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Final Fantasy XI is available for the Playstation 2 and Microsoft Windows. A version for the upcoming Xbox360 is planned. Players from all platforms co-exsist on the same servers.

The PC Version of the game is currently available, and has been since October 28th, 2003.
The PS2 Version of the game is currently available, and has been since March 2004.
The Xbox360 is announced but there is no ETA on its release date.

PlayOnline can by utilized through PlayStation 2 and Windows! It does not matter whether you're playing the PlayStation 2 version or the Windows version. Everyone can play together!

(from http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/play_online.html)

Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 98 / 98SE / Me / 2000 / XP
CPU: Intel® Pentium®III 800Mhz or faster processor
Memory: 128 MB RAM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce™ series graphics processing unit with 32MB or ATI® RADEON™ 9000 series graphics card
Sound Card: DirectX®8.1 compatible sound card
Hard Drive Space: 6 GB free hard disk space
CD-ROM Speed: 4x CD-ROM drive (required only at installation)

Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP
CPU: Intel® Pentium®4 processor
Memory: 256 MB RAM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce3™ or GeForce4™ Ti series GPU or ATI Radeon 9500 GPU (AGP) with 64MB of VRAM
Sound Card: DirectX®8.1 compatible sound card
Hard Drive Space: 6 GB free hard disk space
CD-ROM: 32x CD-ROM drive or faster (required only at installation)
Internet Connection: Always-on Internet connection

Internal Hard Disk Drive (40GB) (for PlayStation 2)
Network Adaptor (for PlayStation 2)
Analog controller (DUALSHOCK) or DUALSHOCK®2 analog controller.
USB keyboard and mouse (optional).

There is no current information on what will be needed to play the Xbox360 version of FFXI, but it will most likely require the HD version.

There is a monthly subscription fee to play FFXI. With the opening of the PlayOnline account, there will be a 30 days free of charges and afterwards, it will cost $12.99(USD) a month.

Each additional character for FINAL FANTASY XI will cost a monthly fee of $1 (USD) (taxes not included). Up to 16 FINAL FANTASY XI characters can be purchased.

Each Tetramaster Content ID cost an additional $1 (USD) per month.

There are multiple Worlds in FINAL FANTASY XI, so you may find that you are not playing in the same World as a friend. In that case, you can use a World Pass to create new characters in the same World so that the two of you can play together.

There are regular updates to the PlayOnline service and to Final Fantasy XI itself, and future expansion packs are planned.

PlayOnline isn't just about games. It's a comprehensive networked entertainment service that connects you to a wide variety of services and information. Wether you enjoy playing massively multiplayer games or simply chatting with your friends, connecting to PlayOnline will open a whole new realm of entertainment possibilities for you.

On the PC version, you can find the screenshots using this path:
..PlayOnlineSquareEnixPlayOnlineViewerpubhome01openScreenShotsFinalFantasyXI

There are 5 races to choose from:

Humes: These represent the middle of the road in all aspects. Humes are able to perform any job quite well, though they don't particularly excell at anything either.

Elvaan: Stately and noble, the Elvaan are a proud race. Elvaan make the best offensive melee characters in the game, and are quite capable of dishing out large quantities of damage in melee combat. The Elvaan are also quite capable of casting effective White Magic spells, though the size of their mana pool and Black Magic abilities suffer.

Tarutaru: Small and cute, Tarutaru are the mages of Vana'diel. Tarutaru have the largest mana pool of any race and are the best at casting Black Magic spells, though their abilities at White Magic are only slightly above-average. Due to their small stature, however, Tarutaru are not well-equipped to be primary melee characters.

Mithra: Mithra are a feline race of females. They take their strengths from their natural speed and dexterity, which leads them to make excellent thieves and rangers.

Galka: The Galka are a rather large race. Their strengths lie in having the highest health pool of all the races, as well as being the best race at taking damage. Galkas have an abysmal mana pool, however, so do not make particularly good spellcasters.

You can choose between 3 character body sizes, up to 8 different faces, and two different hair colors. You will also chose your characters initial job and nationality (Bastok, San d'Oria and Windurst).

