With Square Enix's $120 million purchase of Eidos now complete, lifetime sales figures of their major franchises have been revealed.

The information was provided as part of Square Enix's "Corporate Strategy Meeting," during which the company discussed "synergies" and presented materials on the "Eidos Integration."

Square Enix
• Final Fantasy franchise > 85 million units
• Dragon Quest franchise > 47 million units
• Kingdom Hearts franchise > 12 million units
Eidos
• Tomb Raider franchise > 30 million units
• Hitman franchise > 8 million units

Details on the sales of other Eidos-owned franchises, including Kane & Lynch (around 1.75 million units) and Deus Ex (over 2 million units), were also provided in bar graph form, along with individual figures for the various iterations of Hitman and Tomb Raider.

Harvey Smith, lead designer on Deus Ex: Invisible War (PC), is at work on an "immersive first-person RPG" title.

Speaking at the Austin Game Developers Conference, Smith commented that his studio "Arkane ... is very focused on immersive first-person experiences," giving players an idea of what to expect from the Austin, Texas, office's future projects.

"My focus is very much around games like Deus Ex," said Smith in the speech as noted by Gamasutra. Smith worked on the original Deus Ex under famed game designer Warren Spector in addition to Thief: Deadly Shadows and System Shock.

The true continuation of the Deus Ex series, on the other hand, is in the works at Eidos Montreal and should be revealed soon.

Subscription-based PC gaming service GameTap announced today that Ion Storm's shooter-RPG hybrid Deus Ex (PC, PS2) will be available to play free of charge on the platform beginning next week.

Often regarded as one of the most influential shooters ever developed, Deus Ex blended first-person shooter gameplay with a branching, complicated storyline, upgradable stats and skills and extensive character interaction. A sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War, was released in late 2003.

The title will be playable via the service's free-to-download launcher program, which allows users to browse and download a variety of PC and emulated console games. Those players who don't shell out the $9.95 per month for the "Gold"-level subscription can expect a 15 second video advertisement to air before each play.

In addition to Deus Ex, GameTap also offers Ion Storm's Thief: Deadly Shadows and Doublefine's Psychonauts among some 120 other titles in its free game roster.

Eidos Interactive owner SCi Entertainment has announced that it will be canceling 14 projects and terminating 25% of its staff under a new effort to restructure the company.

No details were provided on the canceled titles, though the company noted they were "unlikely to generate an acceptable return on investment or are not of appropriate quality."

Going forward, SCi will focus on what it described as its "cornerstone products," including Tomb Raider, Hitman, Championship Manager and Deus Ex. Of those franchises, new Tomb Raider and Deus Ex titles are known to be in development.

Other properties held by the company include Carmageddon and Kane & Lynch: Dead Men.

In addition to cutting 25% of its staff, bringing its workforce down to 800 people, SCi will also relocate much of its production staff from London to Montreal. The ... Read more

The FiringSquad is the latest website with a Deus Ex: Invisible War preview. The article offers hands-on impressions and plenty of screenshots.

Part two of C&VG's Warren Spector interview is now available. Questions are about balancing difficulty for Deus Ex 2, the freedom in playing the game, the AI, and the future of Deus Ex.

Over at the Deus Ex Zone you can find a Q&A with Harvey Smith, designer at ION Storm. Harvey is asked about Deus Ex and work on games in general.

According to GameSpot, Columbia has bought the movie rights to Deus Ex. Though studios usually take an option on these things without ever doing anything with them, a producer and writer have already been attached to this project.

The third part of the Deus Ex Continuity Bible is up at Gamespy. This last part takes a look at the role of the Illuminati and Majestic 12 in the game.

The second part of the Deus Ex Continuity Bible is now up at GameSpy. This second part is about the world of Deus Ex.

All the Deus Ex fans will probably find this Deus Ex 1 Continuity Bible on GameSpy very interesting. There's an outline of events in the first game and a biography of JC and Paul Denton. There will be more tomorrow, which should also cover Deus Ex 2.

I see on Voodoo Extreme that a mod team has released a co-op mod for Deus Ex. Beta 1 is pretty basic (no map changing or save games), but you might wanna keep your eye on this one.

RPG Vault has posted the first part of their Warren Spector interview, talking to the ION Austin designer about all kinds of things. Part 1 discusses the history of ION Storm, why was the decision made to make Deus Ex, when Warren was sure Deus Ex would be a top game and other early Deus Ex development related things.

There is a brief interview on PC.IGN where they talk to Jay Franke, the man who voiced JC Denton, Paul Denton and various other characters in ION Storm's Deus Ex.

Late yesterday evening a new patch for Deus Ex multiplayer was released You can grab the full patch if you havent patched before or the latest update patch which is just under 5 megs. A new SDK was released as well. Thanks JayZee

Eidos has announced a Game of the Year edition of Deus Ex, available this May. The GOTY edition includes the multiplayer patches, the SDK and there's a music CD with over 30 tracks remixed for higher audio quality.

Gamespot UK got some Deus Ex patch love from Eidos in the form of a single, a multiplayer and an updated SDK. The single player patch is 4.6 MB, multi player one is 35.6 MB. The Gamespot UK page lists all the fixes. Thanks Blues News.

Ok so we don't have a lot of full item interview items but what the heck on this Friday afternoon. FEED has an interview with Warren Spector, the man who work on games such as System Shock, Ultima Underworld and of course Deus Ex. They ask him about the narrative-driven style games, balancing gameplay and story, the transition to 3D, the user community and a couple of other things and Warren gives lenghty answers.

FEED: So how do you balance the competing demands of gameplay and narrative? Or are they really in conflict at all?
SPECTOR: There's a cliché among game developers about narrative and games being like two ends of a teeter-totter -- the more you emphasize narrative, the more you tip over toward one side of the teeter-totter, the less game-like your work becomes. Conversely, the more game-like you make your work, the less relevant traditional narrative concerns become ...

Thanks Blues News.

DeusEx-Machina.com has a making of Deus Ex interview talking to several members of the ION Storm team about certain references in the game, such as the Oracle, certain keypad codes, and if there were any other planned endings.

Cheese and Whine has an interview with Warren Spector of the ION Storm Austin team. Not just questions about Deus Ex, but also things like his opinion on the future of gaming and film.