Round Up: Final Fantasy XII, Diner Dash, Punch/Walsh

Today's round-up includes news of the North American release date for Square Enix's Final Fantasy XII, Eidos bringing popular casual game Diner Dash to handheld consoles, and Tim Walsh joining the Punch Entertainment board of directors, as well as the latest GameSetWatch posts, product news, Serious Games Source news, and Gamasutra job postings. - Square Enix confirmed today that its highly anticipated Final Fantasy XII will ship in North America on October 31, 2006 for the PlayStation 2. In addition, the company also announced that it will release a collector's edition of the role-playing game which will be available exclusively at GameStop and EB Games stores, as well as through each store's online site. The special package will come with a bonus DVD featuring Japanese and American promotional trailers, in-depth developer interviews, an art gallery and featurettes focusing on highlights of the franchise. The game, which was released on March 16 in Japan, will retail for $49.99, with the collector's edition costing $59.99. - Eidos announced that it has signed a deal with PlayFirst to publish the popular casual PC game Diner Dash for handheld consoles. The game will be released for the PSP, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy Advance in 2007. Already a top-selling title in the casual games space on PC and mobile phones, Diner Dash and its female protagonist, Flo, are examples of the growing demand for casual games across an increasing number of gaming platforms. "Diner Dash supports our continuing focus on building character-rich games for gamers across all platforms," said Ian Livingstone, product acquisition director, Eidos Interactive. "PlayFirst has demonstrated its ability to build a popular franchise out of highly innovative intellectual property, and it's exciting to introduce Diner Dash to a broader audience." - Mobile games studio Punch Entertainment announced today that Timothy F. Walsh has joined the company's Board of Directors. Walsh was most recently the President of THQ Wireless. He joined THQ in 1997 and held several senior management positions there including senior vice president of international publishing. Prior to joining THQ, Walsh held various sales and marketing positions at Accolade, Time Warner and Capitol Records/EMI Music. "What I like about Punch is the fact that this company was purpose- designed from the ground up to address the key challenge facing the mobile entertainment industry: how to develop and rapidly deploy mobile entertainment to literally hundreds of devices in the most cost-effective manner possible," commented Walsh. "I think Punch has the deployment bottleneck figured out and I'm thrilled by the chance to be part of the team." - The latest updates on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include the news of the world's largest can-based Super Mario in Dundas Square in Toronto tomorrow, the rise of online gaming in India, and a look at Sega Ages 2500 Vol. 20: Space Harrier II for the PS2. - Also updated today: Serious Games Source news on a partnership between Microsoft and Caspian Learning, Gamasutra product news on the release of IncrediBuild 2.60, plus the latest Gamasutra job postings, featuring openings from Amaze Entertainment, BioWare, Cartoon Network, Digital Extremes, K2 Network, LucasArts, Midway Games, Radical Entertainment, THQ KAOS, and Volition.