Round-Up: Origami Info, FFXII Scored, Sudoku Garden

Today's Gamasutra news round-up includes new images of Microsoft's "handheld," Japanese consumer magazine Weekly Famitsu giving a perfect score to Square-Enix's Final Fantasy XII, and the announcement of Sudoku Garden for mobile phones, as well as the latest product news, GameSetWatch updates and Gamasutra job postings. - Intel and Microsoft has shown images of their previously Gamasutra-discussed handheld Origami computer, which is a 7-inch tablet PC running a version of Windows XP, according to multiple posts on gadget website Gizmodo. The device is chiefly operated with a stylus, though some models seem to have a keyboard that twists out from the bottom of the system. The system, which some originally thought to be a portable gaming system to compete with the PSP and Nintendo's handhelds based on its specifications and leaked information, will retail for under $1,000, according to reports. - Final Fantasy XII, the latest in the long-running RPG series from Square Enix, has received the highest score of 40 out of 40 from Japanese magazine Weekly Famitsu. The rare score has only been awarded to a handful of games in the past, including The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, Soul Calibur, and Vagrant Story, which shares a creator with Final Fantasy XII in Yasumi Matsuno. However, Matsuno did not finish out production of the game, due to his leaving the project in 2005 because of health problems. The quality of the final game may not have been unduly affected by his withdrawal, as indicated by Famitsu's score. - The Mforma Group, a publisher of mobile phone games, has spread the Sudoku outbreak onto cellular phones with Sudoku Garden, which delivers the same puzzles that run in the popular newspaper column to subscribers' mobile phones. "Sudoku Garden is the perfect pastime for commute time or any other time you'd like a few minutes of brain-teasing fun," said MForma casual games director Rick Marazzani. "It seems everyone is obsessed with Sudoku and we've made it easy for anyone to play whenever they want." - Recent updates on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include the first addition of their new 'chiptune' column, Cherish the Chips, the return of rap group Public Enemy, and an extensive look at Mega Man: Powered Up! for the PSP. - Also updated today: product news featuring Emergent Game Technologies' forthcoming GDC announcements, as well as the latest Gamasutra job postings, featuring openings from Blizzard, LucasArts, Hi-Rez Studios, Radical Entertainment, Ternary Software, TimeGate Studios, Merit Entertainment, and Bigfoot Networks, Inc.