Square Enix USA has announced that the PC version of Final Fantasy XI will ship to North American retailers on October 28th with a "Teen" ESRB rating. The game will retail at a suggested price of $49.99 US and will include the expansion pack Rise of the Zilart, originally released separately. Subscribers will get the first month free of charge, the monthly fee will afterwards be of $12.95 for one character (+$1 per additional character), as previously announced. Final Fantasy IX's mini game Tetra Master will be included and playable for an extra $1 per month.

The minimum system requirements for Final Fantasy XI are:

Windows 98/98 SE/Me/2000/XP OS
Intel Pentium III 800Mhz processor or higher
128 MB of RAM
6 GB of hard drive space
DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
CD-ROM drive and keyboard
56K or faster connection
32MB ATI Radeon 9000 series or NVIDIA GeForce series videocard.

On the marketing front, Square Enix has partnered with companies such as NVIDIA, AOL Games and Alienware. AOL Games plans to introduce a 'comprehensive programming package' on October 21st, and Alienware will run a giveaway contest in which the prize is a gaming desktop PC bundled with FFXI. Ads for the title are set to appear in various top computer and video gaming magazines and websites.

The PlayStation 2 version of the game will come pre-installed on the PS2 HDD, and will be available March 2004 for $99 USD. Final Fantasy XI for the PS2 sold a laborious 135,000 copies in Japan, and it's safe to say the game can only have better results on the North American market.