It's not just that... It looks like they're trying to steal the visit base for fan sites. ;)

*nods gravely, cocks shotgun, and goes off to hunt down Square Enix marketing*

We'll need all the guns we can get for this one.

It'll get a lot worse if they branch out to Square-Enix USA, and start doing the same thing there.

I wouldn't be too surprised if they did. Things seem to be a changing'. There was those days when some Square employees would actually post on fansite forums or even days when the employees would email webmasters pictures and other info. on all sorts of upcoming games...

AND of course... Hahaha, there were those lil shits who got MAD kicks outta sending forged emails to webmasters who would be stupid enough to post info. that was beyond fake!

I dunno about that, Square-Enix Japan does a lot more than USA. Take the distribution of music and the related website. And the general more up-to-date info too.

square enix usa is still an actual site? All I ever see is a bunch of links that are either broken or go straight to the online store...

Not broken anymore, it's fancied up inline with the rest. That said it's still fairly crap, but it's not dead like Square-Enix Europe is these days.