical to the development of rich content and story driven games for the new 'HD Era' of gaming.

The Games
Since E3 2005 we've been flabbergasted by the sheer volume of announcements and titles that will either appear at the Xbox 360's launch window and throughout 2006/07. The Xbox Summit 2005 held in store a number of surprises for gamers and the press, as numerous blogging sites, gaming communities wondered if "are we ready for the Xbox 360?", well we at News0r.com are ready and prepared for the wealth of technological achievements heading our way this Christmas and beyond.

Currently the News0r.com crew are putting together the finest collection of material ever assembled online direct from the source, please bear with us until the work of the 'News0r.com Xbox 360 resource centre' is completed, but while you are waiting, check out the tantalising media titbits from the Xbox Summit 2005 via the following sites!

Click on the following URL's to watch the latest trailers: Project Gotham Racing 3, Resident Evil 5, Frame City Killer and Tengai Makyo Ziria: Yurakanaru Jipang!

Experience and explore the full range of titles, hardware and services via Xbox360.com.

The title says it all really... If you take out a 12 month subscription to Xbox Live, you can claim one of three brand new games for free. How? We hear you ask, simply click here!

Be quick, this promotion is only open to the first 200 gamers who sign up via the online form.