Final Fantasy XIV was recently announced at Sonys E3 Press Conference. The game will target the PlayStation 3 Console and the PC in 2010. With a possible release on the Xbox 360 at a later time. Now when I logged on VGChartz today I have seen threads saying that FFXIV will be free-to-play. I will show you that it is not free-to-play nor confirmed that it is. Those threads were based entirely on speculation without any source what so ever.

Fact 1: Photo Confirmation

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j274/zanerith/111.jpg

This photo is directly taking off of SEs Final Fantasy XIV website which can be found here: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/

In this photo it shows that there will obviously be a unit cost fee, just like with every game. But the subsciption fee is still too be announced. Where does it say that it is free?

Fact 2: Liveblog

This is something taken directly from Square-Enixs Q&A session at E3 2009.

Also I might note that the person at G4TV who did the liveblog also said this before the Q&A started:

That "confirmation" of FFXIV being Free 2 Play seems shaky, but I could believe it if the game was based around a paid "premium" experience or micro-transactions.

Q: I've been seeing information that the title is free to play, is this true?

A: No pricing has been decided at this time. It is still TBD.

Again, where does that say free?

Source for Fact 2: http://e3.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/696020/Live-Blog-Square-Enix-E3-2009-Press-Conference.html

Fact 3: Square-Enix's FFXI Rules and Regulations on POL.

"Any activities consisting of selling, purchasing, or exchanging, "gil" (or any other in-Game currency), accounts, characters, "a playerfs time and effort spent playing the Game," or Game items, for value (such as real currency) by any method, including, Internet auctions or other online exchanges"

Source: https://secure.playonline.com/supportus/rule_ff11user.html Under Prohibited Activities

Also I might add, that if you break that rule, SE will ban you no questions asked.

As I have stated in other threads, Square-Enix does not permit in-game items to be sold for real life money. If Square-Enix allows this in FFXIV then they become hypocrites and everything they did to protect FFXI from it will be in vein.

I wish the game was free to play. But Sony and Microsoft will not pay to keep this game up. And the money has to come from somewhere. Please understand that this free-to-play is only a speculation rumor. Don't get too ahead of yourselves because the facts so far point to a subscription fee.

One fact about the other threads that is true though is that there WILL be a beta. Although we don't know if it will be open or closed.

Why is this in the Microsoft forum , bitter fanboy ?

It is in a Sony Forum, I am not a Microsoft Fanboy.

Don't lie to me.

Jesus, I seriously suck with photobucket. Tried like every one of them links. Lol.

Sorry I just paid a visit to the MS forum and got confused.

Why the long OP, why so eager to disprove it  , bitter fanboy ?

What happened to you , do you want to get banned?

@op

Its not surprising , XI was a healthy source of income for square and are probably releasing XIV for the same reason.

Eh, they also said that this isn't Final Fantasy XI. Comparisons of Square now and Square last generation are completely invalid.

They are not the same company.

I am just trying to point out that it is only a speculation rumor. I will be joining FFXIV on day one. Those other threads have no facts at all. You guys are just setting yourselves up for dissapointment.

As I said in the other thread, they have already proved they are hypocrites when they announced FF13 as multiplat. Nothing new there.