PlayOnline tops 500,000 users

Square Enix's online gaming service PlayOnline has passed the 500,000 registered users milestone in North America and Japan combined, the publisher announced this week, with nearly one million characters regularly active in Final Fantasy XI.

Released on October 28th in North America, the PC version of Final Fantasy XI has become hugely popular in a short space of time, even capturing the attention of traditionally anti-MMOG types like our own Rob Fahey, who is still ploughing countless hours into the game long after he stopped getting paid to preview it.

This is all good news for Square Enix of course, who, following a successful 30-day free trial, receive $12.95 per end user per month, and $1 extra per month for each additional character, and yet another dollar from those who want to play the Tetra Master mini-game regularly to boot.

Sadly details on FFXI's European launch are still relatively scant, but with the game due to ship pre-installed on American PS2 Hard Disks this March (probably for $99), they'll have to start talking about European plans sooner or later. And if you're really dedicated of course, you can just import the American PC version.