Starting December 14th, people with Japanese Square Enix Members accounts will be required to either convert their information into a Square Enix Account or roll it into an existing SE Account.

As most FFXI players are aware, if you want to secure your PlayOnline account with a security token, you must first register for a Square Enix Account.  These account are “region-locked” in that your SE Account region must match the region of the software you used to first create your FFXI/PlayOnline account.  These same security tokens and SE Accounts will be used in the future by people wanting to play FFXIV as well.

Currently, the site does not say that Japanese SE Members accounts will need to match up with a Japanese SE Account but it is highly probable that is the case.  For those people that use the SE Member site, take heart. All existing SE Member services, like the custom avatars and blog areas, will be available for people to use after they convert their accounts.

Along with the change to using SE Accounts, the Member Coins used to purchase various things like clothing for avatars or items from the SE e-STORE will turn into Square Enix Crysta.  People will be able to purchase the Crysta using a credit card online.  The Crysta then can be applied to any number of services linked to the SE Account system.

The NA SE Members site doesn’t currently seem to have any information about required change overs on that end.  Perhaps after they see how things go with the Japanese accounts, they will do a similar conversion on NA accounts as well.