Following the massive earthquake and then subsequent tsunamis which almost totally destroyed some parts of Northern Japan recently, many publishers of video games have opted to err on the side of caution. With the part of the country effectively left hapless by the disasters, many popular game publishers including the likes of Konami, Square Enix, Sega, Capcom, Sony and Irem have made announcements regarding the delays, cancellations and outages of service both inside and outside Japan. As the energy production of Japan has been massively affected by the earthquake, Square Enix has stated that starting from yesterday; it has taken down some of its massively popular online multiplayer role playing games such as Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XI, taking them offline for an unspecified period of time which will last for at least a week. On its official forum, the publisher apologized for the disruption in the service and also announced that the subscribers of these games will not be charged for the month of April.
A similar move regarding Metal Gear Online was announced by Konami. The publisher informed on its Facebook page that in efforts to conserve energy in the country, MGS Online was being shut down until further notice. The company also said that the gamers can keep track of further information regarding when the game will come back online through the official website of the game.
As far as the game updates for Japan are concerned, according to reports, Disaster Report 4, due for a release on the PlayStation this spring, has been cancelled outright by Irem. Even as no explanation has been provided by the publisher regarding the cancellation of the release, it is being said that it was caused by the similarities in the setting of the storyline of the game with the disaster that struck Japan.
