Back in August SNK Playmore filed a criminal complaint against Square Enix, alleging that the company had engaged in "criminal copyright infringement" by using over 100 instances of unauthorized depictions of SNK Playmore characters in its Hi Score Girl manga.

This also led to the Consumer and Economic Crime Division of the Osaka, Japan Police raiding the local offices of Square-Enix to gather evidence.

Despite what was said at Microsoft's Gamescom Xbox briefing yesterday, and by Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix executives following the event, Rise of the Tomb Raider isn't an exclusive in the sense that it will never ever appear on any other platforms. According to what Microsoft's Phil Spencer tells Eurogamer, the game's exclusivity has an expiration date.

After hearing the announcement that the next Tomb Raider game, Rise of the Tomb Raider, will only be available on Xbox One, some fans were very displeased - most notably those who do not own or plan to buy an Xbox One. Developer Crystal Dynamics - a division of Eidos (which is owned by Square Enix) - tried to explain why it made this decision.

The Humble Square Enix Bundle has added five additional games into its already massive offering, for a total of twenty games for anyone willing to pay $15 or more.

The bundle offers Thief Gold, Mini Ninjas, Daikatana, Hitman: Codename 47, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin and Anachronox for $1 or more.

If you pay more than the average price (currently hovering near $9), you'll also get The Last Remnant, Just Cause, Hitman: Blood Money, Hitman: Contracts, Hitman: Absolution, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Deus Ex: The Fall, Nosgoth Veteran Pack, and Battlestations: Midway.

The latest Humble Bundle offers 14 Square Enix Games for as little as $15. The freshly launched Humble Square Enix Bundle offers Thief Gold, Mini Ninjas, Daikatana, Hitman: Codename 47, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin and Anachronox for a $1 or more.

If you pay more than the average price, you'll also get Deus Ex: Invisible War, Deus Ex: The Fall, Hitman: Absolution, Battlestations Midway and the Nosgoth Veteran Pack.

According to this Destructoid blog (from a reader named "Lord Spencer" who lives in Saudi Arabia), the government has banned the Square Enix 3DS game Bravely Default for promoting sexual behavior in children and pedophilia. While it is not at all shocking that the government in this country bans a particular game, the reasoning for the Bravely Default ban is as over-the-top as one can get.

According to a report on Gematsu, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn has registered more than 2 million player accounts. The new number is being attributed to the MMORPG being released on the PS4 this week. Square announced in 2013 that PS3 players would gain full access to the PS4 version at no additional cost.

The revamped title launched last August on PC and PS3, following a beta that garnered more than 1 million sign-ups.

Sony Computer Entertainment announced this morning that it has sold all of its holdings - its entire 9,520,000 shares - in Square Enix to SMBC Nikko Securities. An income of nearly 4.8bn yen will be marked down in Sony's financial report for the year ending 31st March 2015, with the exact sale price of the shares to be revealed tomorrow. Sony's annual financial report for the year ending March 31, 2014 will be released on May 14 and will likely contain a forecast for the year ahead that will include the sale of the shares.

In a surprising new interview with TorrentFreak, Square Enix senior manager of business and legal affairs Adam Sullivan said that digital rights management (DRM) is a necessary part of doing business in this day and age and that it won't be going away anytime soon.

According to Game Informer, Thief users have been reporting a quirky bug that caused save game deletions and/or save game file corruptions. At first the publication thought it was some queer April Fool's Day joke, but later Square Enix confirmed that the problem was real and that they were investigating.

Admitting that the launch of its newest Final Fantasy MMO was less than stable, Square Enix announced that it will compensate subscribers of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn with an extra seven days of game time.

The publisher admitted that it has been unable to deliver a reliable and stable service to customers since the game launched on PC and PS3 last week. The company chalked up the game's technical difficulties to high user demand. This led to a temporary halt in digital sales as it attempted to expand server capacity.

Square Enix head of product development Darrell Gallagher said that the digital-only Lara Croft game, the Guardian of Light, has sold over 1 million units across all platforms to-date. Gallagher also revealed that the Tomb Raider reboot sold over 4 million copies worldwide since launch, calling it the "fastest selling game in the history of the franchise" and one of the "most critically acclaimed titles" ever produced by Crystal Dynamics.

Tomb Raider maker Crystal Dynamics has confirmed with Kotaku that it has laid of around 12 of its staff members. Crystal Dynamics is a studio under the auspices of Eidos, which is owned by parent company Square Enix.

These staff members were not working on a new Tomb Raider game, but a brand new IP, according to Kotaku. The company issued the following statement on the layoffs.

According to this Polygon report, Eidos Montreal founder and general manager Stephane D'Astous resigned from the company last Friday, citing what could best be described as irreconcilable differences between the GM and parent company Square Enix. D'Astous is being replaced by David Anfossi, the current Eidos Montreal studio head and producer for Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Deus Ex: The Fall. D'Astous helped found the studio in 2007.

According to Polygon, the iOS version of Eidos' and Square Enix's Deus Ex: The Fall disables firing on jailbroken devices. Fans who just happen to have jailbroken iOS devices complained about the problem on the game's product page and in this Reddit thread.

