Intel Corporation and Square Enix recently announced that FINAL FANTASY XI for Windows can now be played on mainstream consumer PCs with the Intel 915G Express chipset which is supported by an integrated graphics technology. In the past, additions of costly external graphics card were required to play FINAL FANTASY XI on a PC due to its advanced graphics.

The Intel 915G Express chipset is a key component for volume mainstream PCs for the second half of 2004 and beyond, and its internal "Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (GMA900)" achieved 1.7 times of 3D graphics performance1 compared to Intel's previous generation chipset with integrated graphics.

"We are very pleased to announce that FINAL FANTASY XI can now be played on high-volume, consumer PCs featuring the Intel 915G Express chipset with integrated graphics, in time for the holiday season," said Bill Siu, Intel's vice president and general manager of the Desktop Platforms Group. "With this new PC, more consumers can take advantage of the new media capabilities in graphics and audio to experience the excitement of 3D online games like FINAL FANTASY XI."

"Combining Intel's integrated graphics technology and Square Enix's software technology, we can enable more consumers with affordably priced PCs to play FINAL FANTASY XI, a game which requires intense graphics performance. We are so pleased with the timing as FINAL FANTASY XI and the expansion pack, Chains of Promathia, are both now open to European gamers. The expansion pack is already available to Japanese users and will soon be released to other supported regions such as North America, making FINAL FANTASY XI a truly global experience. We hope to provide new gaming experiences on various PC platforms with the continued collaboration between the two companies," said Yoichi Wada, President of Square Enix.

"In the online game market segment, the high performance PC is the leading platform and given the broadband infrastructure advances in Japan, we must have faster growing opportunity in this market," said Kazumasa Yoshida, Representative Director and Co-President, Intel K.K. "Intel desires to expand PC and online game market in Japan by collaborating with the leading game industry companies like Square Enix in technology and marketing."

Intel and Square Enix have also been collaborating on FINAL FANTASY XI performance optimization for PCs featuring the Intel Pentium 4 processor supporting Hyper-Threading Technology.

FINAL FANTASY XI is played by half a million people world-wide and is the first cross-platform, cross-continent massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). The two companies will continue collaborating to enrich content running on PC platforms and reach more end users, not only in Japan but world-wide.