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Final Fantasy XIV Game Resumes Digital Sales on January 25
posted on by Adriana Hazra
Producer and director of Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIV MMORPG Naoki Yoshida announced on Friday on Square Enix's website that the company will resume digital sales for the game on January 25. He also announced that the new Oceanian Data Center for the game will launch on the same day, and that the game will resume offering its "Home World Transfer Service" feature on January 26. The announcement notes that the company may consider suspending digital sales again if the servers continue to experience extreme congestion. The company plans to resume registration for the free trial after further monitoring server stability.
Square Enix will also expand the Japanese, North American, and European Data Centers, starting with large scale changes to the Japanese version of the game in July 2022. The company will launch the Data Center Travel System in a future 6.1x patch. Players will be able to visit Worlds in other logical data centers within the same physical data center, but not Worlds in other regions/physical data centers.
Square Enix temporarily halted delivery of physical copies of the game as well as the sales of digital copies of the game on December 9. It also temporarily suspended new registrations for the game's free trial version due to server congestion that caused long queues for logging into the game.
The company had also halted all new advertisements for the game, although it noted that "it will not be possible" to suspend some ongoing advertising campaigns.
Players who own the game are still able to purchase expansion packs and digital collector's edition upgrade packs for their copy of the game.
The game recorded 25 million registered accounts worldwide in December, and the game's "Endwalker" expansion also recently debuted on December 7.
Square Enix released Final Fantasy XIV Online for personal computers in September 2010. After criticism from fans, the company revealed an updated version of the game titled Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn that added a new world and story. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn launched on Windows PC and PS3 in August 2013, and then on PS4 in April 2014. The game's companion app for iOS and Android launched in August 2019.
Square Enix released the first expansion for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, titled "Heavensward," in June 2015. The second expansion, "Stormblood," launched in June 2017. The third expansion, "Shadowbringers," launched in July 2019. The game launched for PlayStation 5 in May 2020.
The Final Fantasy XIV Dad of Light live-action television miniseries debuted on Netflix in the United States in September 2017. The original source material also inspired a live-action film remake with a new cast that opened in June 2019. The game is also inspiring a live-action series at Sony Pictures Television and Hivemind.
Source: Final Fantasy XIV's website via Siliconera
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