Darrell Gallagher has been named head of studios in a major Square Enix shake-up this week. David Anfossi, Stephane D'Astous, Patrick Naud and Hannes Seifert will take on new roles at the publisher too. The changes are part of a major restructuring of its studio leadership teams in Europe and North America. Previously studio head at Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics, Gallagher will be now lead all studios in North America and Europe. He will retain his role at Crystal Dynamics for the immediate future.

Square Enix's new president Yosuke Matsuda said during a financial results briefing this week that the company will consider new methods to improve "asset turnover" and change the way its products are presented to customers during development cycle periods. Matsuda believes that consumers needed to be brought into the process of game development to ensure that a given game title will meet their expectations. Some of the ideas he has for fulfilling this include using elements found in crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and methods Steam employs within Steam Greenlight.

Veteran analyst Billy Pidgeon says that games like Tomb Raider need 5 - 10 million sales to be successful for Square Enix and that IPs that cost hundreds of millions of dollars need a minimum Metacritic scores of 8.5 and the aforementioned range of sales. Pidgeon sees a difficult year ahead for Square Enix, who predicted earlier this week a very tough year of losses despite decent sales of its latest Hitman title and the new Tomb Raider game.

Speaking to MCV India, Eidos life president Ian Livingstone threw some gasoline on an old rumor: that the Xbox 720 might block used games. Livingstone also said the next-gen consoles weren't prepared to go fully digital quite yet as its only method for selling and delivering content.

According to this Massively report, Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix has laid off an undetermined number of employees at its Los Angeles offices. The report is based on a number of anonymous tips - which presumably are being attributed to either current or former Square Enix employees that are close to the situation.

Square Enix later confirmed that something was going on with the company by issuing an official statement:

In what has to be a record take-down of a questionable piece of marketing, Square Enix pulled a Facebook app promoting Hitman Absolution two hours after it was deployed after a scathing report from Rock, Paper, Shotgun. The company later apologized for the app. The trouble began after RPS wrote about how "Hire Hitman" app allowed users to target and assassinate their Facebook friends, complete with death threats to your intended target.

The former head of Square has some harsh words for Square Enix after the company posted a quarter of losses, saying publicly that the company seemed to have "no vision for the future." Square Enix recently posted losses of nearly 5.5 billion yen, which in turn sent its stock in a downward dive, making its market cap worth around 124 billion yen.

Suzuki pointed out on Twitter that when Square merged with Enix in 2003, the market cap was 150 billion yen.

Anyone that has ever bought or considered buying a Square Enix game on a mobile platform has come to call its pricing the "Square Enix Tax." In other words, if you want to play a game like Final Fantasy Tactics on the iPad or iPhone, you're going to have to pay a premium price to have that privilege. Hardcore Square Enix fans begrudgingly accept this, but they are also vocal about it too.

Square Enix announced today that it is launching a new web-based gaming service that will allow consumers to play console quality, high definition games in their browser. The service is called CoreOnline, and will feature a micro transaction-based system.

The first titles released are Hitman: Blood Money and Mini Ninjas, with other games such as Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Tomb Raider: Underworld, and others to follow at a later date to be determined.

Over the weekend fans were delighted to learn that they could pick up the PC version of Square Enix's popular RPG, Final Fantasy VII for $12.70 on www.finalfantasyviipc.com, but then started having problems with the DRM system it uses, SecuROM. When players tried to start the game, the SecuROM DRM failed to authenticate their purchase. Naturally those who bought the game were quite irate.

Last week it was reported that Square Enix had abandoned development on Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Final Fantasy fans put on sackcloth and ashes. Hands were wrung raw. Prayers were said. Incense were burned to dark gods and souls were offered up to creatures that slither in the underbelly of the universe. It is too bad that those reports weren't completely accurate.

Square Enix’s worldwide technology director Julien Merceron says that Microsoft’s and Sony's insistence on extending the lifecycle of their respective consoles has ultimately hurt the industry. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry International he called this protracted life cycle the "biggest mistake ever made" and claimed that this move has ultimately damaged the overall console market. Those are fighting words.

You would think that employees in Japan that work for the likes of Nintendo or Sony would make more money than someone who works at Square Enix, but it turns out that the opposite is true. According to Nensyu Lab's top salary chart (as uncovered by Andriasang), Square Enix employees get an average salary of ¥21.68 million ($272,384.40). Sony and Nintendo employees are paid ¥9.23 million ($116,232.40) and ¥9.14 million ($115.099.10), respectively.

Eidos life president Ian Livingstone recently responded to the controversy over what Tomb Raider executive producer Ron Rosenberg said in describing a scene in the new Tomb Raider game that involved protagonist Lara Croft narrowly avoiding an "attempted rape."

Livingstone said that the recent controversy about Tomb Raider's E3 trailer was "quite extreme" and "blown out of proportion."

In an interview with GamesBeat, Square Enix’s Mike Fischer says that Activision was crazy when it made the decision to abandon True Crime: Hong Kong. Mike Fischer is the president and chief executive of the U.S. division of Square Enix, who also happens to own Eidos. Here's what he had to say about Activision letting the game now known as Sleeping Dogs go: