Square Enix has made a grandiose push into the Western market in recent months. After walking away from its bid to bail out ailing publisher Tecmo, Square Enix announced plans to publish Gas Powered Games' Supreme Commander 2, set up a development studio in Los Angeles, and made welcome advances to acquire flagging British publisher Eidos.

　　Today, the publisher revealed plans to lend its support to one of the most prominent digital distribution services in the West, Valve's online PC-only platform Steam. Square Enix's games will be available to Steam users located in North America and Europe only.

　　The first Square Enix-published game to appear on Steam will be the fantasy role-playing game The Last Remnant, which received modest ratings upon its Xbox 360 debut in November. Square Enix said today that the game, which was previously slated for a spring release, will be available March 24, with the Steam release following on April 9. Pricing information for the PC edition of The Last Remnant was not revealed.

　　No mention was made of Square Enix's most prominent PC effort, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Final Fantasy XI. However, Steam does have precedent in distributing MMOGs, having signed with Sony Online Entertainment (EverQuest 2, Pirates of the Burning Sea) to distribute its extensive catalog earlier this year. The publisher did say, though, that it expects to add more games to the service in the future.