Axela, one of the leading publishers in the Japanese gaming industry, has made some announcements regarding future company plans.
The first announcement is that Axela will no longer be the publisher for Maria 2, a sequel to a popular PlayStation interactive drama. The developer of the series, Break, will now act as both developer and publisher for the title. Maria 2 is currently scheduled for release this August for 6800yen (US$68), and will come on three CD-ROMs. For those interested, we've included screenshots of the game in this article.
The second announcement is that starting this month, Axela's popular game magazine Play Online will now be under the control of Digicube, Square's subsidiary company. If you recall, a few years ago, when Square made its move from publishing for Nintendo to publishing for Sony, the company mentioned plans to release its own magazine publication. Now, through Digicube, it looks as though that has finally become a reality. Expect more of Square's games to be featured in the magazine on a regular basis.