San Francisco Calfornia, June 26th 2007 is the time and place Square Enix chooses to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Final Fantasy series. A series which made it's debut in Japan in 1987 and is still going strong today. So how does one pay proper homage to one of the longest running, most influential video game series of all time? How many people can honestly say they've played them all? Dozens upon dozens of titles soon to be spread across it's 16th game system with dozens of spin offs, web comics, movies and anime not to mention the various forms of merchandise over the years. A mighty empire and fan-base that could very well rival Star Wars, Star Trek or even the rabid fan-base of ââ"¬Å"The Price is Rightââ"¬Â.
Estimates of between 60 and 75 million copies sold around the world making it 4th on the all-time list behind Nintendo's Mario franchise, their Pokemon one and EA's Sims series. With each new iteration being both highly anticipated and criticized mercilessly like few others series are due to their importance both to the games industry and culturally as well. To put it bluntly the Final Fantasy series is of such importance it can help steer the course of a game system's success or failure. It's name alone has even been used to boost sales for games not related to the FF universe.