HP	This is the amount of health you have. When it reaches zero, you die. It can be refilled by using certain items, being healed by a spell, or resting.
MP	The amount of power or mana you have is shown by this number. Spells consume a certain number of power. You must have the amount of MP the spell needs in order to cast it. Your MP restoration rate can be increased by consuming certain foods/items, using certain spells/songs, or resting
Strength	Your characters strength. The more you have the more powerful your physical attacks will be.
Dexterity	This effects the accuracy and quickness of your attacks.
Vitality	Vitality effects how much damage you take
Agility	Your characters speed. With a higher agility you will be able to move faster and evade attacks better.
Intelligence	Intelligence effects the amount of damage your black magic spells do to their target.
Mind	Mind effects how much you resist magical damage and other non-physical forms of attack. It also determines how effective your White Magic spells are.
Charisma	Charisma effects the quality of Bard songs and other miscellaneous abilities.

There is no permanent death within the realm of Vana'Diel, at least for Player Characters. If you fell on combat, you will be asked to wait for help (if a party member can Raise you) or the re-spawn at your home point(a place you can tie using an item thus bonding you to that location). In either case, you loose XP (experience points) although if raised, the XP lost will be diminished.

No, you can only log in one character into the FFXI server per PlayOnline account. So you would need two account's two play two characters at once.

There are a range of job to chose from:

Starting professions : Warrior, Monk, Thief, White Mage, Black Mage and Red Mage.
Advanced professions (lvl 30) : Paladin, Dark Knight, Beast Tamer, Bard and Ranger.
Expansion professions (lvl 30) : Dragoon, Ninja, Samurai and Summoner.

After you put some time in your character, you will be able to have another job, which is your sub-job, and play both at once. Note that your sub-job's maximum lvl will be equal to half of your main one. Example, I'm a White Mage (WM) lvl 10 as main profession and I leveled to 16 in Thief (THF). If you choose thief as a sub-job, you would be WM lvl 10 and THF lvl 5 (10/2=5) or you could be THF lvl 16 with WM lvl 8 (16/2=8).

You are allowed to change your job at anytime at your Mog House in a town. Levels and experience points you have are not lost when you change jobs, so you can switch between jobs at any time without losing any of your progress!

Leveling up will improve your basic statistics (HP, MP...). Note that it will change when changing classes (main and sub). As for skills it raise when used meaning that the more often you use something the stronger your skill we be and faster it will raise. It's the same for weapons and magics. For example, the more you use a long sword, the better you will get at using it. It works the same way of FF2(jap). Other skills like evasion raise when you do the action (evasion goes up when you evade a monster...).

Weapon Skills are special abilities that can be used by your character as your skill level with a given weapon type increases. Weapon skills serve a variety of purposes and can entail anything indlucing extra damage, elemental damage, or additional effects such as Poison. If your party uses the proper sequence of weapon skills with the right timing, you can even create a powerful Skill Chain for extra damage. Weapon skills can only be used when your TP (tactical or technique points) gauge is at or above 100%. The higher the number, the more effective your skill will be.

Additional information can be found here:
Weapon Skill Listing
Weapon Skill Chaining

The world of Vana'diel will be the home of your character.

There are 3 nations in Vana'diel and they will compete to rule over specific regions. This competition does not take the form of PvP (player-versus-player combat), however. Rather, nations compete to see which nation can do the best job of cleaning the area of monsters. To take part in your national conquest, visit any gate cuard and ask them to cast Signet on you. While Signet is on, any fight you take part in in which experience points are gained will give your nation a small degree greater control over the reigon you're in. At the end of the week (midnight on Sunday night, Japanese time), control over areas will be rewarded to the nation that had the highest level of control. Be careful, though, as dying in an area will give a great degree of control to the beastmen!

While your character has Signet active (see entry 4.2), you can gather Conquest Points. Conquest points are awarded to you in any fight where you gain XP. The more XP you gain, the more conquest points you recieve. Your conquest points can be "spent" at gate guard NPC's in exchange for rare weapons, armor, and items. The selection of conquest items expands based on your antion's rank, so be sure to check when your nation is in first place to see the complete set of conquest items.

You can always run if you would like. There is a ferry between the towns of Selbina and Mhaura. Also, once you reach a certain level or rank, you can rent Chocobos for overland travel or even travel between cities on the famous Airships!

At the moment you cannot own a chocobo. There is no plans to add it at this time. You can, however, rent a chocobo for temporary use.

Airships are an expensive way to travel, though very fast. As well, they are uncommon due to the time required to construct. As such, at the moment you cannot own an airship and still no plans on changing that.

You can form parties and hunting groups of up to 6 players.

Yes its true, for the big ugly monsters that won't go down, you can form an alliance with 2 other parties (a total of 18 players) to take care of the problem. Many higher level quests and missions can require groups of more than 6 people, making alliances a must.

The only current PvP action is called Ballista. Please check the appropriate page to find more information on the topic.