Late Night Consoling

In Japan last December, Square Enix released a Hand-developed Final Fantasy spinoff entitled Chocobo and the Magic Picture Book, starring one of the well known feathered yellow mounts from the long running RPG series. Last month, an official website for a localized version of the game was quietly opened, and today Square Enix officially announced Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales for the North American market. The RPG will feature an online battle feature via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.

"The chocobos and all their friends are going to explode onto the Nintendo DS," said executive producer Shinji Hashimoto. "Since the game contains references to the series going back as far as [the original] Final Fantasy, I am confident that fans of both Final Fantasy and Nintendo alike will enjoy this exciting title."

Square Enix sent along some new screenshots of the game. Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales is expected to ship for Nintendo DS in North America on April 3, 2007.

Alexey Pajitnov's ubiquitous puzzler Tetris will add another system to its ever growing list of platforms when it arrives on Xbox 360, THQ announced today. Tetris Evolution, set to ship next month, will feature four-player Xbox Live online multiplayer across various game modes as well as the leaderboards and Achievements common among Xbox 360 titles. New game modes featuring both single- and multiplayer modes include "Go Low" and "Eraser."

"The Tetris series has been entertaining people of all ages for 20 years and has delivered unprecedented appeal and longevity in gaming," said THQ worldwide publishing executive VP Kelly Flock. "With its predecessor, THQ's Tetris Worlds, having sold more than two million copies to date, we can't wait to debut Tetris Evolution on the Xbox 360 to show how the game has further evolved."

Tetris Worlds (PS2, Xbox, GCN, GBA, PC), developed by The Next Tetris (PS1, DC, PC) creator Blue Planet Software, was released in 2001. The Xbox version of the game was, for a time, included as a pack-in with the Xbox console alongside Pandemic's Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Santiago, Chile-based developer Wanako Games, responsible for the well received Xbox Live Arcade shooter Assault Heroes (X360), has been acquired by publisher Vivendi Games. The studio, which Vivendi notes is the largest in Latin America, will become part of the company's Sierra Online subsidiary. Currently, the Sierra Online label is being applied to smaller-scale downloadable and online games on both consoles and PC, an area in which Vivendi is known to be dedicating more development than most major publishers.

"We are very excited to join a visionary group like Sierra Online who is focused on bringing truly entertaining and innovative online games to a mass market," said Wanako founder and former CEO Esteban Sosnik. "In working with Sierra Online on Assault Heroes it quickly became clear that our companies shared the same core values in game development and by joining together we could develop and deliver amazing products."

Current Wanako creative director Tiburcio de la Carcova will continue to head up the studio, while Sosnik will lead Sierra's Latin American operations. In addition to the already known Xbox Live Arcade title 3-D Ultra Minigolf Adventures, Wanako has numerous other unannounced games in the works.

After last month's news that Sam & Max episodic developer Telltale Games is looking to hire a Wii Systems Programmer, it looks like it is now searching for a developer to fill the same position for Xbox 360. "This position will be responsible for implementing our core 3D graphics and audio systems on the Xbox 360," the job listing notes, using similar language to that used in the now removed Wii listing.

Telltale Games declined to comment on the implications of the posting when contacted by Shacknews. As we did last month, however, we will point out that among Telltale's repertoire is CSI: 3 Dimenions of Murder, published by the port-happy Ubisoft.