Square Enix has opened pre-orders for an official Final Fantasy XIV record player. Price? A mere $1,699.99.
Are you a true Final Fantasy fan? The kind of person who’d collect just about anything connected to the series? Do you also have a stack of prog rock albums on vinyl and nothing to play them on?
Then the Final Fantasy XIV direct drive turntable system could be for you. Yes, Square Enix is taking pre-orders for an official Final Fantasy record player. It is, according to Square Enix’s own description, a “high-end turntable for the music connoisseurs of Eorzea!”
When Square Enix say ‘high end’, they really mean it – the record player is priced at $1,699.99 – and that’s before you add shipping or other taxes.
As spotted by Niche Gamer, the FFXIV-SQ-1500 admittedly does look pretty swish, with its “black and gold colour palette, with a chic adornment of the iconic meteor logo and symbols representing the Twelve,” as its description goes.
The quality continues into the turntable’s tech, which has a “coreless direct drive motor and high-sensitivity tonearm”, while an auto-lifter function helps to prevent “unnecessary wear on your valuable vinyl records and stylus.”
We’re not quite sure how much crossover there is between hardcore vinyl collectors and fans of Square Enix’s ever-popular, decade-old MMORPG, but we guess they’re out there somewhere. The game surpassed 18 million registered players in 2019, and even in the space year 2023, it’s estimated that over 1.6 million people still log into Final Fantasy XIV each day – which is impressive, given that it’s a subscription game vying for attention in a sea of free-to-play MMOs and the like.
Pre-orders are open for the fancy record player now, while it’s expected to release in April 2024 – which should give you a bit of time to get together the £1,300 or more it’ll cost to pay for the thing.
